Coaching in main instrument tuition

- As an instrumental and vocal teacher, it comes natural to give advice and suggest solutions to the student's problems. However, adopting a coaching teaching style implies the exact opposite - it is about letting the students themselves reason about how they can cope with the challenges they encounter by, for example, rehearsing repertoire, performances and artistic choices. Supplementing existing teaching methods with elements from coaching as a communication tool, will make students more independent, increase ownership and inner motivation, and thereby make them better equipped for a future as professional practitioners. (Lisbeth W. Svinø, course instructor)

The course program was developed for instrumental and vocal teachers who seeked to challenge and explore their own teaching style with the help of techniques and models from coaching, and thus develop their pedagogical toolbox when encountering students.

Important keywords for coaching as a teaching tool:

-Ask effective questions that will give insight into what the student sees as important

-Get the students to take active ownership of their own lives/careers by having the students themselves set goals and plan the way to get there in collaboration with the teacher

-Ask one question at a time

-Active listening. Listen to what the students actually answers and proceed the dialogue based of this.

- It comes down to the importance of language. How we talk with and to the students. What the words mean. What words am I actually using? What am I asking? How do I ask? (Teacher 5).

In instrumental and vocal teaching it works well to to use coaching techniques at the beginning and at the end of the lesson. The teacher can, for example, at the start of the lesson ask questions such as the following:

-What has happened since last time?

-How was the development concerning what we worked with in the last lesson?

-How do we best use this lesson?

At the end of the lesson, the teacher can use time on questions that contribute to the student experiencing and taking ownership of their own development towards the next lesson. Such questions can, for example, be the following:

-What of todays work was most useful to you?

-What of this could you benefit from when continuing your practise?

-What do you think you will achieve by working on exactly what you mention?

-How will you work on this until the next time we meet?

-What do you do when, how often, …?

Then the teacher also could say: How about working with, for example, this, and thus bring in topics that the teacher thinks the student needs in addition to what the student has thought about. Using techniques from coaching does not mean that the teacher should stop giving instructions to the student, or that the teacher abdicates as an authority in his/her field and leaves everything up to the student. What you see, however, when the student is invited to reflect on what he/she wants to achieve, and what it takes to get there, is that the student develops ownership of their own learning process and an increased inner motivation to achieve their goals.

When using tools from coaching in a teaching situation, this is something other than a professional coaching relationship which is characterized by a confidential partnership where the coach acts as a supervisor in a reflective and creative process that inspires the coachee/client to maximize their personal and professional potential.

This is NOT the way we work when we draw coaching into the teaching situation, and this course was not to be considered a coaching education either. What we did, however, was to use techniques and models from coaching, so a instrumental/vocal teacher could get a more conscious relationship with his/her personal communication and expand the pedagogical toolbox.

After finishing the course, the teachers were interviewed about their experiences of participating. They saw that the methods and techniques had several positive effects, including that

-the students experienced increased ownership of their own learning
-the teachers expanded their pedagogical toolbox
-they got to know their colleagues better
-it gave them tools to adapt their teaching

Increased ownership of own learning

Reflecting on one's own learning is a prerequisite for being able to become an independent musician in the future, Teacher 4.

It is a goal that during the course of the study the students should develop ownership of their own development and learning. Several of the teachers experienced that the students gained increased ownership of their own work process through the teachers adopting a coaching teaching style, and that this would eventually contribute to more independent students:

- I see that it will connect us to a way of thinking about how adults learn. What we in other contexts call grown-up-learning or life-long-learning. And that can give us an even greater degree of independent students. Teacher 6.

Expanded toolbox as an educator

- It has been an important realization for me to take a step back: Don't always be so directly controlling and instructing. But being able to open up for the students to a greater extent. …. Help the student to use his resources and exploit his potential, Teacher 1.

Techniques and models from coaching are well suited to stimulate reflection in the students, through their use of open and exploratory questions where the student gets time and opportunity to get to know their own musical preferences better. It also gave the teachers an opportunity to get to know their students better. A coaching method of working requires the teacher to be more patient than in a traditional teaching situation. You have to slow down a bit, listen a bit more and ask good questions:

- Taking more time to reach a conclusion can be an advantage - you become more human. Does not work with an assembly line, Teacher 2.

