My first 3 years I taught my class as a general music class and had written work for all or part of class several times a week. That's how I dealt with it because I didn't know what to do either. By the third year, I was getting irritated with "wasting time" on busy work because I was pretty much able to fill the entire class period.
I generally broke my class up like this:
Students practice their piece of the week as I take roll and do other beginning of class tasks.
Note-reading whole-class instruction
Individual practice time
Note-reading review with whole class
Bonus activity such as playing the blues, playing chords or working on a cool riff. Later in the year this is often ensemble rehearsal time.
This is just a general idea. Second semester I spent a lot more time on chords. So the chord instruction actually replaced the note-reading time and we were working ensemble music at the end of class.
Teaching methods
I have found that the most important factor in being able to keep students engaged for an entire class period is the way you teach. Having taught years of private guitar lessons, I kind of approached classroom teaching the same way, and it was really difficult. The method of explaining, asking them to perform it while you move their fingers, stopping them and explaining again like you might be inclined to do in a private lesson is slow and frustrating.
The incredible thing about the guitar is that you can talk while playing. For example, if you're introducing the note E on the first string, just start playing it on a pulse of quarter notes. Instruct them to play with you and that no matter what, you're not going to stop pulsing. You can walk around the room and correct things, taking time to look at what each student is doing. Then, while you continue to play as a class, you say something like, "Now I'm going to show you how to play the note F. I'm going to move my finger to F, but I don't want you to move until I say, 'F, ready, go'."
Then you show them how you finger F, taking note of the position of the thumb and other fingers. Then you tell them that when you say, "F, ready, go" you're all going to play it. When they change to the new note, half of them may be doing something wrong. This is the point where I used to stop the entire class and say, "Wait, wait. Look. It's this.... I said, 'Stop playing!". It's much easier to let them continue pulsing the new note while you go around and move fingers, give verbal instruction and/or instruct everyone to look at their neighbor and make sure she's doing it correctly.
I know I've posted something about this before, but I used this technique all year and it greatly reduced my stress in teaching guitar. I learned it at the GAMA workshop and give proper credit in the posts about that workshop. At this moment, I can't remember the instructor's name, but he wasn't even a big guitar player. He was a choral music guy who basically learned to play so that he could teach some guitar.
Individual Practice Time
During this time I generally walk around helping students who are having trouble and give enrichment assignments to students who are ahead. I had a lot of skill levels in my room of 6th, 7th and 8th graders and by the end of the first 9 weeks of school they were on many different levels including special education. I used this practice time to walk around and give students their assignment for Piece of the Week, marking it in their book.
Of course, in doing this, you eventually get to the point that kids aren't equally engaged in the whole-group instruction time. You'll have kids that are lost and kids that are a litttle bored. That's why it's important to have efficient classroom teaching practices that can help keep these times short and sweet. Then, at the end of class, supplement with something such as blues improvisation or a new riff so that everyone is on more equal footing.
In a future post I hope to cover teaching the blues. The blues and improvisation are great ways to fill time and are essential for any classroom guitar teacher.
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