Overview:
Curriculum helps an effective teacher plan the educational process or procedure by outlining a sequential and continuous chain of lessons and activities to achieve specific educational goals. The curriculum should be relevant to the needs of the students and functional within the educational system. Music educators who don’t plan do not provide themselves with sufficient time for self- reflection and creative thinking. To paraphrase Winston Churchill – if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
- Describe the foundations for curriculum development,
- Define the elements of an effective curriculum,
- Identify and describe age- and grade-appropriate behaviors for elementary school music students,
- Identify the auxiliary components (media, materials, texts) that assist in implementing a music curriculum,
- Examine theories for how children learn
- Begin to identify instructional strategies and classroom behaviors for younger students.
Module Summary
A strong music curriculum is the responsibility of the music educator. Teachers must understand how to identify age- and grade-appropriate goals, write sound behavioral objectives, select high-quality materials and resources, and write lessons based on effectively sequenced music activities.
This module outlined the development and design of curriculum for creating effective music lessons for active learners. To keep young students engaged music educators must study and practice designing exciting and motivating lessons for students of all ability levels. Essential to this is investigating the best practices for how young students learn and internalize music skills.