I'm working on a contract basis right now, sadly away from my piano and from my lessons.

I have located a school where I am working where I can take lessons month-to-month, and I bring a keyboard with me to practice in my hotel room.

I am at 4 years right now, about 2/3 through the 5th Alfred books, although I do not have the speed yet to do the Clementi Sonatina at tempo.

My question to the teachers out there is, with a student at my level, if you were to set month-to-month goals, i.e. teach one thing each month, do you have any suggestions of what to work on?

Hi,
You show great dedication in carry a keyboard to your destination. You will be rewarded with better playing because you will be working towards your goal of being a great musician.
You should methodically work on everything your teacher gave you as assignments and use the extra time to go forward in your books.
I have spent a lot of time in hotel rooms practicing over the years while on the road and for extra practice I often turn on a music channel on the tv set and figure out the chord progressions to the songs playing on the tv.
Depending on the hotel you are in, there may be a piano there. You can ask (or bribe) the hotel people for use of the piano in some situations. It will depend on the personnel at the hotel and also the location of the piano-most hotel staff and guests have trouble listening to us practice exercises, but you could probably practice your actual pieces on the hotel piano. If they offer you money, accept it on behalf of your art.

yeah..if you move around a lot, it's kind of hard to set a circulum, I think you should have 1 piece in mind, and try to learn and polish it within 4 weeks.

On top of that, you can certainly caching on with theory pracitce, and if you have a keyboard with you, you can even do some ear-training, such as chord recognition, chord progression.
You can also add in some finger exercises to build technic when you can't work on a piece if you are too busy.

Thanks, all! My temporary teacher solved the problem by watching my playing and determining that I can better use rest time to be setting up my hand for the next position!! It is not something that is coming very easily or naturally to me, but I can surely see the benefit iof retraining myself that way.

Actually, Rob, there is a Yamaha C3 in the cafeteria of the hospital I am working for at the moment. It has a player, but is never used because the patrons do not like it. They said I can come by and play it after dinner hours, but I have not yet.. frankly I don't relish the idea of practicing in public, and possibly annoying people who are in stressful situations (Headline: Amateur Pianist Beheaded By Angry Visitor)

Thanks for all the suggestions!