Curriculum Development Project
For my main course project, I developed 8 weeks of a high school beginning guitar class curriculum, including a curriculum diagram, spreadsheet with unit objectives, and daily slides. This project was used as an Honors Contract, where I completed some of my Honors Program credits. The course outlined is structured as a general music course organized around the guitar, rather than a guitar proficiency course.
Level 1: Scope and Sequence Diagram
The curriculum scope diagram is used to define the concept areas that students will learn about in a class. Additionally, the diagram outlines how content will be sequenced over a certain amount of time. My curriculum is for 8 weeks, broken up over 4 units with 6 concept areas.
Diagram Draft (Left) and Revision (Right)
After building a draft of the curriculum, I made revisions to the first unit and overall framework. For the overview diagram, this came in the form of redefining the scope slightly. I combined Form into Music Theory, and added Singing Lyrics in its place, since that’s an important skill that goes along with guitar. This addition also aligns the scope more clearly with a general music paradigm.
Level 2: Curricular Table and Spreadsheets
The unit objectives, topics, and standards are detailed in a spreadsheet document that breaks down the skills and outcomes for each. This is the foundational document of sorts for any curriculum, and is designed to adjust to the reality of teaching the course. Each sheet covers an individual strand, or category, on the scope and sequence diagram so that they align.
Spreadsheet Draft (Left) and Spreadsheet Revision (Right) – Links Included
In my revision, I reorganized the units to be centered around one song each. This song is repertoire chosen specifically as context all of the concepts in that unit. The first unit song is “Stir it Up” by Bob Marley. With an easy chord progression, simple melody, and standard form, it’s an ideal candidate to teach I-IV-V in G Major, verse-chorus form, melody singing, picking a melody, and to learn about Reggae music. I also aligned each unit with an essential question from the NAfME standards.
Level 3: Daily Class Slides
The daily slides are the curriculum’s representation on the ground. For this project, the focus was the curricular slides which describe the activities for the class period. In the draft, I included instructional slides for concepts, but I did not do so in the revision.
Slides Draft (Left) and Slides Revision (Right) – Links Included
The draft curriculum as a whole needed spacing out – there was far too much content to cover comprehensively. So along with spacing out content over more time, I structured the class periods around a more logical sequence. In this class, we learned about the culturally responsive teaching cycle of “ignite, chunk, chew, create,” so each day is now organized around one concept. Additionally, NAfME standards essential questions and standards of the unit are included on each slide.