I’ve got my studio logging sessions (most weeks, most students) but the notes field stays empty or says “practiced piano lol”. The kids who write one real sentence — “bar 12 LH still rushing” — improve visibly faster, and I can’t get the others to see it.
What’s worked for you? I’ve tried: showing examples, making it homework (backfired, felt like punishment), and bribery (worked for two weeks).
What finally worked for me: I write the first note with them, in the lesson, in their words. Last five minutes: ‘what would you tell next-Tuesday-you about this piece?’ They dictate, I type it into their log in front of them. After a month of doing it together, about half start doing it alone — because they’ve felt next-Tuesday-me actually use it.
Student perspective: my old teacher asked me to write one sentence and gave me the sentence shape: ‘X still breaks at tempo Y.’ Fill-in-the-blanks killed the blank-page problem. ‘Write practice notes’ felt like an essay; ‘fill in X and Y’ took ten seconds.
Trying the dictation-in-lesson version this week with my four worst offenders. Will report back. The ‘they’ve never felt anyone use the note’ framing explains a lot — I read them silently before lessons and never told them.