Motivational strategies: hearing three sides of the story - Pedagogy Saturday VII

American Music Teacher, Oct-Nov, 2003 by Bruce Berr, Rebecca Shockley, Patricia J. Flowers

This ninety-minute program featured short video clips of instrumental and vocal music teaching from six teachers that displayed various aspects of motivation. Each of the three panelists provided insight into the nature of the motivation from their individual perspectives: Bruce Berr as a piano and pedagogy teacher, Kim Dolgin as an educational psychologist and Patricia Flowers as an expert in the music education field.

The tapes shown were chosen from a large pool of tapes submitted by MTNA members. There were many more excellent tapes to choose from than time would allow. Six segments of teaching of precollege-aged students were chosen. These clips included diverse settings: private piano and voice lessons, chamber music coaching of a junior high school string quartet and a group lesson of six-year-olds.

Questionnaires were sent to the teachers whose tapes were chosen, their students and the students' parents. The purpose was to gain insight into everyone's backgrounds involved, so some hidden forces and influences relating to motivation might be revealed. The list of questions can be seen in their entirety on the MTNA website. Some of the respondents' commentaries have been summarized by Rebecca Shockley for this article.

Immediately after the call for videotapes went out, I received a thought-provoking e-mail from a colleague on the east coast stating that our attempt to capture genuine teaching on tape was doomed to fail. He astutely pointed out that when either teachers or students know they are being videotaped, they tend to not behave normally; thus, what is on tape could not possibly be spontaneous or representative.

In fact, about half of the submitted tapes did suffer from varying degrees of "video consciousness." However, to our delight many tapes did not, and it was from this smaller pool of tapes that the final six were selected. Why did some tapes capture "real" teaching and learning, while others displayed telltale characteristics of video consciousness? In some cases, it was likely the student was accustomed to seeing a video camera in the studio. But there were several excellent segments where the students were being taped for the first time. (One was with a camera person present in the room, with all the obligatory cables, wires, monitors and other paraphernalia.) Yet, in these same tapes, there was not a speck of what appeared to be video consciousness anytime in the clip. How could this be?

After pondering this anomaly over a period of weeks, it finally dawned on me: The allure of effective, motivational teaching is much more powerful than the mere presence of technology. In fact, what are commonly perceived by teachers as distractions during teaching can indeed be drowned out by the fortissimo of compelling teaching and music making. Superb teaching, like superb music, entices the learner and the teacher to forget where they are and to experience consciousness in an altered way. The six tapes shown, plus several others not included, were testimonial to this important phenomenon.

We would like to heartily thank all MTNA members who submitted tapes for consideration in this year's presentation. Without your hard work and trouble, this program could not have taken place.

VIDEO #1

The program opened with short clips of a six-year-old piano student, Jimmy, at a lesson I was teaching. He had started piano studies four months before. The first part showed the student playing a finished piece along with a CD accompaniment in the method series. His body displayed not only the pulse of the unit of beat (taught), but also showed a larger back-and-forth flowing motion that was actually the musical line (not taught). The student was literally surfing the musical phrase! This was an example of music motivating the player. The next clip showed the student playing a different finished piece, first with me, then with CD.

As I tried to move on to the next activity in the lesson, the student spontaneously asked if he could play it again with me! This segment partly showed how sharing music-making with someone else, in particular the teacher, is inherently motivating. In retrospect, it also showed something else. A few weeks after the taped segment, I asked Jimmy why he likes it so much when I accompany him on his finished pieces, and he said, "Because you make the piano sound even better!"

Pat Flowers's Notes:

Smiling child, head bobs, very loose, relaxed and confident in his music making.

Looks at teacher ("approval seeking") who says "you got off somewhere," and child gives a mild negative reaction. After Bruce's comments, Jimmy plays it again better and looser. Nice incorporation of general knowledge ("try to identify the instrument on the CD") into the piano lesson.

Mother said Jimmy stayed home sick from school and did nothing but play the piano; and when her husband was also home sick, Jimmy played for him. Great example of functional/therapeutic music making at a young age.

Duet with CD. Reinforcement by mutual smile. Child requests second time (evidence of enjoyment). Bruce allowed child to set the tempo, and followed him, allowing child to take leadership role. Nice to see repetition for enjoyment rather than the typical approach: Play until you get it right, then move on.