Get to know your colleagues better

- The way we collaborated has worked well, for example in triads. Have gotten to know colleagues in a different way than before, which has made it easier to initiate projects... (Teacher 2)

In addition to the teachers being able to expand their toolbox as instrumental pedagogues, they experienced the collegial collaboration created through the project as stimulating and fruitful. The teacher quoted below even thought that was possibly the most important benefit of the whole project.

- Very good to get to know the colleagues in the group in a completely new and incredibly good way. Meeting and reflecting on one's own teaching. And gradually get into practical work via the practice groups. It will be a completely different feeling compared to approaching them afterwards. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the whole thing, Teacher 3.

Customized teaching

- One of the things that is crucial in music education is the recognition that One size fits all does not apply. Every student is unique. A coaching approach creates individual learning paths. And we need that, Teacher 5

Techniques and methods from coaching are a tool for getting to know the student's uniqueness better and the teacher will be able to adapt his teaching to each individual student to a greater extent. One teacher also believed that the new tools helped the student to "use his resources and exploit his potential".

- The advantage is - I think - that you are able to capture the individual student. Instead of teaching in the same way and showing off his own stuff, Teacher 3.

The teachers experienced that a coaching teaching style made the students more reflective, more independent, and also that they would be able to become more skilled because the teacher "was able to vary his teaching methodology" (Teacher 1). Others pointed out that using these tools helped to change the relationship between teacher and student in that the student was seen as having a lot of knowledge and resources, especially when it comes to their own learning process and motivation. Another teacher believed that coaching techniques provided an opportunity for learning-through-art:

- Perhaps coaching plays us into a half of the court that is about learning-through-art and not just learning-to-art. I think it can enrich, create a larger space. A fundamental difference in the educational reality. And then it's fun to work together on things: When you as a teacher feel that you have a shared understanding with the students of where they are going. I'm not going to say that it's easier, but it feels more motivating and more fun, and then I can contribute with more things than expected and also possible within the old box, Teacher 6.

The project started as a collaboration between CEMPE and Jane Cook, long-time coach associated with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Cook was engaged as a instructor and coach in the first project period, while Lisbeth Wathne Svinø, university lecturer at NMH with extensive experience as a coach, took over as course instructor in the second project period.

First project period: December 2015 to September 2016
Two-three-day seminars with Jane Cook: Lectures followed by group discussions, individual coaching sessions and joint debriefing. Shorter follow-up sessions with Lisbeth Wathne Svinø with a review of the participants' own learning, thoughts and reflections. Practice to focus and repetition of models. In the time between these meetings, the teachers involved tried out some of the various new approaches in their teaching.

Second project period: September 2016 to December 2017
The experiences from the first project period were so positive that it was decided to continue the project. In this round, Lisbeth Wathne Svinø was engaged in the role of project manager.

During this period, the teachers explored the use of different techniques in their own teaching. The teachers also observed each other's main instrument teaching, followed by conversations. In addition, they trained on the techniques in coaching triads (groups of three teachers), they had joint meetings and received individual follow-up. In the coaching triads, the teachers practiced using various tools and discussed topics related to this way of communicating both inside and outside the instrumental lessons. A side effect of this close collaboration was that the teachers became confident in each other and well acquainted with the others' teaching style. When you practice coaching as was done in this project, you have to expose yourself. You have to start from your own experiences and discuss these with others. This helped contribute the teachers getting to know each other in a different way than they otherwise would have. A common focus was to use one's own competence and experience towards the students' development in such a way that an even more functional way of working with the student was found. A great example of a professional learning community!

For many, a coaching teaching style will involve something new and unfamiliar. It takes time to become comfortable in this new role, and to get the tools into the back bones, requires trial, practice, reflection and feedback. It is therefore important to see this as a process and allow time for development.

Some key elements to get the most out of a scheme:

-Three day start-up meeting to set the focus.

-Final joint meeting.

-Start training early in the project period: In other words, do coaching - don't talk about coaching.

-Triads. Train in groups of 3 people between joint sessions. In these groups, one participant has the role of coach, one is the one being coached and the last is an observer. Everyone must have all roles during each training round, as there is a lot of learning in being an observer.

-Mutual observation of each other in concrete teaching situations followed by reflection and discussion.

-Observation by the course instructor of specific teaching situations.

-Carry out the scheme as an intensive project. Then the pressure is kept up and you ensure maximum learning in relation to time spent.

-All participants must commit to participating for the entire period.

-A group of preferably a minimum of 12 to 15 participants. Then it will not be so vulnerable to drop out.