 Wise
teachers want and get organized feedback from all their students.
|
But My Students Like Me!
Most teachers interact well with most students and parents
and feel, justifiably, that they have a good relationship with most of their
clients. Yet, students leave or change piano studios with
sufficient frequency that turnover can be said to be a "fact of life" of
teaching piano. Why do the students leave? Perhaps it involves reasons
entirely unrelated to the lessons, perhaps not. Can you be sure that
departing students will
tell you the full, unvarnished truth about their reasons for leaving? Those
students might well have some ideas for things they would like to see
changed or improved in the studio (at least from their standpoint), but most are afraid of hurting your
feelings or creating that unpleasant situation I mentioned above. The more
they like you as a person, the more likely that is to be the case. So, they
depart in silence or smile gamely and thank you for your time. Even if the student has no problems with the
studio and is leaving for some reason unrelated to the studio (e.g.
financial or time constraints), his thoughts and impressions may be a real asset for the teacher, if the teacher can get
honest comments and evaluations.
Oral Exit Interviews
Most successful companies make it a point to interview employees who are
leaving the company. Employees who are leaving with a less-than-positive
view of the company can alert management to lower-level management problems
or difficulties in the work environment that managers higher in the company may
not know about or even conceive of. Those employees who leave for reasons other than dissatisfaction can give the company good clues about how they
might retain valued employees in the future. Successful companies know that
failure to keep employees ends up costing the company a great deal of
additional money to find, hire, relocate and train replacements.
Corporate oral exit interviews are unquestionably valuable, but perhaps not as much
so as they might be, because most employees simply won't or can't be totally
frank about why they are leaving. The exiting employee will probably only
bring up those issues that are both safe and uppermost in his mind, rather
than take the kind of broader view that is most helpful to the company. For
his part, the interviewer usually doesn't have the time, skill or knowledge
of what might be the most relevant issues to get in-depth information -
especially in a short interview in which
both parties are likely to be a little uncomfortable.
The exiting piano student is, in some ways, like the exiting employee. He
always has a reason for leaving, even if it's unrelated to lessons, per
se. As
with exiting employees, it costs the teacher a certain amount of effort and
time to replace the student, even if the studio has a waiting list. Many of
the best piano teachers I know conduct a sort of informal oral exit
interview, especially if they are on good terms with the student or parents.
Most such oral discussions tend to be done on the spot, with limited advance
preparation. If the teacher doesn't improvise in teaching, is it wise to
improvise in an exit interview?
Because it's so difficult for most people to look someone in the eye and
discuss anything that might sound negative, teachers tend not to learn as
much in such a conversation as they could. Setting aside any negative
comments the student might have, even positive comments can tell the teacher
a lot about what the student valued and what the teacher did right. Some
people are embarrassed, even when giving praise, so they will not tell you
what they really think, either. The trick is getting not only honest
information, but the right kind of information that the teacher can use to
improve the studio.
Written Feedback
A much preferable way to get departing student feedback is a written form
that the student can fill out at his/her leisure and return in a
self-addressed, stamped envelope, provided by the teacher, that he can
drop in the mail. This may seem a little cold, but if paired with a short
oral discussion in which the teacher explains the need for honest opinions,
can be very effective. In a written form, one can ask better, more
thoughtful and open-ended questions which, if properly formulated, will
elicit answers that can be used to improve teaching and the studio. Not
every student or parent will return the form, but, if they don't, all you've
wasted is an envelope and stamp, rather than a half hour or hour of your
time trying to get feedback orally. Of course, if the teacher wishes or sees
some need for doing so, the form can be used as the basis for an oral
interview, though the answers given may not be as frank as those one can get
anonymously.
The tone of such a feedback form should be as
neutral as possible. It should open with some sort of statement from the
teacher which indicates that the teacher views the answers as very important
and indicates that answers will be held as private and used only to improve
the studio and piano teaching. Indicate in the statement that you value honesty in the answers
above all.
Somewhere on the form, the teacher should thank the student for taking time
to fill out and return the form.
Questions on the form (or statements equivalent in focus) should be limited in number (ideally, no more
than twenty), implementing ratings the student can simply circle, but with
ample comment space below each question for those who have more to say.
You'll probably learn more from the comments than the ratings, but having
the ratings will allow you to get at least some input from those who are too
busy to make written comments. Such an approach also allows easy 1-5 coding of
answers, if you compile the results to ascertain trends. Make sure to phrase
the questions as neutrally as possible and without overt clues to any answer you expect from
the person filling out the form. Here is a sample
question to show the approach and layout:
| My teacher behaved as a teaching
professional at all times. Circle one: Disagree
strongly Disagree Neutral
Agree Agree strongly
Comments:
|
This method is time-tested and widely-used. It will already be familiar
in different settings to you and most of your students.
