One reason I am a piano teacher instead of a classroom music teacher is that I don't like groups of people. In moderation, it's fine, but I'm definitely a one-on-one type of person. The challenge comes when your schedule is full of private lesson students, but you realize you need more income and the only real way to accomplish your goal is through teaching group classes. This semester, I started offering a couple of online group piano classes. I had no idea how this would go and was honestly pretty stressed to try teaching group piano again, since the only other time I have done it was for my piano pedagogy practicum in college and I was stressed...and hungry because it was scheduled during dinner break. I just remember being desperate to get through the class and hoping I had time to get to the cafeteria before dinner closed. I digress. The point is, it has been a long time and I didn't know how it would work logistically. So, I posted a couple of classes and figured they probably wouldn't get traction so it wouldn't be an issue anyway. Then both got students. And reached minimum enrollment. So now I'm teaching some group classes. Things I am finding are great about it:
1) I already had set the lesson plans and pacing, so I just have to show up and teach.
2) The students are generally keeping up well and I don't have to teach the same material 3 or 4 times in a row.
3) The students encourage each other, which is really exciting to see :).
Things I am still learning:
1) How to handle it when one student isn't getting it and the rest are.
2) How to encourage everyone to participate.
3) How to not mentally freak out before class. This will probably just come with time and experience :).
All in all, I'm glad that I took the step of offering group classes. It's a growing experience for me and allows me to teach more students, which is definitely a blessing.
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