Procedures Maximize Learning: Classroom Procedures

Hello again! Thanks for joining me in my reflections from this past semester of observations, clinics and other experiences as I prepare for student teaching and soon, my career!

Last time we talked about what procedures are, why they're important, and how they maximize learning by preventing wasted time. It was an overview, but has concepts I will reference but won't reexplain, so if you missed it, you can check it out here.

In this blog we'll discuss Classroom Procedures. This is one component of classroom management. In fact, it is the most important aspect of it. It is far more important and more effective than rules/consequences/rewards (though those are important and necessary), and it is the component that many classroom teachers fail to use, or fail to implement correctly. Classroom procedures tell students how to go about the business of class so that we can focus on learning and be as productive as possible. They are specific instructions on how you want something done. Teachers who account for every possible event in class can create a procedure for it. If you teach the procedure, rehearse it, and reinforce it, then after a couple of weeks they will be ingrained habits and soon the class will run itself. At least, that's what the books tell me. 

And I have to believe it, to be honest, because I've experienced classes where procedures are clearly defined, rehearsed in some way, and reinforced. They are always far more productive, and in bands, the performances were far more worthwhile. I've also observed a couple of bands where there was not a clear procedure that day, and it was chaos. I've also observed a couple of bands where some form of procedure existed, but the procedures where ineffective. They had not been clearly defined, and/or they had not been rehearsed and reinforced. It is not enough to simply explain your expectations. You must have them practice the procedures, go through the process, and reinforce it when it is done correctly or when someone slips up. It takes a commitment of time and energy on the teacher's end, but it's worthwhile.

Anyway, let's look at the various situations that happen in a given band/music rehearsal and see what procedures we might need, examine the situations, and then I'll give you my sample procedure that I plan to implement with my first class. These procedures will surely evolve as I gain experience, but hopefully they're good procedures. I'd love to get feedback on them, especially from anyone who is actively teaching, and especially if they make it a point to use procedures in their class.

Entering the Band Hall

Students should start working from the moment they sit down.
Which trumpeter do you think is having more success?

Think about what all a student has to do when they enter the band hall. They usually don't have a lot of time before class is to begin. Are they allowed to have their back packs at their seat? If so, where? Under the seat? Beside it? Do you want them to put their electronic device in their bag and leave it in a certain place? What about their instrument cases? I've seen instrument cases sprawled out and open in front of the lockers, I've seen them placed under seats, and also returned to lockers before entering the set. Do you expect students to remove their head gear? You also have to give instructions as to what students do before the bell rings. Are they allowed to chat with their neighbors or should they start working on something? Remember, if you don't specify your expectations, they will do as they please. Also consider what you want the band hall to look like during rehearsal. Have you seen a band hall that looked like total chaos during a rehearsal? What if that was your band hall and someone important saw it in that condition during class? Yikes! An organized rehearsal space (or classroom) is essential to creating an environment conducive to learning, so there's that, too. Most importantly, the procedure should aim to get students learning as soon as possible. Consider all of these elements, and then think of what your procedure would look like. It might look something like this:

A. Students are expected to be on task and working to improve from the moment they enter the band hall.

B. Place electronic devices inside your bag, leave bag at the front of the room. Make sure you have your rehearsal materials.

C. Remove hats or other head gear and place it with your bag.

D. Retrieve a pencil from the pencil cup if you do not have one.

E. Retrieve instrument and other materials from your locker (if you have one). Leave your case inside your locker (or bag). Do not bring your case into the rehearsal set, or leave it on the floor, as this makes our band hall look disorganized and unprofessional.

F. Sit in your designated chair, check the day's Objectives, and begin working on the Warm Up as soon as possible.

In this case, I should specify that my "Warm Up" is not the traditional warm up. I consider the traditional warm up to be "Technique Builders", and that's how I will present them to the students. Warm Up, in this case, is an assignment, not to be graded, that basically has them either working on a specific exercise or reviewing the previous day's progress. Mr. and Mrs. Wong stress in their book, "The First Days of School", the importance of using an activity at the beginning of class to get the students working as soon as possible. This activity or assignment is posted on the board and students know when they come in that they are to begin work on it as soon as possible. In core classes you would pass this assignment in for participation points, but that doesn't do us much good. None the less, it is important to me that students start working on improving their playing or progressing on the music as soon as they sit down.

This is a particularly important procedure. In my recent observations of different bands I noticed that anywhere from 1-5 minutes were wasted on a regular or daily basis, both because students were not moving quickly and occasionally because the teacher was preparing materials. There was a procedure, but it had not been properly reinforced. Adding a countdown timer helps a great deal, one teacher noted. They had used it in the past but were not set up to use it at the time. The day I did see a countdown timer in effect, students were hustling to get to their seats - big difference. In one case a group lost nearly ten minutes because students were moving casually to set out chairs and stands. A few were trying to get a tuner at the front of the class to work (visiting a tuner was part of their daily procedure), but most of the students who were in place were chatting with their neighbor. Yikes! And these were good kids. Once we did get started, they were on task, cooperative, and focused. A better procedure with some rehearsal and reinforcement at the beginning of concert season would make such a huge difference, don't you think?

