Activities and Discussion
Activity: Workshop Discussion
Hold a discussion about what collaboration looks like in participants’ schools. (10 minutes)
Be sure to talk about the challenges, realities, and logistics of collaborative planning and teaching, as well as the benefits.
Apply what you’ve seen in the program to your own teaching. (40 minutes)
Break into discussion groups, with each group concentrating on a particular segment of the program. Have groups report the highlights of their conversations to the group as a whole.
Questions for Segment One:
- What strengths did you notice about the partnership that exists between the two teachers in the Who’s Coming to Dinner segment? What problems?
- Describe a teaching partnership you or colleagues have been involved in. What were some similarities and differences between this and the one seen in the Who’s Coming to Dinner segment?
Questions for Segment Two:
- In this segment, how successful did the collaboration between the teacher and visiting artist appear to be?
- Describe an experience you have had collaborating with a visiting artist. Was it a positive experience for you? Your students? The Visiting Artist? Why or why not?
- What skills or preparation or resources that one needs to make a collaboration with a visiting artist successful?
Questions for Segment Three:
- How can an institution, such as the museum that appears in this segment, extent the learning environment beyond the school?
- What are some cultural institutions that play a role in your own teaching practices? Do you considered these “collaborations”? Why or why not?
- There were a lot of teachers working on the project in this segment. What challenges would arise at your school in managing such an extensive collaboration?
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