[Matthew Rusk]

Hi Luc, thanks for posting this – this sounds like an interesting topic of research. Would it be possible to arrange a Teams meeting to learn more about it? Best wishes, Matthew

[Matthew Rusk]

Thanks so much for the question @nina-green , I would love to recommend this great article that was shared with me as we moved into online teaching – written by a music teacher exploring the best set-ups for teaching online: https://www.ericheidbreder.com/single-post/the-best-services-and-settings-for-remote-music-lessons-with-step-by-step-instructions – I found it a really helpful resource

Additionally, Joe Bradley – one of the drum teachers who is in this teacher community made an awesome video at the start of the fist lockdown that is a good watch:

Hope they are both useful.

@eliza-fyfe @josh-burke – have you taught any completely new studnets online so far or only current students?

I would imagine it is much harder teaching completely new students compared to ones you have taught prior to lockdown, how have you found it?

[Matthew Rusk]

Great insight Diane, it is so interesting to hear how the change in lesson length had such an impact on the behaviour of the students in terms of the frequency of lessons. I found 45 mins lessons really effective for teenage students who were totally able to do more than 30 min lessons, but seemed to struggle in the last 10 mins of an hour lesson…I think perhaps because many schools do 50 min lessons as their standard lesson length time it has trained young people to be attentive for roughly this amount of time!

[Matthew Rusk]

This is a great question, Eliza Fyfe down in Bristol is convinced that 45 mins works better as you can fit more students in paying a relatively higher per hour price across an evenings teaching. I guess it all comes down to price points and whether the 45 minute lesson is weighted higher per hour than the per hour lesson if that makes sense. So x4 45 min lessons @£25 = £100 and x3 60 min lessons @£30 = £90, means that the 45 min lessons works out better for the teacher across 3 hours teaching.
I also found 45 min lessons worked really well for teenage students (although I know you don’t teach them) as 45 mins was just about the right amount of time that they really concentrated for. I think it might be linked to schools like mine where 50 min lessons were the norm.

[Matthew Rusk]

That is cool to know and I so pleased to hear that those lessons went well with the new online starters. I think we have a lot to build on in 2021 based on all of the things we learned in 2020:) I can certainly say I learned so much due to everything that has happened, hopefully the roll-out of the vacine will mean we can get back to in-person lessons sooner rather than later.