“A learning progression is a carefully sequenced set of building blocks that students must master en route to mastering a more distant curricular aim. These building blocks consist of subskills and bodies of enabling knowledge.” (Popham)

Learning Progressions are a popular way of enhancing the student learning experience and making it easier for teachers to plan their lessons. By layering activities in order to help students cumulatively acquire skills, it makes for more successful long term learning. The inherent manner in which layering makes it so things are repeated consistently also helps with retention. What makes memory take root is “recall,” after all, which I read about in an article over a year ago. The more you can consistently “pull” the memory or information from your head, the more it will stick around long term. Therefore, by it’s nature, learning progressions very effectively take advantage of this feature in our brains.

Everything in music is about layering. First, you work on the rhythms. Then you add the layer of the pitches. Then you add the layer of air and phrasing. Then you add the layer of musical interpretation and expression. I can go on and on. It’s the same with singing technique. First, you start with the body. Then you work on your breath and muscle coordination. If the student is uncomfortable with sound coming from their being, you work next on confidence and getting them to project and just “let go” to allow themselves to make sound. Lastly in the process, you have the vocal tone and what’s going on inside the mouth. If you start with the top layer, you’re never going to get the best sound from the student, and their learning and progress will be ineffective and oftentimes incorrect.

“Learning progressions are popular for several compelling reasons. First, identifying ‘must-learn’ building blocks enables teachers to plan instructional sequences that give students systematic rather than sporadic opportunities to master each building block in the learning progression. If the teacher has a clear road map that designates pivotal stops along the way, it is far easier to incorporate those stops.” (Popham)

Popham gives an example of how to “backwards” engineer a lesson plan based on the skills that students need to have at the end of the course and working in reverse. While he uses an English example, I’m going to come up with a music one:

Skill required: reading and playing music fluently

Read and play music fluently
Sightreading (Practice reading/playing current level music at half or fourth the speed without mistakes)
Sightreading (Practice reading/playing easier music without mistakes)
Learn to read one measure ahead
Learn to read in groupings of notes
Learn to read two notes ahead
Learn to read one note ahead (first really slowly, then speeding up)
Learn instantaneous recall of notes/fingerings (start really slow, speed up)
Learn the fingerings
Learn the note names

Getting students to learn how to read better in band is a difficult challenge. Often mistakes are made because they are reading incorrectly, or they cannot recall the fingerings and note names with accuracy or speed. Improving reading skills is imperative for good music playing.

Sources:

”All About Accountability / The Lowdown on Learning Progressions” by W. James Popham