Teaching Strategies is designed to support and guide teacher participants in how to become more effective in their teaching. Strategies will reinforce the positive aspects and offer constructive feedback on each participant’s lessons. Current SAA teacher development opportunities for feedback also include Consultations, Certificates of Achievement, SPA, and Practicum.

Time: Daily 1:30pm-3:30pm (CST) June 23-27, 2025

Cost: $250

Pre-requisites: Teaching Strategies is designed for teachers who have already registered Unit 2 or above and available to anyone who wishes feedback on their teaching and has registered at least Unit 1. It is meant to be instrument-specific, although occasional exceptions may be made.

Starting in January 2025, Teaching Strategies will be a prerequisite for Unit 3. Teachers who have already taken Unit 3 will not be required to take Strategies, although we highly recommend it to all teachers.

Video Recordings: 

• Each participant brings 2 recordings of 6-10 minutes each. At least one of the recordings should be of an individual lesson. In some situations, longer lesson clips may be shown. 

• If a participant is not currently teaching individual lessons, they need to contact the trainer to set up an alternative, such as teaching a student from the trainer’s studio, from another teacher’s studio, or teaching an Institute student.

• Recommended criteria

  • Student working on Suzuki repertoire, with the teacher actively teaching (i.e. more teaching than student just playing) 

  • Student playing from memory 

  • Student and teacher are in camera view, if possible, and parent is present 

  • If Teaching Strategies is incorporated in a Unit 2 course, the repertoire in the recording should be from book 1. In stand-alone courses, repertoire may be from any unit the teacher has registered.

• Participants may bring any recording they choose. Some possible options are those that:

  • Show challenging situations 

  • Include a topic they are having trouble getting across 

  • Best represent them as a teacher 

  • Show a group class 

  • Show an entire lesson (if time permits) 

Technical Specifications: 

• Recordings should be edited to 6-10 minutes. 

• If participants are unable to edit their videos, they should have the exact start and end times noted. In some situations, with advance permission from the Teacher Trainer, longer lesson clips may be shared.

• For online and in-person classes, it is recommended that participants upload videos to Google Drive, Dropbox, Vimeo, or YouTube,  and after double-checking the links, send them to the Teacher Trainer. This allows the trainer to compile all the participants’ links.

• For online classes,  links can be shared via Zoom chat or using the screen share function

• For in-person classes, it is also possible to bring recordings on USB flash drives, if needed.

• For in-person classes, It is the course host’s responsibility to verify the technology available at the venue and communicate this clearly in advance to all course participants.

Class Content: 

Each class session is similar to a “pedagogy masterclass” where the participants watch their recordings together, receive positive comments from the trainer on what they did well, then be given a suggestion or two on something they could improve. It is recommended that the trainer identify one point that would make the biggest difference in the Participant’s teaching. 

For beginning teachers, these may be basic items central to Suzuki teaching: 

• Including the parent 

• Addressing basic posture issues 

• Giving specific praise 

• Using positive language when making corrections or observations 

• Talking less, demonstrating more 

• When to use and not use the score (how students learn a new piece) 

• Breaking a concept down 

• Using repetition in a lesson 

• Using review in a lesson 

• Moving on only when a step is mastered 

• Working on Tone 

• Giving succinct assignments to student and parent 

For more experienced teachers, it may be possible to work on more than one thing and hone in on the finer points of teaching.