Yin and Yang are twins in my 7th grade band. They both play the trumpet and are hard workers. Last year they had one of the best "practice journal logs" in the entire school.
This year I replaced the journals with SmartMusic. The students have about 9 assignments in each Unit and two Units per marking period. The assignments cover scales, rhythm, music and...the very hard...sightreading. I have found that the sight-reading assignments cause the most frustration with the students.
Yin and Yang had many problems in Units 1, 2 and 3. Sightreading assignments are done in one take and then sent right to me. Thus, I sent a lot of their assignments back to them with low scores of 12, 29 or 8 so they could redo them. They kept on practicing and never gave up.
Well, I am so proud to inform you that they both finished Unit 4 in one week and they received grades in the high 90's and 100%. I am so proud of them.
I wanted to share this with you all since this story proves that with the will do to better, the tools to provide you with good feedback (at that moment), and "smart practicing" will lead to awesome results.
Congrats Yin and Yang and everyone else who is using the Smartmusic software to help them get better!!