me arts ed

This post was submitted by Mary O’Brien and Katharine Ayer who were part of the Title II-D Open Educational Resource grant for integrated arts education that was administered by Syntiro. Therese Bernier-Burns was the project manager and did an outstanding job encouraging and supporting the teachers who were involved. This is the first in a series of posts on the work the teams did who collaborated.  

The Women of Pakistan

This past school year Manchester Elementary School teachers: Ms. Ayer, art teacher and Mrs. O’Brien, third grade teacher co-taught an integrated unit based on the book Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson. We were inspired by the  beautiful collage illustrations by Susan L. Roth and the incredible story of friendship, helping those in need, and peace. Our integrated unit focused on learning about a different country and culture, retelling a story, creating a collage background and puppet characters, and acting out the retelling. By using the co-teaching model of instruction we were able to integrate art, social studies, reading, writing, and technology.  Our students gained greater perspective of the lesson because of this integration.

Co-teaching between a classroom teacher and art teacher allowed students to benefit from the visual and kinetic involvement of creating puppets and collage backgrounds related to the story. The puppets and the collage background increased their awareness of the geography and culture of the region. The use of puppets to learn about another culture made it seem real to each student. This hands-on experience of creating helped them to learn deeply as they took ownership of the project and embodied their character.

The integration of technology is highly motivating to students. Ongoing throughout this project the students took digital photographs and video taped their progress. The use of VoiceThreads allowed students to express their ideas easily. This co-teaching experience reaffirmed that students want to work on projects that they view as important and making a difference in the world. Young people benefit from feeling empowered to make decisions, be responsible, and create in a non threatening environment.

Co-teaching works well because students gain additional perspective having two teachers involved in the same learning project. Each teacher brings their own specialty to the lesson. In addition, if there are two teachers in room it is easier to engage all students. Our only hesitation is that the specialist and classroom teacher need to have common planning time.