203: On Air Coaching with Niccole Modell. Topic: Online Group Programs

It’s time for another on air coaching call. My guest for this session is Niccole Modell and she is delving into online group programming! And you probably already know, I love online group programming. A bit about Niccole… Niccole is a full time musician, teacher and performer. She has a teaching studio, and offers mostly one on one lessons. She is looking to expand and go into the world of virtual group classes since her days are currently full with private lessons. (It’s important to add, too, that Niccole doesn’t really have the space or a location for in-person groups right now.) This shift from one-on-one to group feels a little intimidating, and she came on the call with the hope to get some ideas and a little confidence. At the time of this call, she was prepping for her first ever group class where students would be performing for each other in lieu of private lessons, with the hope that if it went well, she would be able to expand on that and maybe offer more of those in the future. To help Niccole best, I needed to first know if she wanted to offer group programming for both piano and for flute, or start with one or the other? It’s best to be super clear, so that we can focus on realizing a goal that is realizable rather than trying something too lofty! Niccole thought piano would be a good place to start because she has a lot more piano students than flute students right now. With online group lessons or online group workshops or online group programs of any kind, our job is to help the students see how the group format is going to benefit them. Obviously, it's going to benefit you because you are able to work with more students in less time. But the benefit for the students can be a little bit trickier to demonstrate. It’s important that group programs don’t feel like a private lesson in a group setting. In order to determine what can make a group lesson cohesive and uniting for the students, I asked Niccole to share some of what she is currently doing in her lessons to make it motivating and engaging for her students. She likes to encourage her students to perform and gives them opportunities to perform and compete (if desired.) She also offers standardized testing every year for really motivated students, and keeps her lessons engaging with games and activities. She provides a well-rounded curriculum with exposure to A LOT of things (history, technique, improvising, repertoire, etc.) at all ages in order to provide value and the ultimate goal of creating a well-rounded musician. These are the same thoughts that go into making a group environment fun and implactur. An example: Group lesson on composition Students work on their composition after some direction from you, the teacher. Once they are happy with it, they pass it to the next student who will get the opportunity to play it! Hearing your own music played by someone else has an even greater impact than playing your own composition. Everyone gets to be part of a collaborative experience. Another example: looking at a historical piece The music is not going to change and you need to repeat the lesson for every student. Instead, using it in a group setting allows the conversation, analysis and appreciation to go further. Perhaps bringing a set of students together on a monthly basis in lieu of their private lesson to discuss the piece would be a great way to get started with the online group programming model. Then we get into logistics and practicality… like how to make it work across student levels or where students have gravitated towards different sub-disciplines. I like to think of it as catering the content to the age rather than the experience level. There are a lot of fun activities that 4-6 year olds enjoy whether they are playing Mozart or Twinkle-Twinkle! While group lessons and group programming are the focus of our coaching session, the reason this is so appealing to Niccole is to help her balance her time (and regain some time) – is that something that you’re interested in as well… be sure to message me on Instagram or book a call at http://callwithjaime.com so we can quickly find a way to make that happen. In addition to group lessons sprinkled into the private lesson schedule, I also share some thoughts on a full time group program using an entire 16 week curriculum. This works really well for 4-8 students who all start out at the same level and have a similar goal. You can take the best parts of your private lessons, the best things that you teach and the best methods that you teach and teach them in a group setting and then provide some level of asynchronous support. Asynchronous support in my mind is where students can record a video or an audio file and send it to you… then you provide feedback via video and or audio. This is a great way of providing the personal touch so that students all advance individually all while the learning is done in a group environment! As far as the group curriculum, well you have to hear what Niccole’s thoughts are on that! So honest and realistic about where she is at and what she wants to do next :) With group programming, it's all about the journey. We want to take our students to a specific place. We want to take them somewhere so that they can see the trajectory of where they're going. I think that's one of the big differences between programs and lessons… There's an end date which basically says this is when you're ready to take your test. This is when you have been taught the entire curriculum for this stage. Group programs can be as short at 4 weeks and I would recommend tapping them out at 16 weeks. Students are going to progress at their own rate and we don’t want to let the group get too far out of sync. Here’s an idea for a short group program: teaching kids how to play a song on the piano for their moms for Mother's Day that you offer in April. It doesn’t have to be an expert level group. You're just taking them on a specific outcome journey. You're giving them two or three songs that they can play for their mom on the piano for Mother's Day. These are the kinds of ideas that I encouraged Niccole (and you!) to start embracing! These groups can be an additional resource for students who are all gung ho and want to do more, but it can also be an introduction for new students because it's not a super long commitment. The final thing we discuss during this coaching session is about Niccole’s group classes coming up next week (at the time of the recording and last week as of the time of the release of this episode!)  She asked for ideas that she could use to supplement which would engage and excite her students. improv games, creating music together, repeating back notes and adding on more (kind of like memory) guessing a note games Identify or dissect a song together. And for the younger ones, sending over a coloring page so they can color in when they are listening to their peers. When we give ourselves time to brainstorm without putting parameters or filters in, some great ideas come out. Then we can pluck the best ideas for the moment from that bin of ideas and implement them in our classes. And only at that point, we can figure out the logistics to make it happen. Brainstorming and dreaming are part of every coaching relationship I’ve ever had, either as the coach or the coached. And I believe that this episode has given you a peek into how my coaching sessions go, so if you’re interested, head on over to http://callwithjaime.com and book a call. I’d love to hear from you and chat more about where you’re at on your journey! As far as connecting Niccole, you can find her at www.niccolemodell.com. It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.