Curriculum Mapping: Cohesive Planning for Effective Instruction; Part 1: Curriculum Evolution

Back in February, I presented on this topic at the Texas Music Educator’s Association annual convention.  I’m posting an overview of the presentation here for my faithful readers. 🙂

But first………

I am no master musician, music teacher, curriculum builder, or anything but I do love to learn and improve.  This presentation is the culmination of trial & error, continuous improvement, and the minds of others instead of just myself.

I started teaching in the Fall of 2006.  I knew I was supposed to teach the TEKS (the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) but, other than that, I was clueless.  Anyone else in that boat?

Luckily, there were more experienced music teachers willing and able to get me through those first years of survival.  This was the first my first “road-map” of what to teach.  We won’t got into detail about those years…….

A few years later, I was in a different district and the choir director for the high school wanted all the elementary music teachers to teach the same thing at the same time (which, as a side note, is a great thought, however, that is a whole other discussion that I won’t go into this minute).  We were giving a list of skills and vocabulary to be taught to each grade level for each of the six weeks.  It obviously was not a perfect document or set-up, ergo the inclusion in the evolution rather than the culmination.

Fast forward just a year later and I’m in another new district.  This time, it is the head of Curriculum and Instruction that wants everyone, including fine arts and PE, to create this Year at a Glance document.  This is the template that was given to me to create my own versions for each grade level.

Although this document seems to work for everyone else, it seemed lacking to me.  Vague.

Then, I met a fellow music teacher who also lived in Texas and taught in the same city as me.  We became fast friends and worked well together fleshing out ideas.  It was her idea first to spread out the concepts across weeks of the school year like a calendar.

She probably would have expanded her idea even further and presented on it herself if she hadn’t tragically passed away soon after this.

This is what my lesson plans looked like around this time.  My goal was to create a document that would house, not only a Year at a Glance, but my lesson plans as well.

This is what that document looked like. Below is what it looks like now.

Intrigued?  Want to create your own?

Stay tuned!