Designing Interactive Teaching Materials for College-Level Jazz History Courses: Primary and Secondary Resources as Main Aids

Abstract: A solid understanding of the history of jazz is crucial for young students preparing for their careers as professional jazz musicians. It is also important for them to know how jazz influenced recent pop/commercial music and what made jazz so unique in different eras. The increasing availability of textbooks on the history of jazz has widely contributed to the need for courses on the subject and included a massive amount of information, but is there any other way to engage students in learning and listening in class without textbooks? Could there be innovative ideas beyond traditional lectures to keep the class fun and vibrant? This article focuses on teaching jazz history in an interactive way by providing templates of assignments, slides, and handouts based on presentations of primary and secondary resources. With primary resources (such as recordings, photographs, and transcribed interviews) and secondary resources (album reviews, for example), students will be able to comprehend and examine historical facts critically.