Creating the Best Student-Teacher Dynamic- with the 4 Levels of Learning

Ever notice how when progress “isn’t being made fast enough,” teachers often blame the students, and students often blame the teachers?

A teacher-student relationship is like any other: a two-way street where each person holds responsibilities in their work toward an aligned goal. In this case, our goal is progress and mastery for the student. And like all relationships, communication about those responsibilities is key!

Using The 4 Levels of Learning framework as a guidepost and shared shorthand with my students (and my coaches!) has facilitated a really effective and rewarding dynamic!
I hope it will improve yours too! I’ll walk you through how….

I’m using “voice lesson” language as my framing device because that’s my world as both a voice student AND a voice teacher, but it can apply to all kinds of disciplines!

First, let’s talk about habits and mastery:

(cuz I can’t utter a sentence without talking about habits).

A large part of the “mastery” puzzle is the habituation of the motor skills and technical elements of a certain discipline.
A Tony Award-winning singer, a year into their show, is probably not actively thinking about widening their lower ribs on the inhale while onstage, (unless something out of the ordinary is happening in the moment and they need to anchor in to something reliable.) Their breath support coordination has been trained and practiced on this material enough times and in their lessons, practice sessions, rehearsals, and warmups, so it’s (more or less) an automatic response to the context of this show.
This way, they can be in the present moment while onstage.

Our technique is there to support our artistry, but it can only do so once it’s our habit.
Until then, our technique is yet another thing we have to “think” about, taking us out of the present moment.

Now let’s talk about how we get to habit…

The 4 Levels of Learning

The “4 Levels of Learning” framework has been around since the 70s but it’s not often discussed. Perhaps because once you hear it, it seems obvious. But I have found that embracing this framework has greatly improved my process, practice, mindset, and self-talk around my craft.

Especially as singers/artists, we are often in 1-1 learning situations, and it’s hard to know if we are “on track” because we don’t have classmates to compare ourselves to in the moment. We only have our own expectations of ourselves, and the Level 4 masters we consume all day.
This is a nice tool for pacing, grounding, and reframing.

The 4 levels of learning are the stages that take us from “I don't understand” → through → “I've mastered this skill, and it's my new habit”.

Level 1: Unconscious Incompetence: You don’t know what you don’t know
→“I don't know what I'm doing wrong.”
→ “I don’t know how to do it right yet.”

Level 2: Conscious Incompetence: You DO know what you’re doing wrong, and you’ve got some knowledge about how to do it right.
→“My lower ribs are supposed to widen when I inhale? I didn’t know that! Mine sure aren’t…”

Level 3: Conscious Competence: You can DO it if you really think about it.
→ “Ooh I did it! My ribs moved!” (but once I start thinking about the lyrics, I go back to my high ribcage breathing).

Level 4: Unconscious Competence: You do it correctly without thinking about it.
→ My ribs default to widening on the inhale! On to the next skill!

In short: this process takes us from brain → body → behavior/habit.

And they aren’t optional…They ARE ALL happening for every teeny, tiny skill within the skill.

These stages are especially present in singers because the motor skill habits we use in singing, we also use in everyday life (breathing and speaking). So we all have HABITS in these areas that are especially hard to break, and introducing “correct” function sometimes feels wrong or impossible! (For me, this was lifting my soft palate while belting. It felt literally impossible at first. But luckily, I’ve got some incredible coaches who helped me…granted…sometimes I STILL have to think about raising my soft palette in certain contexts…that’s how long it can take to get to level 4 sometimes…)

Now…let’s assign some responsibilities for Teachers and Students

In short (in my opinion)

• Teachers/Coaches should lead students from Level 1 → Level 3.25
  
  (Then, coaches are about 6% responsible for bringing students from Level 3.25 → Level 4)
  

• Students should lead themselves from Level 3.25 → Level 4
  (HINT…is what practice is for!!!)
  
  Let me explain…

Teacher’s Job:

The teacher is responsible for taking the student from
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!” to→
“Oh, now I get it, AND I can do it if I think about it!”

Level 1 → Level 2
Unconscious Incompetence → Conscious Incompetence

Teachers hear students’ goals, experiences, frustrations, and questions, watch them work (and ideally, praise what’s already going well!)

