Course: Group Piano
Instructor: Chen Wei, Clinical Assistant Professor of Arts, Group Piano
Students Enrolled: 42
Technology Used: NYU Zoom, Quicktime screen recording, WeChat groups, Google Drive Folders
Chen Wei usually teaches her Group Piano courses in NYU Shanghai’s piano studio, with students sitting in front of their own individual upright pianos while she demonstrates at her own instrument. A camera captures her hand positions and projects the image on a screen at the front of the classroom.
When Chen heard that NYU Shanghai would move to digital instruction two weeks before the start of the semester, she assumed that many in the class would drop out. It seemed like a class students would only want to take live. But only a handful withdrew. So with two weeks to the start of the semester, she set about recreating her live class online.
First, she sent out a survey to registered students to find out which time zones they were in and whether they had access to a keyboard or piano. 65% said they would need help procuring a practice keyboard. To solve that problem, Chen searched online and found a “handroll” piano that could be purchased for 200 RMB or less than US$30 on Taobao or Amazon. The NYU Shanghai Arts department offered to reimburse students for the “handroll” pianos after they returned to campus.
Chen quickly realized that she would need more than a single camera — since an effective piano class depended on students being able to see both her and her hand positions as she played. So she bought a tripod that she had seen YouTube stars use to film themselves at the piano, attached it to the music stand of her piano, and mounted her cellphone camera.
But how could she capture video of both herself and her hands?
That is when Chen had her “aha” moment. Why not Zoom herself? She asked the NYU Shanghai Library to authorize a NYU Zoom account for her, so that she could have a Zoom account in addition to her personal account. Then, with her laptop camera trained on her face, and her cellphone camera focused on her hands at the keyboard, she used the Zoom account on her phone to call the one on her laptop. The result was side-by-side images in the Zoom session — one of Chen delivering her lecture and the other of her hands on the keyboard.
Chen then recorded the session and posted the hour-long lectures on her class website. She frequently encourages students to pause the video and practice, and then return and play along with Chen for “virtual practice.”
At first, Chen thought she might teach the classes live, but realized that with students not only in China, but also in Japan, England, Italy, Russia, New York, and Latin America, it would be better to post lectures online, and then hold live Zoom “practice sessions” with students. For these practice sessions, students can log on to the scheduled session and ask Chen — or each other — questions about the week’s lecture or assignment. Recognizing that some students might be shy about practicing in front of larger groups, Chen makes use of Zoom’s “breakout rooms,” and assigns pairs of students as “practice partners” in those rooms. She then visits the rooms individually. The practice sessions are important, she says since it is the only chance to see her students face-to-face, and assess their progress.
Chen has also added all her students into a group chat on WeChat so that they might ask questions as they occur to them outside of “practice sessions.” This fosters a sense of community, and gives students a space to talk online and meet their “virtual classmates.” “I found students were helping each other in the group,” she says. “They did not need to wait for me to get back to them. Some of their classmates are faster at replying than me.”
For homework, Chen has set up a Google folder, where students upload videos of themselves playing the week’s assigned pieces. Chen then watches each video and offers comments.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
“The main challenge for me is communication,” Chen says. “I don’t see students present in the classroom. In the past, I could sort of tell if a student was feeling confident about the class by talking to them face to face. Or by just simply looking at them, I also can feel intuitively who might still have questions and need help. For students who have outgoing personalities, it’s easy for them to talk to me, and bring up questions. But for students who are shyer, I used to go talk to them. But right now I’m behind the screen, so it is challenging.”
To reach the shyer students, I’m thinking of keeping a record of who has contacted me, and checking in on those who have kept silent for more than two weeks. Maybe I can simply send them an email, and ask how they are doing.”
Resources
Chen has provided instructions on how to create a side-by-side video of her lecturing and playing the piano at the same time here and demonstrates the technique in the video below:
