Skill Development: The 5 Steps to Mastery

growth mastery motivation ownership pacing pedagogy skill Sep 03, 2024

Estimated Read Time: 5-7 minutes

By Rob Chilton

What is the most effective progression to lead students from no skill to skill mastery? Teaching beginning band has led me to frequently ponder this question–because nearly everything is new! Through research and experience, I’ve developed the following progression, which we will discuss today:

Introduction

Skill development begins with introduction.

We can only learn what we know exists. Consider this–if a child has never seen a bicycle, they won’t understand what it is, much less how it can be ridden. Therefore, teaching them to ride it starts with the introduction of the bike itself, followed by a short demonstration of how it’s operated.

Similarly, if a child has no knowledge of articulation or vibrato, they won’t know it’s a skill that can be performed. Teaching it starts with creating awareness of the technique itself, followed by an example of how it sounds.

Introductions don’t need to be long or complex. They just need to create awareness of the objective, and in some cases, a demonstration or example of the final result.

Not necessarily. Rote teaching involves memorization through repetition, where students repeatedly practice without fully grasping the underlying concepts or meaning. The purpose of a demonstration or example here is solely to provide students with a conceptual destination for which they will map what they learn in the next step—comprehension.

Comprehension

The most important step is comprehension.

When planning for comprehension, ask yourself the following:

What prior knowledge do my students possess?
What information is new to them?
What key components must they understand to progress?
What is the simplest sequence covering the complete scope of the material?
What scaffolding can we provide to support comprehension?

It’s always better to be more thorough than not. Doing so will lead to less reteaching and more concise future review. Keep in mind, reteaching and review are different. Reteaching is addressing gaps in understanding through re-presentation. Review is reinforcing and consolidating knowledge students have already learned.

Gaps in understanding–also commonly referred to as gaps in learning–are areas of missing information or incomplete comprehension that make progressing beyond a certain point difficult or impossible. Most often, gaps occur when we rush comprehension in efforts to get our students performing more quickly. However, they can also happen when:

A student is absent or out of class (e.g., bathroom, counselors, nurse, etc.)
A student is not paying attention
A student is not comfortable asking for clarification
A student has prior learning gaps that prevented new learning
A teacher’s explanation was insufficient or improperly sequenced
A teacher’s instructional pacing wasn’t appropriate and/or the time allotted for comprehension wasn’t sufficient

What do you do when you discover gaps in understanding? First, avoid displaying frustration. Then, meet your students where they are and fill the gaps, because if you don’t, they will become bigger problems later!

Demonstration

The word “demonstration” here refers to 'student demonstrations,' not 'teacher demonstrations or examples' provided during the introduction.

Once satisfactory comprehension has been achieved, create a safe space for your students to demonstrate their new skill–preferably as individuals. After each demonstration, provide constructive feedback to guide them towards an improved or correct repetition.

Individual demonstrations are the best way to ensure your students are actually learning. It’s far too easy for them to hide their sound when the group is performing. To read more about creating an environment where students are comfortable playing individually, check out Helping Students Overcome Failure and Embrace Feedback:

Repetition

Once a student can produce a single demonstration of a skill or passage, the only thing standing between ‘I’ve done this before’ and ‘I can do this always’ is repetition (and time.)

A book that heavily influenced my teaching was Daniel Coyle’s 2009 bestseller, The Talent Code. In it, Coyle explains that when performing any skill, our brains fire electric signals through a specific series of neural circuits controlling that action. With each passing repetition, a substance called myelin is wrapped around the neural circuits, making the connections stronger and faster. This process, known as myelination, creates what can best be described as superhighways in our brains, enabling signals to travel faster and more efficiently, thus allowing us to perform skills with greater ease and accuracy.

Mastery

Mastery in action is when a skill or passage can be performed with near perfect execution at any time. It can only be achieved through repetition and time.

I often tell my students that mastery is being able to play something “on-demand.” Meaning, whenever it’s requested, it can be performed. Keep in mind, mastery diminishes over time when not maintained. I often tell my students:

Responsibilities: Teacher vs. Student

Assuming my students are making a concerted effort in class to participate and learn, I tell them it’s my job as their teacher to provide the first three steps–introduction, comprehension, and demonstration. It’s their responsibility as students to take the last two steps–repetition and mastery.

Now, that’s not to say we don’t provide repetition in-class–because we absolutely do! Rather, I say this as a way to communicate to my students that to reach mastery, they’ll need to practice regularly outside of school, because (a) only they know how much repetition they need and (b) it’ll often be more than we can provide during class. Check out my article, On Time Management and Practice, for more ideas on practice.

Pro-Tip for RML Users

If you use Readymade Music Literacy, you’ve likely noticed the video lessons follow the developmental model discussed herein. In particular, RML focuses primarily on introduction, comprehension, and demonstration. For additional repetition towards mastery, particularly with rhythm, use the RML worksheets as rhythm charts. Every worksheet from Lesson 1E to the end was designed with three lines of rhythm specifically for this purpose!

Conclusion

I’ve found great value in explaining these five steps to my students. It has helped them understand the learning process, exercise patience with skill development, and engage in repetition–or practice. If you’d like to share this method with your students, I’ve included a free high-resolution PDF you can download by clicking the link below. This topic is large, and we’ve just barely scratched the surface. Stay tuned!

Check out our music literacy method!

Never miss a new posting!

Check out this short video!

About the author:

Rob Chilton is the creator and owner of Readymade Music, LLC and its content. Previously, Chilton was a middle school band director from 2007-2021. His most recent teaching position was the Head Band Director at Killian Middle School in Lewisville, Texas from 2014-2021.

Under his direction, the Killian Honors Band was named the 2018 Texas Music Educators Association CC Honor Band and performed at the annual 2018 TMEA Clinic/Convention. In 2019, the Killian Honors Band was invited to and performed at The Midwest Clinic in Chicago. Additionally, the Killian Honors Band was named a National Winner in the Mark of Excellence National Wind Band Honors Project in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Chilton is a graduate of Southern Methodist University where he had the opportunity to study music education under the tutelage of Lynne Jackson and Brian Merrill. During his years as a middle school band director, Chilton continued his professional growth under the guidance of his primary clinicians, John Benzer and Brian Merrill.

Chilton’s mission for Readymade Music is to promote the overall well-being of music education and support school music teachers by providing solutions to help make teaching music more efficient and inspirational while increasing engagement for 21st century learners.