Remember the term Team Teaching? It was a pretty cool idea, but it faded away into a bit of a foggy memory once the world of 2.o caught the attention of collaborative teachers everywhere. Online PD is all the rage right now, which is a good thing (actually a great thing), but I want to revisit the practice of team teaching. Now, more than ever, we can use technology to connect with other educators who can add some spice to our daily teaching recipes and whip up an entirely new dish.
In a discussion regarding the best book to teach art history, my friend Ian Sands vehemently defended ‘Secret Lives of Great Artists’, so I decided to download the sacred parchment to check it out. Official admission: Ian was right. It’s absolutely awesome.
The stories were so interesting that I was inspired to create a new project for students that is based on research, but appeals to their interests (hopefully):
Go ahead & click on the picture. Fill out the form — it’s not just for students. 🙂
After having some serious fun making up the questions for the Google form (who needs hand-outs anymore? They just get lost in lockers & backpacks), I thought I’d have some more fun & use our class hash tag to drop some hints for budding art historians.
After sharing the project with my #artsed PLN & getting some nice feedback, I thought it would be neat to have them participate too… and they did!
These teachers were able to help my students with their assignment, providing information that I wasn’t familiar with. Techy team teaching. Now, Ian’s class has joined up & is submitting responses on the same form as my class — responses that I can share with my students to review & maybe even use to encourage them a bit.
Am I guilty of having way more fun with this than my students? We’ll see.
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Northern Art Teacher 