In My Music Staff, you can use Lesson Notes, Online Resources, and Repertoire to communicate with your students. This will help support their ongoing music study practice outside of lessons. But did you know your students can use their Practice Log to communicate with you about how their practice is going? You can review the practice notes your students record and give feedback on their at-home progress. This provides you with great insights that allow you to tailor their lessons to reach their goals, focus on areas of difficulty, and support their musical development. Here’s how…
First, you’ll need to enable the option for students to email you from the Practice Log.
- Go to My Preferences in the top right
- Scroll down to the Practice Log setting
- Select the checkbox that says “Allow students to email me from the Practice Log”
- Scroll to the bottom to click Save.
When students log in to the Student Portal and add practice time, they can leave notes about their practice. Before clicking Save, they can select the Email Teacher checkbox so you’ll be notified right away! You’ll also be able to check from your MMS account. Go to their Student Details page and select the Practice Log tab.
To help your students know what to write in their notes, give them some easy-to-remember ideas. For example, 3-2-1 – Three warm-up exercises they completed, two pieces of repertoire/sections/techniques they think they need to focus on for improvement, and one thing they did really well.
Our Top Tip: Sometimes, the easiest way to give feedback about a student’s practice is to watch what they’re doing. Instead of separately emailing you a video or waiting to show you until their next lesson, they can record a video directly on their device and include the Google Photos or iCloud link in their Practice Log notes. When you receive the email, you can read what they’ve written and open the video link all from one place.
Can I allow my students to contact me from the Student Portal?