Then teachers identify what's missing, what could be better, and where the specific gaps in knowledge, skills, and technique are… bringing the student to Level 2: Conscious Incompetence. Now the student has some knowledge!

Level 2 → Level 3
Conscious Incompetence → Conscious Competence

Then the coach should guide the student through how to make those corrections with practical applications: exercises, stretches, drills, and tools, so the student not only knows how to do it, but is able to do it, bringing this new knowledge from the brain into the body.

Students…pause here… is your coach COACHING you?…
I've had some students tell me their previous coaches would only tell them what they were doing wrong and say things like “you need to sing louder and engage your breath support.” (bringing them from level 1 to level 2)…but then they would bail and put the responsibility to correct entirely on the student without providing any tools on how to do it!
So if you are a student in that learning situation, let me be the first to tell you that you don't have a coach, you have a critic, and you need to go find yourself a coach! …anyway!…)

Level 3 → Level 3.25
Conscious Competence → Conscious Competence (Unsupervised)

Teachers/coaches should supervise some attempts and make sure the student has it when they try it on their own. This will sound something like:

”Yeah, that was it. You did it!” 
“Nope. That wasn't it. Try again.”
“Not yet, let’s try this tool instead”.
“There you go!” That’s it! Now, can you do 3 correct in a row?”

Students should hopefully walk away from the lesson having done a few correct reps, and with a clear understanding of what “doing it correctly” looks, feels, and sounds like, thanks to the outside expert eyes and ears of their teachers/coaches. (No matter what level we’re at…we need outside expert eyes and ears on our work!)

Level 3.25 → Level 4:
Conscious Competence → Unconscious Competence

After a student has gone home and practiced (!) and returned to the lesson, teachers should either validate or course-correct the skill to make sure the student is still on track to form the correct habit and other sneaky habits or compensations aren’t sneaking in.

But teachers can only do that …IF… the student practices… which brings us to…

The Student’s Job:

Level 3.25→Level 4
Conscious Competence → Unconscious Competence

Going from:
“I can do it if I think about it” to → “I can do it without thinking about it!”
is 95% up to the student. And this is what practice is for!

Going from Level 1 to Level 3.25 can feasibly happen in a 1-hour lesson with a good coach.

But going from Level 3 to Level 4 takes MUCH longer,
because it takes SOOO many repetitions to become our automatic response (the definition of a habit).

If we are saving all of our reps for our lessons, we are setting ourselves up for slowed progress, mega frustration, (and a big money pit!!)

We keep getting the same corrections over and over again, we feel dumb or overwhelmed, and end up multitasking the entire lesson because our teacher wants to give us new information, new tools, and new improvements…because that’s what we’re paying them to do!

Teachers are there to teach, not babysit and supervise every single rep.

At the start of each lesson, we don’t pick up exactly where we left off in the last lesson- especially if we don’t deliberately practice- because we backslide into our old habits through the week.
We have to find the breakthrough all over again. (Granted it’s faster since we’re starting from Level 2, and have gotten some reps of Level 3 already…) But expecting these cues to be permanent without practice is, in a word… delusional.

Example/ Fun Fact: We take 20,000 breaths a DAY. So if you did ZERO practice reps of your singer’s breathing between your weekly lessons… You did 140,000 INCORRECT reps…let that sink in. No wonder you aren’t progressing “fast enough!”

So when your teacher says, “Did you practice?” “You gotta practice…”
“Okay, I know you’re busy, but remember you GOTTA practice!”

…THIS is why! They’re not being a nag. They don’t want to do your homework so you can pass the test. They want you to grow. They want you to succeed. They want to teach, not babysit.

What is “practice” for? 

(It’s for all kinds of things! I wrote a blog post about it)
But it’s largely for getting from Level 3 to Level 4: getting this tedious stuff that you know you’re supposed to do from your brain, to your body, and from your body into your behavior.

It’s to make the technical tedious skills a habit…

…so that you can learn new skills, continue your path to mastery, and stay present and ready when it’s time to hit the stage,

So, teachers and students alike:

Stay patient, curious, and focused on your mutual goal, and know that you are (both) indeed on the path to mastery!

Happy Practicing!
Happy Teaching!
And Happy Learning!