Curriculum Content in the Music Room
Major Goals and Objectives
Guidelines for curriculum are set by national organizations, school districts, research groups, and parents across the country. They vary from district to district. They depend on the priorities set and the financial support given by the local communities. Federal Grants funded by Congress play an important part in initiating and training for new education models.
In the Clark County School District’s Orff Program, goals and purposes have been under constant review. CCSD’s Orff Program has been a leader in the nation contributing a strong voice in the national dialogue.
Broad strokes of national trends are found in the documents of the district curriculum. For example, integrated curriculum and evaluation/assessment goals are now included. On the national level, the Core Commonalities have been the latest curriculum outline submitted for reflection.
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Focus on the Child
Activities in the curriculum are based on the age and developmental stage of the child. No single approach to a lesson meets the needs of every student. The music specialist is constantly searching for ways to insure every child is involved and successful in the class activities.
Sample Activities
The curriculum features all parts of the musical experience: moving, speaking/singing, listening, playing, reading/notating, and creating/improvising. It also approaches music in a holistic manner incorporating rhythm, melody, harmony, form, and expression.
Plans in the 50 minute Clark County music lessons are arranged with multiple activities, often using seven to eleven activities in the primary classroom and three to five activities in an intermediate grade. They vary based on the attention span of each age group and class.
Activities often overlap from week to week; goals and objectives build from year to year.
Assessment, Evaluation, and Grading
Observation is the best tool in the music teacher’s hands. Written testing is the least used in the elementary music classroom. Most often, group and individual discussion, performance, and individual demonstration are the qualifying factors. Based on evaluation by the teacher, lessons in the future can be modified, hastened, or slowed to teach or re-teach material not mastered. Demonstrations, concerts, conversations, and grades communicate the child’s learning to the parent.
“Music is a universal language, one that affirms so authentically the rich diversity of human experience across cultures.” Ernest L. Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The First Orff Curriculum
Sue Morrow created a Music Curriculum Task Force to write an Orff Music Guide in the 1980-81 school year. Randy DeLelles, Gloria Fuoco-Lawson, Jeff Kriske, Nancy Schkurman, Eldine Stevens, and Virginia Wells were part of this task force. The task force worked a full year to develop the initial list of skills and topics to be covered and taught at each grade level. In the l981-82 school year, editing, testing, and refining was done. Additional Task Force writers for the second and third revisions of the Orff Curriculum documents included: Cathy Ameling, Marilyn Brown, Karla Canfield, Deborah Cenna, Rossana Cota, Liz Goodman,
Rhonda Greeson, Karen Higgins, Kay Lehto, Andre Long, Sue Loser, Sue Mueller, Jackie Walker, and Douglas Wilson. Polly Hahn and Bruce Behnke contributed to Technological Indexing and Music Typesetting. UNLV Music Professor, Darva Campbell, also contributed to the Kindergarten and Grade One Documents.
Front Row L.R., Virginia Wells, Gloria Fuoco-Lawson.
Back row, Sue Morrow, Randy DeLelles, Nancy Schkurman, Jeff Kriske. Circa 1981-82
“Music is a universal language, one that affirms so authentically the rich diversity of human experience across cultures.” Ernest L. Boyer, President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
-Albert Einstein
The elementary music specialists in CCSD are some of the finest in the United States. Their Clark County School District Orff Curriculum has been presented nationally ten times at the American Orff-Schulwerk Association Conferences and at the Music Educators National Conferences. It has been shared with thirty states and four foreign countries. In addition, many of the CCSD elementary music educators are composers of music for children and are published throughout the world.
Among the teacher leaders and national presenters are Cathy Ameling, Thom Borden, Debbie Cenna, Rossana Cota, Randy DeLelles, Gloria Fuoco-Lawson, Liz Goodman, Rhonda Greeson, Jeff Kriske, Kay Lehto, Carol Meckstroth, Karen Medley, Sue Mueller, and Tim Wiegand. Nancy Schkurman, Barbara Good, and Sue DeHart have also served as presenters as well as Clark County School District Elementary Music Coordinators.
New Grade Level Expectations Committee
In 2011-2012, a Music Task Force was formed to update and revise the CCSD Elementary Music Curriculum objectives, now called Grade Level Expectations. The task force was chaired by Barbara Good. Task Force members included: Cathy Ameling, Sue DeHart, Jacqueline Garcia, Rhonda Greeson, Martin Marsh, Kathy Pelletier, Allison Stewart, and Andrea Van Eaton. These new Grade Level Expectations as well as supportive documents are housed in the on-line resource Curriculum Engine. All music specialists, as well as classroom teachers, use this Curriculum Engine to post their lesson plans. Grading is also done on-line using a new resource, Infinite Campus.
Key to the Sampler Revision Task Force
In the 2015-16 school year, a Music Task Force moved forward with updates of a Curriculum Document, the Key to the Sampler. This document will contain overviews of K-5 Curriculum Grade Level Expectations, information on Long-Range and Daily Planning, Sample Assessments, Evaluation Tools, and Grading in Elementary Music, as well as Bibliography and References. It will also include technological updates currently used by the teachers. Task Force members who were selected for this vital revision include: Mike Esposito, Jacqueline Garcia, Kristen Kuhn, Kathleen Platt, Sarah Robinson, and Allison Stewart. The committee is chaired by Susan DeHart. The revision is expected to be ready to be shared during the 2016-2017 school year. Orff teachers are learners, thinkers, writers, and evaluators. They have high standards and reach out to include many teachers in their learning network. The curriculum is constantly growing and changing to make it compatible with current student needs and to advance effectiveness at the school level.
