What future for education, week 2. My reflection

Week 2: What is intelligence and does it matter?

The week started with the interview with Professor Gordon Stobart, an author of the book called "Expert learner". 

He expresses the idea that I come up with when I started to learn how to learn. He says that we exaggerate the importance of intelligence and abilities. The ability itself is a skill that can be developed, and it dramatically depends on the environment. A person from a privileged background usually has bigger vocabulary, more diverse experience, rather than a person from disadvantaged background. So one could say his/her abilities are higher.

So what actually matters most when you learn are your background (or the environment you create to your students as a teacher) and deliberate practice.

The rule of 10'000 hours is actually about hours of deliberate practice (10 years of 3 hours a day).

It's a practice when you intentionally do something that you are not good at.

What is deliberate practice for me? What am I not good at?

• Harmony. T goes to S. D'oh!
• Creating melodies. Thinking of melody as a complete thought with a beginning and an end.
• Polyphonic music. It is difficult for me to listen to the dialog of several voices that I play.
• Singing. My music intonation is not precise.
• Grasping the whole piece I am going to perform. To see its structure as a building, an architecture.
• In teaching: maintain a long-term interest to the subject I teach to children.

So how should I practice it?

Analyze pieces I play in terms of its harmonic language and voicing. Maybe I should draw a structure of my pieces. I must create melodies, improvise, sing every day.

Such kind of practice is quite painful, cause you fail 50/50 times. Otherwise it's not a deliberate practice.

This statement made me to think about today's practice. Was it deliberate? Considering that I had only 50% of success in my actions, yes :D I tried to memorize 4 pieces from Tchaikovsky "Album for children" (or how it is translated into English). I played, analyzed (mentally) and repeated without the book. I hope such kind of exercises will give a wider framework, I will memorize quicker, hold more details, connections and changes in mind.

What can I improve in my practice? I want to learn to listen to my play in real time, to have an absolute control over the sound. I should train more without an instrument. I should create a clear image of desirable sound, clear image of my movements (precise, flexible and relaxed). And I MUST sleep more.

What can I practice as a teacher? First of all, I should keep track of the students' progress. And since there are many students, I should write it down in order not to forget. It will motivate children to become better than yesterday, I hope. I need to take a video of myself teaching and see what kills an interest and why. I will do it tomorrow.

I want to write down some teaching principles to the paper and read them each day before classes begin. And at the end of the day analyze what when good and what was against that principles, why and what could I do differently.

Another reflection. The professor mentions the books I've read or heard about: "The peak", "Little book of talent". "The peak" is a must-read book.

... to be continued as I have watchced only 2/4 videos this week and haven't done a week assessment yet.

Reflective post for "What future for education?"

Week One: How do we learn?

Successful learning: driving lessons

I was a total newbie, and had no idea how to drive a car. To succeed, I was taking driving lessons almost every day for 2-6 hour for 2 months. There were lots of situations: icy road, highway, traffic jams, turn round, hills, awful country roads, etc. My teacher always gave me a clear feedback: “you haven’t checked the left mirror”, “change transmission”, “you have crossed the doubleline”. The rules were simple: change transmission on time, look to the mirrors, be predictable for the others and be attentive to road signs.

Also, I watched tons of youtube videos with car accidents and analyzed them, took online driving tests, asked my friends to let me drive their cars or park their cars.
By the time of the final exam, I bought my own automobile. I was very interested in getting a driving license.
Conclusion: I spent at least 5 hours each day learning new subject from different perspective. Also, when I drove, I was fully concentrated and other things didn’t interfere with driving process.

Unsuccessful learning: physics

I actually was not very interested in the subject. I didn’t do the homework on time, or did it in the last minute. Didn’t dive into this subject. It was too difficult for me to think on the problems, find my own solutions, so my mind was wandering on different thoughts, I could not focus. And I didn’t have a purpose. Why was I learning physics? To become an engineer? But I don’t want to be an engineer. Actually, I didn’t know what it is to be an engineer, I was just a learner with no cynosure. So I forced myself to learn new things just to get a “pass” grade. In 2 years I gave up.

50/50 successful learning: programming

I was not fully interested in the subject as well, however I was able to learn some new things. I attended lectures, seminars, discussed material with other students, did homework. I think I was able to learn because professors of the computer science department were experts on their subjects, the material was well-structured and I was practicing programming almost every day for 5 years.

In progress: music

At the moment, I am learning to play the piano and to teach music to young children. I practice it every day: play the piano, attend lessons of famous music professors, listen to the music, analyze my feeling, music pieces, read books about learning, playing the piano, music, I watch piano competitions, play music with friends, record my performance, etc.
I have some difficulties as a teacher, since my music education at music school was a poor quality, it was not about the music at all. And I didn't learn anything when I was a kid. So I need to find the answers from books, other people, from observations and experiments on these questions:
- what steps and exercises develop children' creativeness, inner music hearing,
- how to help a child to develop an every day habit for practicing,

The music lessons held in small groups, so I need to use 45 minutes effectively for everybody and pay attention to each student individually. How can I create the atmosphere on my lessons: “I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me.”

And the final answer:

Based on your experience as a learner, what do you think you will be able to get out of this course? And what ideas do you already have about the future of education?

This course is a new experience for me. I was raised in a traditional didactic system (although I was a problematic kid for my teachers, I didn't have an opportunity to change it). 

Since 2014, I am a teacher. And I teach music to children 6-11 years old. I need to find an answers on the questions: what teaching approach would be best for my students? I am sure that education is not about mechanical training, but I need to stimulate students to think, to experiment with given information and go beyond it. I would like to create an atmosphere of discovering something new on my lessons.

From this course, I will be able to experience new learning models, read the researches on this subject, and apply some ideas into my work, think on questions I can ask my students to encourage their learning process. I am very interested in reading about constructive learning. What is it and can it be applied to music?

Also, I am a learner. I learn to play the piano. How can I learn faster? Maybe this course will help me to prevent some mistakes and save my time.

From today's reflection on previous learning experience, I realized that simple well-formulated rules are required for getting a good feedback. And I have realized that I don't know what well-played music exactly is. I will make a glossary with my observations ("Resolvings are softer!" will be the first entry :) ).

Another reflection: how do I learn most effectively? From actually doing. I usually perform slowly and highly consciously some action, making logic connections between parts and then speeding it up. I use the triad from "The peak" by Anders Ericsson: "focus-feedback-fix it".