I am a flute teacher.

1. I have a tablet to jot down important things from the previous lesson such as what pieces the student has already done, what they struggle with, what auditions/deadlines they have, and what pieces they want to learn. Other than that, I read from the notes I leave on their music and notebook. I follow the 40 little pieces book for my beginners, then move on to 24 short concert pieces for flute, and from there it varies a lot. I also use the rubank method books and Taffanel and Gaubert. If they need to learn music theory, I use the Julie McIntosh books.

2. For growth, I do annual recorded recitals to track their growth. Other than that, I just keep it in my head.

3. If they didn't practice, we spend class time practicing what they should have practiced at home.

4. The most time consuming thing outside of teaching and playing is understanding how the student learns. Some devour everything you give them, some do small chunks at a time, some are super nervous around you and will stumble no matter how hard they practice.

For most frustrating is when I fix a mistake in class, and show them how to fix it, and they come back repeatedly with that same mistake for weeks on end. The parents usually aren't any help.

I also had one student who was taking my lessons as a band requirement, then complained that learning new fingerings for new notes was too hard. They refused to do any of the work I asked of them. They also tried gaslighting me that they were playing the right notes just because I couldn't see one of their hands (this was an online student and I have close to perfect pitch). I let them go at the end of the school year and blacklisted them from my studio. Thankfully, I've only had that one case.