March 1, 2025: Saturday Remix
Teachers and Staff: Happy Saturday!
Teaching Strategies: Assessing Prior Knowledge
Another important thing we can do as teachers in music lessons to help students learn and develop musical skills is to adequately assess prior knowledge.
When students struggle to learn, or to develop a skill, there are almost always several factors at play. As part of our studio philosophy, we assert that if a student is not learning or developing skills, here are the places we should look for answers:
Are we going too fast?
Have we adequately assessed prior knowledge?
Have we properly sequenced instruction?
Have we appropriately chunked the learning and practice?
Is there a meaningful context to the learning?
Is the content or skill relevant to this student?
Is it all just tedious work, or does the learning and practice bring satisfaction, joy, and short-term rewards to this student?
Today, I’ll discuss assessing prior knowledge.
Prior knowledge is just what it sounds like: knowledge the student has already, prior to learning the thing you are about to teach them. It is not uncommon for teachers to inadequately understand their student’s prior knowledge. Put another way, we assume they know and have mastered things they actually do not know and have not mastered.
A simple example is right hand versus left hand. I am sure we all experience with high frequency how many times we mention the right hand but the student responds with their left hand, and vice versa. (Even teens and adults!) What we need to do is stop for a moment, and practice RH versus LH, or play a game, and reinforce RH vs LH, and then proceed. (Give them a little time to orient or re-orient themselves.)
A more complex example involves note reading. We may assume, for example, that a student understands that notes go up or down on the staff the same way they go up or down on the piano. Or we may assume that a student understands that notes go, line to space to line to space, letter by letter, according to the music alphabet. Yet, the student may actually believe they are completely random, and it would be an Aha! moment for them to realize they are sequential. This can occur even after years of music study. (This is why our curriculum avoids mnemonics. Mnemonics infer randomness. Mnemonics reinforce a feeling of arbitrariness rather than an order and sequence.)
Another example might involve language. We may assume the student understands the meaning of certain words, when in fact they may have no idea what those words mean, especially in a musical context. We may also assume that because we told them the meaning of something once or twice, that they should remember it, and understand it, when, it fact, it may take reviewing something dozens of times and reinforcing it again and again in a multitude of ways before the meaning starts to sink in and become part of their knowledge and understanding.
We may tell a student, “This is a folk song,” when they have no idea what a folk song is. We may ask a student to clap the beat while we sing the song, when they do not understand what the beat is or what you are asking them to do. We may tell a student that the treble clef is above the lyrics and the bass clef is below the lyrics, when they do not know what lyrics are. We may tell a student that legato means smoothly, when they have no understanding of what smoothly means in the context of music. We may make a cultural reference to something from another place or time that they are unfamiliar with. (Telling students their 4th finger is their ring finger, that a sharp sign resembles a pound sign, or that a natural sign looks like a box kite.)
Note: The solution is not to avoid the words and musical terms. The solution is to take a few minutes to discuss the meaning of the words and terms, to show real-world examples of them, perhaps to offer a multimedia experience of them, and then use them. We want to speak in the language of music. We just want to clarify meanings and definitions as we go. We want students to learn deeply and retain their learning.
I asked a student the other day to identify an eighth note, which is something we have practiced many times. This student also attends elementary music class at school. She pointed to the eighth note and said, “This is ta ti ta ti.” (Teachers familiar with the instructional strategies of Kodály and others will understand where this comes from.) Not only does this student not really understand an eighth note the way I teach, she does not understand an eighth note the way her school music teacher teaches either. She can point out an eighth note. She can match the symbol to the term. She has some recollection of things she’s heard that are somehow related to the concept, eighth note. She has a smidgeon of random information in her head that is incomplete, muddled, and unmastered.
This applies to skills as well. We may ask them to play scales with two hands when they have not mastered the scales with one hand yet. We may assume they can execute an instruction when in fact they struggle to even figure out how to begin. We may assume they have some idea how to “relax” or “release” a part of their body when in fact they have no idea how to even feel the tension or take control of that part of their body.
Imagine if a voice teacher asked you to raise your soft palate, or to push with your diaphragm, or to hold your head as if it were hanging from a string.
We may assume students see patterns they actually do not see (this one is pervasive). We may assume students understand that something will remain consistent, when they assume it could be different each time.
We may expect that things that seem obvious to us will be obvious to them, when in fact they are very confused and getting very frustrated. Or just tuning out, or pretending they know something they do not. Or just trying some random thing and feeling lost and perhaps embarrassed about it.
When we see puzzlement on the faces of our students, when we experience their hesitation, when they answer questions in ways that surprise us, we should step back and figure out if there are holes or gaps in understanding, knowledge, or skill, and work on filling in these things first, before moving forward.
Back up to what they know, and add knowledge from there. Back up to what they can do, and develop skills from there. Teach them the meaning of words. We will discuss all of this more next time in Sequencing Instruction.
Please Keep the Lesson Rooms Organized
One of the most important things teachers can do to help keep the lesson rooms organized is simply to put things back exactly where they got them. Please take this as literally as possible: Put things back exactly where you took them from. Many items have labels for where they should go to help.
Strive to keep our lesson rooms clean, tidy, organized, and attractive. And please be gentle with things.
Theme Recital Update (Friday, March 14, 2025)
The 5:45p recital has filled up. We still have spots available in the 4:30p recital.
Please look out for emails showing students who are performing, and let me know their repertoire. Please work with them to prepare for the recital, including playing from memory to the extent possible, and performance practice (such as bowing).
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Q. What are the various cleaning supplies for and where do they go?
A. Each lesson room contains (should contain) 1) facial tissue, 2) hand sanitizer, 3) baby wipes, 4) a Swiffer duster. The first two (facial tissue and hand sanitizer) are for use by students and teachers on themselves. The second two (baby wipes and duster) are for use by teachers on the equipment (such as piano keyboard).
(As mentioned above, if you use any of these, please put them back in the spot where you got them.)
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Thank you, everyone, for all that you do!
Have a magical Saturday, a musical weekend, and a safe and healthy coming week.
Thank you,
Dennis Frayne
"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)
www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com
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