A series of posts on accidental successes uncovered in Zoom teaching in the past few months.

It has never — literally never — been easier to watch your student practice.

It hit me that the way students and parents really work at home together is a mystery to me. Six out of the seven times my students come into contact with the violin is under the purview of their parent–not me. I wanted to peel back the curtain.

Our transitions into quarantine meant

• Zoom became ubiquitous,
• many parents were at home with their children all day (doing practice earlier),
• and parents wanted all the help they could get.

I asked families to send me their typical practice time. I sorted everyone into my schedule and then requested families set me up on zoom on a particular day/time so I could watch.

With some families my face and sound were on, to give it a feeling of non-creepy, real observation.

Some families I melted into the background with my sound and video completely off.

Some parents told their children I was coming, some didn’t. I aimed to never speak during the observation, except to say hello in some cases, and then to give just a few suggestions to parents afterward in an email.

The big impact? My own face-to-face, gutting realization that I under-prepare parents. Yikes. Without much effort I started giving better instructions in lessons, pulling the parent in to demonstrate in front of me, and handing out challenges to use to zest up the practice mid week. I thought I did this before, but seeing practice fall apart in front of my own eyes was the motivation I needed to up my game.

Watch your students’ practice and allow it to become your motivation, too.