Sibelius Starclass

Starclass is published by Sibelius Software Ltd. It was created by

Vicki Thorpe and Michael Avery. The copyright for Starclass is 2003. The
content contained in Starclass is designed for grades K-8. It could be used
by General Music Teachers, Band and Choral Directors, and non-music
teachers.

Starclass will run on both Windows and Macintosh Platform

Computers. The only peripherals required for Starclass are speakers and
possibly a printer.

Content

Starclass is design to provide teachers with lesson plans for music lesson.
The software could be used in a general music course or in an ensemble
music class. The software is designed so that a classroom teacher who has
no prior music knowledge can also use it.

Program Flow

The program is set up with 6 different subject areas. The subject areas
covered are rhythm, pitch, dynamics and tempo, texture, form, and tone
color. Each subject area is divided into 6 topics.

The first topic, Teacher Development is provided for non music teachers to
prepare themselves to teach the lessons found in the other topics. Below is
an example of Teacher Development Lesson.

The Teacher
Development lessons
explain the required
content for non music
specialists to teach the
following lessons.
The next two topics Introductory Activities and General Class Activities
allow the teacher to start incorporating the lesson into your classes right
away. Below is an example of both types of lessons.

The next three topics provide opportunities for cross curricular studies.

Many of the cross curricular lessons provide two different slides for the
lesson, one is designed for the non music teacher and the second slide is
designed for a music specialist. The two examples shown below are of the
same lesson, but the right is the general lesson and the left is for the music
specialist.

While the general lesson is the same, the slide for the specialist provides
more opportunities for the music specialist to incorporate things such as
student compositions into the class.
Starclass also provides several different “paths” that the teacher can take.
Star class provides curriculums that are designed for grades 1-6 and points
out the specific lessons within the program that could be used.

The above example shows a path of lessons that could be used to teach the
MENC Grades K-4 Content Standard # 2 – Performing on instruments,
alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.

Starclass also provides a path that covers each one of the MENC Content
Standards. There are also paths that are designed for cross-curricular studies
in Dance, Drama, Literacy, Numeracy, Visual Arts, and Technology.

Starclass also provides an audio CD to accompany the lessons that shows

various examples of the topics being covered in the lessons.

I think probably the most useful application for Starclass is for a new music
teacher or the non music specialist who is teaching music in their class. The
program is very basic in my opinion, but it does organize the curriculum
very well structured manner. The software could possibly used for an
ensemble director to allow a student to do remedial work at a workstation by
themselves guided by the computer. However the program is defiantly more
geared for the teacher and not the student in my opinion.