Getting students to practice has always been the biggest pain for parents of children learning music. They spend loads of money every month on lessons and getting students to commit is all parents want. They want to see passion, confidence and improvement.
“Can piano lessons do that for my child?”
The reality is that it’s pretty rare to have a music student who automatically practices on their own everyday.
If done correctly, it just takes patience and a firm approach to develop the habit, but too often it’s the “other” activities that make the practice habit feel impossible.
Over the course of this blog I’ve delved into why some students have trouble. But apart from all the reasons and excuses, what’s really needed is a simple motivational tool that gets kids going everyday.
When building Oclef we focus on helping kids develop their instrinsic motivation and have done everything to weave social, familial, and technological forces into our product.
So we’re excited to announce that our latest feature, although it may seem like an extrinsic motivator, is really social accountability in disguise.
As a teacher, if you go into any student’s practice log in Oclef you will now see that you can “ping” them. Hit that button and the student and their parents will receive a notification reminder to practice.
Is this a good thing? Not sure yet, but we do know that music teachers and educators will be pushing that botton with a smile on their face.
Special note: We have to thank Oclef teacher Aldo Bustos who gave us this feature idea. Our community of teachers is the most important thing we have and want to continue to grow and engage our teachers. Feel free to reach out to us!