Activities and Discussion

Activity: Inventory Your Integrated Teaching

Rationale

Participants may be unaware of the ways their teaching already draws on multiple disciplines. This exercise encourages teachers on both sides of the arts and non-arts divide to listen actively to one another, and find connections between the things they care about and do.

Complete a Self-Inventory of Your Integrated Teaching (15 minutes)

Distribute copies of the Integrated Teaching Self-Inventory (PDF) and have each participant fill it out. This is good way for participants to get prepared for the next step.

Describe your integrated teaching to the group. (20 minutes)

Participants should describe for the group an example of the integrated teaching they do. They should identify which of these collaborative approaches they use most often:

Independent Instruction	Teachers in different disciplines teach in their own classrooms.
Team-Teaching	Two or more teachers plan and teach together.
Community Resources	Teachers work with artists, educators, and other local resources such as museums

Summarize the integrated teaching that the group already does. (15 minutes)

Ask the group to help summarize the kinds of integrated teaching they already do. Consider these questions:

• What disciplinary interconnections are most common? Why?
• What types of collaboration are most prevalent – teaching independently, team teaching? Why?
• What new or surprising things did you learn about your colleagues’ work outside their own discipline? How might you build on this?

 

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