Guitar with Norman T.

Music&Arts, Pittsford, NY

For the past 10 years I have been teaching at Pittsford Music&Arts, and I love it! I am currently teaching guitar, classical guitar, electric bass, five-string banjo, tenor banjo, mandolin, and ukulele to about 30-35 students per week, year round. I began with two students; after six months I had more students than any other guitar teacher; after 12 months I had more students than any teacher in the history of the store. Music&Arts is a 100+ store national chain, affiliated with Guitar Center and musiciansfriend.com.

Allendale-Columbia School

Taught private guitar and ukulele lessons in the Encore Program after school at Allendale-Columbia School in Brighton, NY.

Xerox Corporation; Eastman Kodak; Johnson & Johnson

Experience as a corporate writer, writing and editing instructions, curricula, and technical documentation, and designing training for Fortune 500 companies in the Rochester, NY area. Clients included Xerox Corporation, Eastman Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson.

Rochester City School District

Three years experience teaching classroom general music in urban public schools. Taught grade levels, K-8.

Northeastern Middle school

Three years experience teaching band, choir, guitar, and classroom general music in urban and suburban private schools. Taught all grade levels, K-12.

Hochstein School of Music and Dance

For 12 years (over a period of about 20 Years) I worked at Hochstein School of Music and Dance (Rochester, NY), teaching jazz, pop, folk, and classical guitar in private lessons, classes, and ensembles. One of the largest community music schools in the U.S., Hochstein has over 2,400 students taking music and dance lessons each week.

Norman Tibbils Guitar Training

Five years experience teaching group guitar classes in 15 private elementary and middle schools in Rochester, NY, at one point reaching 225 students per week.

House of Guitars, Inc.

For five years in the glorious, heavy guitar 1980s, I taught guitar lessons to 40 students a week at a local music store, at the height of the Heavy Metal boom. I would like to personally thank Led Zeppelin and Eddie Van Halen for providing me with the funds to buy my first house!

University of Miami (FL)

Eastman School of Music (NY)

Rochester Institute of Technology (NY)

Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY)

Nazareth College of Rochester (NY)

Mager Consortium (administered at Rochester Institute of Technology)

The Criterion Referenced Instruction (CRI) framework developed by Robert Mager is a comprehensive set of methods for the design and delivery of training programs. Some of the critical aspects include: (1) goal/task analysis -- to identify what needs to be learned, (2) performance objectives -- exact specification of the outcomes to be accomplished and how they are to be evaluated (the criterion), (3) criterion referenced testing -- evaluation of learning in terms of the knowledge/skills specified in the objectives, (4) development of learning modules tied to specific objectives. Training programs developed in CRI format tend to be self-paced courses involving a variety of different media (e.g., workbooks, videotapes, small group discussions, computer-based instruction). Students learn at their own pace and take tests to determine if they have mastered a module. A course manager administers the program and helps students with problems. CRI is based upon the ideas of mastery learning and performance-oriented instruction.

Native Proficiency