Forget the impact of a well implemented procedure like this on a daily basis. Imagine the weekly, monthly, and yearly impact! This is how you start class as soon as the bell rings, which is crucial to increasing student learning outcomes, according to Harry and Rosemary Wong's book, "The First Days of School".

When to Play

Would you let it fly if a student was playing out of turn? And yet, if we don't establish a procedure for when to play, we're allowing them to make that decision for themselves. Sometimes when a student plays they're just screwing around, but sometimes a student is trying to improve by finding notes at a soft volume. Either way, we need a procedure that is consistent.

A. During rehearsal time, students are to only play their instruments when directed by the conductor. It is assumed that you will play during the Warm Up.

B. When the baton comes up, instruments come up. We will wait to play until all instruments are up. Please don’t be the one who makes the band wait!

C. Playing out of turn is considered disruptive, and will result in a check.

Susan Finger is a nationally recognized middle
school director for Anderson Community
Schools.

The "check" refers to the rules/consequences/rewards system I plan to use. It's essentially stolen from an incredible middle school teacher named Susan Finger who worked at the last Angelo State Band Camp a couple of years ago. Anyway, perhaps the most important aspects of this procedure are the expectation to not play out of turn, and the procedure of instruments coming up when the baton comes up.

Have you been in a band where the conductor had the band practice raising their instruments with the baton because it took too long for the band to get on task after they gave instructions? I have. And if you have, too, then guess what the director was doing? They were rehearsing a procedure. In this case, the procedure is, "When the baton comes up, instruments come up."

Here is another specific aspect to define - how quickly should everyone's instruments come up? In good groups it is an immediate response. One conductor I sat under put the baton down (instructing us to put instruments down) when not everyone's instruments were up after a couple of seconds. This was repeated until everyone brought their instruments and sticks to playing position when his baton was up. Later down the line it was reinforced on a given day when, despite it having been a student habit, someone did not have their instrument up in time. He again stated the expectation and rehearsed it 2-3 times. Students don't like having to rehearse procedures after they've taken ownership of them and turned them into habits. I don't think he had to rehearse it ever again. 

This process only really takes a few minutes to explain and rehearse, and will need to be reinforced, but what is the alternative? Have you been in a band where it took several seconds or more for the conductor to get everyone's attention, or they stood there with the baton up just waiting? How many times does this happen in one rehearsal? In a week? A month? A semester? You can't tell me investing a few minutes on this procedure won't pay off. 

In fact, without knowing I was teaching a procedure, I've had to teach this to almost every group I've worked with. Even if their teacher had taught it to them, they perhaps wondered if they'd have to do it with me. Knowing it was a key to efficient rehearsals, I made them do it, and it always paid off. Even recently when I got to rehearse a full band for a full class period for the first time, I did this when they were not immediately bringing their instruments up. I explained it, rehearsed it once, and reinforced it later. The rest of the rehearsal it was not an issue. They remained focused and on task, and we were more productive and efficient with our time.

When Attention or Silence is Needed...

One pitfall that is more costly than knowing when to start playing is knowing when to stop playing, or stop talking. Surely we have all been in bands where the conductor commanded our attention at any moment, and bands where a more lax atmosphere lead to wasted time as the conductor struggled for several seconds or more to get everyone to focus. Having a procedure to get everyone's attention is critical. But more critical than having one is rehearsing it. If your signal to get attention is saying, "I need your attention, please," they will probably give you their attention. How long it will take for them to do that is another question, and it depends greatly on what expectation you put into place. Having them successfully live up to that expectation via rehearsal is critical to making the procedure successful. What is your signal? Here is mine:

A. The conductor will raise one hand, or...

B. Tap the baton on the stand.

C. Given either of these cues, students must stop what they’re doing and look at the conductor to await further instructions.

Notice the specific instructions. Whether a student is talking, playing, fingering, whatever they're doing, they are to stop and look at the conductor. This gives you measurable feedback. It also requires that you look up to get that feedback at least half the time, so they know you're watching for their eyes when you give your signal. Imagine how much time would be saved if when you needed your student's attention you merely raised a hand or rapped the baton and had silence within 2-3 seconds. 

