Collaborative Teaching Exercises
Interdisciplinary Instruction Through Cross Curricular Activities
Dec 2, 2008
Collaborative teaching exercises enrich the curriculum and allow teachers to share in a meaningful experience, bringing together diverse expertise and enhancing collegial respect. Collaboration adds direction to writing across the curriculum, field trip planning, integrated lesson planning, and team teaching. Additionally, students benefit by content reinforcement through various classes and grade levels.
Writing Across the Curriculum
Writing skills are receiving new attention in many school districts as a result of more frequent testing in conjunction with No Child Left Behind accountability assessments. Additionally, the SAT recently added a writing component to the examination, in part to emphasize a crucial concern of colleges and universities that are admitting students with poor writing skills.
Rather than assigning separate papers in, for example, English and Social Studies classes, teacher grade level meetings can address a cross curricular paper or essay assignment that will satisfy the goals of two or more different departments. This can be achieved in any combination of departments, including Science and Math. Cooperative assessment design will allow students to spend more time on the project while addressing several diverse requirements.
Field Trip Planning
Visiting an art gallery, museum, or attending a play or concert presents teachers of various disciplines with an opportunity for collaboration. Taking students to see a production of Hamlet, for example, can satisfy the history, English, and Arts curriculum. A concert might fulfill goals in music, history, and English. A Science sponsored trip to the zoo or museum can also be aligned with curricular aims in other departments.
Foreign summer trips are an excellent way to integrate goals. A trip to Spain, for example, can involve foreign language department goals as well as address those of history and the arts. South Pacific trips can link Social Studies and Science. The popular Costa Rica tours can achieve collaborative results in foreign language, science, and social studies curricula.
Integrated Lesson Planning
Integrated lesson plans are some of the best ways to reinforce taught concepts and enable a high level of interdisciplinary collaboration. A Social Studies unit on slavery can work in tandem with similar concepts taught in an English literature classroom. Music and Art lesson plans can parallel concepts through, for example, a study of antebellum spirituals and the many depictions of Southern slavery.
For a spectacular closing, have all participating classes and teachers meet in one central location, such as the school library, to discuss the various aspects of the cross curricular experience. This kind of session will also allow for feedback so that future collaborative efforts can be refined to meet all student needs.
Team Teaching
Team teaching represents one of the easiest ways to achieve a rich collaborative experience. Working together in planning and facilitating specific lesson plans, teacher teams can vary perspectives and focuses that point toward common objectives and outcomes. Team teaching can pair a new teacher with a mentor, thus achieving professional development goals as well. Team teaching also enhances student cooperative learning projects and classroom activities by achieving a greater depth of classroom interaction.
Summary
Sadly, there is too little collaboration in schools today, particularly on the high school level. Some teachers are reluctant to give up perceptions of classroom independence. In some cases, teaching schedules do not permit meaningful collaboration (although some methods of interdisciplinary collaboration can be achieved in classes that meet at different times). Long term results, however, ensure a richer learning experience for students while simultaneously linking colleagues in strong academic relationships from which all parties benefit.
