Reply To: Using standards in every day planning

[nafmeadmin]

The skills that we have all been teaching for — at least, for generations — don’t go away under the Core Standards. Rather, they are still the building blocks that we use to help students achieve the overall goal of “music literacy” through the processes of Creating, Performing, and Responding. So the only thing that might change in this practice is thinking through how the knowledge and skills that you impart in the first lessons of the year will support the enduring understandings of the standards. How will those two or three notes lead to the ability to perform — or even improvise — a piece by the end of the period? How can the knowledge of instrument set-up lead to a better understanding of the context of the music? Only you, as an expert educator who knows the needs of the students in your class, can adequately answer this. I’d suggest that you look at some of the draft exemplars of knowledge and skills tracking to the stnadards listed at nafme.org/standards. You’ll notice that there are a number of different approaches. That’s because music teachers are so creative!