The questions asked (or statements used) on a feedback form will probably differ from teacher
to teacher. Here are some areas to consider covering, recognizing that
you will probably want to ask more than one question in each area:
1) Studio
location and layout. This will include matters like parking, studio
facilities, appearance, environment and waiting area, etc. This is a good "warm-up question" in that, most
of the time, students will not have much problem with this. You'll
generally get more truthful and more useful answers to the more
important questions if you provide some "softballs" to begin.
2) Matters pertaining to professionalism (appearance, timeliness,
knowledge, effectiveness, etc.). For most teachers, this is another easy
area for students to answer, since most teachers behave professionally.
If you find that your departing students do have problems with you in this area, pay attention!
3) Any deficiencies the student sees in his progress. This is
area is likely to bring a wide range of responses, so careful question
formulation, which gives as much specificity as possible, is necessary.
4) Matters of personal interaction. Questions here should not be
about whether or not the student likes the teacher, but about what
things (if any) the teacher could change in his way of interacting with
the student. For example, some teachers like to "kid" with their
students. A little humor is a great thing, but sometimes the student
doesn't see the kidding as humor. You might also ask if the
student enjoyed lessons and wanted to come to them.
5) Matters strictly related to the functioning of the teacher's
studio. This might include something like the teacher not being
willing to teach on Saturdays, but Saturday is the most convenient day
for the student. Another matter in this area is fee structure.
Everyone wants to pay as little as possible for lessons, but does the
student feel you gave "good value" for money? If not, why?
6) What kinds of changes the you could have made that would have
helped the student, personally. This is the most open-ended of the areas one might cover
on a feedback form, but probably the most valuable. Note that the
question is phrased in terms of what might have helped the individual
student, rather what things the teacher should change in the studio.
Most students will be reluctant to tell you to make changes for your
studio, but will tell you what might have been better for them,
personally. The Good News, the Bad News or None?
One thing to keep in mind is that it is counter-productive to limit
intentionally student impressions about your studio and its operation. The form can help
you channel ideas into useful areas, but it should make clear
that you want as much information as you can get, whether the sense of the
comments is negative or positive. If the student or his parents say things
that are untrue or that you can't act upon for various reasons, you can
choose to ignore, or delay any action upon, those particular bits of
information.
Remember, as you read student impressions, that you have asked the
student for his help and time to give you his thoughts. If you are to
benefit from it, you must not take comments personally, nor should you ever
complain to the student, his parents or others about anything that was said
on the form. Even the most negative of comments can be valuable, if you try
to look for the lessons behind the comments, rather than the specifics of
the comment itself. The student will not have your knowledge of piano,
generally, and pedagogy, in particular, but you should be able to
"translate" his comments into useful improvements to your teaching and
studio. What Can You Learn?
Student feedback
from a well-designed form can be used in lots of ways. The feedback need
not be about what the teacher might have done "wrong", but also about what
services the teacher offers that students might not care about. It can tell you
if students really appreciate the "extras" you provide (performance,
musical enrichment, computer lab, etc.). This can save you time and
money in the end, if you can eliminate some services students don't care
about or add some they want. You might find out that your
studio hours need to be adjusted slightly to better meet student
schedules. Your studio newsletter might be missing content your students
would like to see or might have content that they feel is a waste of time. Compilation of the forms over the course of year or more will
show you trends in student preferences. Comments may suggest entirely
new ideas for teaching to you. In short, a well-designed student feedback
form can be an invaluable tool for improving the effectiveness of your
teaching and increasing your net income. Making Feedback an Ongoing
Process
The teacher can, and perhaps should, ask for feedback from all students,
not just departing students, even though departing students might constitute
the best sources of information. Although a teacher can get a lot of
indirect input just by talking to students when they come in for lessons, the feedback
the teacher gets that way is unorganized and, to a certain extent,
haphazard, making it hard for the teacher to get an overall picture. For
these reasons and others, it is valuable for the teacher to survey all
students at least once a year, as well as doing a more in-depth survey with
departing students.
Current student surveys could easily be done on a teacher web site. The web
site approach has the advantage that, when the site is set up with database
links, the answers are added to a database automatically and then easily
queried for specific trends and ideas. It also provides the student with an
even greater degree of anonymity than the written form. A disadvantage of
the web site approach is that it may be more difficult to get people to
visit the site and answer the questions than it is simply to supply them with a
form they can fill out and drop in the mail. It's About You
There is no doubt that the great majority of teachers
do their best and do it well, but the wise ones want feedback from all their students,
especially those who are leaving. Teachers who refuse to seek or learn from
constructive criticism or even hear it, whether from peers or students, are shooting themselves in the foot (if
not the head). The teacher can always choose to weight student feedback in
any way he/she chooses or even completely ignore it (at his/her peril),
but should take steps to seek it. Student
impressions can be an invaluable resource, but it's up to you to get them and use them
to be a better teacher. |
The Teaching Studio |
Piano Education Home 