Take Note -- Tech Tip #1

Photo courtesy of Pinterest

This week, we had the chance to catch up with Christina Guiliano-Cobas, Powell's Director of Marketing. Christina is also a private flute instructor, and we highlighted her own "family of flutes" in a previous post which you can read by following  this link.

In her studio, Christina teaches a mix of flutists from beginners to more advanced high school students. Regardless of age, she requires each student to bring a notebook to lessons, which she then uses to write notes and their next assignment. One of her high school students forgot her notebook recently, so Christina decided to text a very short note with the next assignment to the student. Although not all of her students have cell phones (and we know this is certainly a topic of debate), Christina began texting assignments to her 14, 15, and 16 year-old-students.  She discovered that this was quite helpful to them! She shared,

Students in this age group are very busy with band, sports, AP classes, driver's exams, part-time jobs... They use their phones for everything.  It turned out that my student who forgot her notebook practiced more, remembered her assignment, and was fully-prepared for her next lesson after she received my text.  Just having that small visual reminder on her phone helped tremendously.  

She added that the physical notebooks are terrific tools for her younger (elementary school-aged) students since they are,"still very much into pens and paper, and their parents need to sign the practice page in the notebook."  However, the notebooks had gone unopened with the teenaged students once the lesson was done.  What happened to be a quick-fix for one high school student turned out to be an excellent method for preparing and inspiring them.  Christina said, "Now, for my 14, 15, and 16-year-olds, I always text their next lesson assignment!"

Photo courtesy of Pinterest