Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum How do you keep track of students in a full studio?

Say you're teaching 25-40 students each week. How do you make sure you know where they're all up to and that you're teaching them effectively? Is it not as hard as it might seem?

You can keep notes. And THEY can keep notes as well. I have 21 students this year and along with everything else I'm doing I have no trouble keeping up with what's going on with every single one of my students...

Thanks for the responses, Nikolas! It's common sense really, isn't it? But it makes me feel better to get the perspective of people with experience in the area.

This is why this forum(s) exist really... No matter how old you are, you can always hit a road block, in which case the collective wisdom of a whole community is much better than your own self...

I would definitely suggest some form of note card when your student loads gets about 12 - 15 students.

I kept a "student" card on each. I printed exactly what I wanted on card stock, cut the 8.5x11 card in half, and used it for 12 weeks, so at the end of the teaching year, a student would have have a fall term card, a winter term card and spring term card. On the reverse, I had room for additional notes, plus a place to record any music I handed the student, so that I could bill it at the end of the month.

Before the teaching day began, I ran through each student's card to see where they were at, if they were getting close to needing a new piece and if so, reviewing it, to eliminate any surprises on my part, and to generally set the day's work into focus.

That's a solid idea, John. Thanks!

I type up their assignments each week, print out a copy for them, and save it as a file on my laptop so that I can refer to it.

Morodiene: With one piece of paper each week, do you require them to file it into a binder or not? Are you using a laptop? I am having hard time reaching to computer and type while I am teaching.

http://www.irislink.com/c2-2353-189...-US&gclid=CPSTtbDMl70CFecWMgod6yAA_g

I am thinking of the above product:
I will write into student's notebook
They go home with their notebook, but I have a copy of what I wrote inside my computer.

What do you think?

I do use a laptop and they have a 3-ring binder that the sheets go in each week. I also save the assignment on their own folder in Dropbox.com
that they have access to in case they lose the assignment.

That product looks pretty cool, but I prefer typing to hand writing. But if I were to hand write things, definitely that would save a lot of time.

John, that is such a great idea. I hope you don't mind if I use that method. Right now, I rely on the info I enter in their assignment books. In the back of their book, I enter what scales/chords they've learned. That doesn't prepare me for the lesson, however. There are a few students who forget their books, in which case, I will write down in my scheduling book what their assignments are. Besides teaching privately, I have over 30 students in a music store, which has somewhat of a turnover, and I've found that with my increased student load, I need a better system.

For me, I don't do double-entry and if they forget their binder it's simple enough to pull up the previous week's assignment. In fact, I do that anyway and update for the current week using that as a template.

Thanks. And to be honest, I didn't invent the wheel. I just adapted "teacher's records" to suit my needs as a piano teacher.

Morodiene, I don't use a laptop in the store. It's a great idea though.

John, once I thought about it, I wondered, how do you fit every week's accomplishments/music/scales, etc. on 1 index card per semester? If a student is working out of 2 or 3 books, + additional pieces, that seems impossible for me to fit onto one card. Many of my students are beginners, so they are moving pretty quickly thru pieces.

It's not an assignment card, it's a memory tickler. Of course, most of my students are more advanced, so I'm recording different info. I devote one line per week (12 lines on front of card) and for elementary students, generally just annotate book/pages. And don't forget, after you've been using a method for a while, you'll know what's coming next without having to constantly look at it.

The cards are most valuable to me for keeping track of my Intermediate and advanced students.

One thing that's been useful is to categorize students. We have CM here, so I group all the CM students by levels. I share lesson plans (especially theory) among students who are taking the same level. For the students who are beyond CM, I group them by festivals and competitions. For the students who are below CM, I group them by the "level" of method book they're doing.

It really helps to keep me sane.

Today I was looking for a 2014 diary and stumbled across some "system cards". They're thin card, better than paper, and 75mm X 125mm. I think I'll just have the student's name at the top, and note down where we're up to at the end of each lesson.

I just expect the students to keep track of what they're working on. I didn't think that was weird until I saw this thread...

They have assignment lists to take home but that's for them to know what to practice. Sometimes the lists make it back to the lesson. Generally not.

At their lesson I listen to them play and it's pretty clear what is better than the last lesson, and what they need help on, and what got ignored.

At the beginning of each semester/year, I have parents fill out a contact and info page, including other activities child is in, etc...

I place each child's page into a protective sleeve, along with a 1st day assessment I do.

Then, I employ old fashioned post-it notes and jot down a page number is a lesson book, or "wants a copy of such-and-such song" for recital, or lost book 3rd time, time to charge and buy another, needs to work on minor scales, etc...

The hardest part is remembering to review it.

I write notes in an exercise book for the student, and take a quick look over those at the start of each lesson to jog my memory.

The only notes I write about a students lesson for myself are things I need to take action on, like buy this book for J, enter N in an exam, find new sight reading material for S etc.

Maechre, right now, I do what Beth has stated - I write things in their exercise book, but I keep copies - I have my own copy on carbon paper. I'm saving up, intending to get a tablet with a stylus that converts it to text, through that, I'm looking at keeping digital copies of the homework. I don't know if it would work for parents - I am concerned that they might see it as an inconvenience.

Generally speaking, I tend to forget the names of the repertoire that every student is working on (my students normally learn 1-3 pieces a week since they are doing the 40 pieces in a year challenge). It's something I make an effort to remember (hence the carbon paper).