“What do you mean, there’s no textbook? What are we going to teach from?”
That was the question from the choir teacher in January of my first year teaching. Sheila (not her real name) had been hired mid-year to replace the previous choir teacher, who resigned over winter break. Sheila’s disbelief was in reference to our high school music appreciation class, specifically to the idea that we were going to write the content ourselves. She simply couldn’t fathom it: how could the two of us create not just worksheets and tests, but reading assignments and projects too?
I admit it; I’d been pretty nervous about it myself at the beginning of the school year. I was looking forward to the opportunity to stretch the band students with some music theory and history, but wasn’t quite sure how I’d manage with no textbooks, no curriculum materials, and no budget. This was a pilot course as a result of block scheduling issues, so I had nothing from the previous teacher to build on either. The choir teacher had a parallel section of music appreciation for her students, so at least I knew I’d have someone to collaborate with. But we’d basically need to write everything from scratch.
Before the school year started, Jenny (the first choir teacher) purchased some materials for a unit on rock history. It was a little basic for high school students, but it gave us a six-week head start on pulling together content for the rest of the year. For first semester, we alternated creating materials for units. I pulled out my jazz history notes from college and wrote an overview, timeline, and bios; Jenny built a unit around musicals from her expertise. It consumed a lot of time, especially since we were researching and writing basically everything the students read. After all, we were effectively writing our own mini-textbook. But it was also a lot of fun.
Second semester came around, and Sheila started teaching. For the first two weeks, she asked me nearly every day where the textbooks were. I think she imagined I was hiding them from her, playing some elaborate joke on her. Ultimately, she wasn’t willing to put in the time to create content herself, even with my help. She found a collection of music theory worksheets and taught from those for the rest of the year.
I continued creating content on my own for my section of music appreciation. I gradually learned to make better use of online resources so I wasn’t writing so much from scratch. I discovered I could find decent biographies of many composers online, for example. I still ended up spending a lot of time researching and summarizing when I couldn’t find sources I was happy with though.
That work writing a mini-textbook helped me realize how much I enjoy creating curriculum. And in many ways, it’s similar to the work I do now as an instructional designer. I’m no longer the content expert as I was then; that’s what we have SMEs for. I do more online research now, and I think it’s easier to find quality materials online now than it was then. Writing for face-to-face teaching isn’t the same as writing for online, and writing content to teach yourself isn’t the same as writing content for someone else to teach.
But I’m still researching, writing, and creating, just like I was then, trying to craft great learning experiences. That is the essence of what I do as an instructional designer. And I still think it’s fun.
Image Credit: High School Music Room from Rob Lee’s photostream