Speaking of silence, younger groups (maybe older ones depending) need to be taught what silence sounds like. Does it just mean no talking or playing? What about students who are shuffling things around? There is a lot of ambient noise that can invade silence and hinder communication. If you have the students listen to perfect silence, they can better duplicate it. This was a neat trick I watched one teacher I observed use. It took a little time to get students truly quiet. At first they thought it only applied to talking and playing. But they managed to get still. This kind of silence is especially important with larger groups, as ambient shuffling of papers, materials, or fidgeting can get quite loud when a hundred plus people are doing it at once. 

What to Do When Not Playing

This one is important to me, but it's going to require some experimentation. The best bands I've been part of were those were students were working to get better at all times. When I am my most motivated as an ensemble member, I finger through passages, mark missed notes and rhythms, etc. etc. However, we can't expect students to just know that they should do this. We have to teach them this behavior, just as it was taught to me (and probably to you at some point). So I plan to outline what I expect them to do when they're not playing, specifically when I'm working with an individual or a section. I also plan to have this procedure on permanent display where it is easily visible during rehearsal. The experimentation comes in by adding and subtracting things from this list. For example, fingering passages or wind patterning can be quite noisy, and allowing individual wind patterns may not be wise since I expect them to play with fast air. Wind patterning with slow air would be counterproductive, after all. Here is the procedure they will have on paper, and as I will teach, rehearse and reinforce with them. Some teachers just reinforce behavior like this by complimenting a student who does it, hoping other students will follow that example. That's certainly a great technique, but I want to find out if I can get all students on task by implementing this as an expected procedure for every student, not just a good practice of the accelerated students. After all, would a great core class teacher allow a student to be off task at any time during their class? Then why would we allow that in our classes except to allow for silence. There are quiet things that can be done when we're working with a specific section or player. Anyway, here we go:

A. Always do something to get better. If the conductor is working with a specific section or group, use some of the following strategies to improve on your part:

     i. Wind Pattern – Move fast air (not loud air) and quietly press down keys/valves, as if you were playing the part, except that your instrument doesn’t make a sound.

     ii. If you miss a note or rhythm, make a mark so you don’t miss it again!

     iii. Mark missed notes by writing an accidental next to it, or the note name under it if the note is in an unfamiliar range (no fingerings!).

     iv. Mark where you’re going to breathe.

     v. Write in up and down arrows on downbeats and upbeats to help you understand tricky rhythms.

     vi. Write in other musical marks the conductor may have indicated while you were playing.

     vii. Silently count rhythms.

     viii. Quietly finger tricky passages without moving air.

      ix. Perform simple instrument maintenance. 

B. If you are unable to figure something out on your own, you may ask your neighbor for help (ex: note fingerings, rhythms, musical questions), provided it is done in a whisper. You may only do this when you cannot figure it out on your own. This is the only reason you may talk to your neighbor during rehearsal time. If the noise level is such that the conductor cannot easily hear or communicate with the students, this privilege may be removed until further notice. Remember, they are trying to improve on their part, too!

That last bit is something I'll also have to experiment with. In the system I came up in, even asking the student next to you a question was forbidden, like breaking one of the ten commandments. However, I'd like to promote an atmosphere of cooperation along with high standards. Plus, if a student can get a question answered by someone else, it saves me the trouble and the ensemble the time to answer it. However, finding that balance could be tricky. We were doing it in Junction during the summer camp, but on Friday things started to get out of hand. Anyway, I think the idea is good, but the details will take some trial and error. But then in the procedure about how to ask a question, I can specify that if it is a particular type of question, to quietly ask your neighbors first, and if nobody knows, then ask me. I can state that in addition to the "raise your hand and wait to be called on" part of the procedure.

Speaking of which, if you answer a student's question even though they haven't raised their hand, you're reinforcing poor rehearsal etiquette. I'm guilty of that one, and I need to stop letting it slide simply in the interest of time.

By now you surely have the idea of how procedures can be outlined based on a logic of what happens in the classroom. Since this blog is already running a little long, I've decided to list my other concert band procedures on a separate page that you can view by clicking here. Please feel free to give me any feedback you might have!

So this is where I'm at right now. There are some obvious things missing, for example, what is the procedure for playing/chair tests. There are some things I'm still thinking about, and/or would like to get more data on before I write it in. Not all procedures need to be taught right away. If you noticed some procedures I haven't mentioned (for a concert band setting), or have questions, or would like to make recommendations, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below! 

Next time we'll talk about how procedures can also be used for rehearsing/improving music. Many teachers already use at least a couple of these, but I think the most efficient teachers have numerous procedures. I don't know that they could work for everything, but I bet they would make fixing problems much faster in most cases. Expect the next blog to be a bit shorter, because I only have a few specific examples to share, but I need to document it for myself, and I hope that it will be helpful food for thought for anyone else who reads it. 

Until then, thank you for reading, and take care!

Musically yours,

Mr. Cooper

Continue to Part III to see how procedures are used to quickly reinforce playing fundamentals.