Todays professional development was awesome! Several teachers at our school participate in a program called I.D.E.A. (Intensive Development in Education through the Arts) and they conducted a few short classes teaching the rest of us a few things they do in their classrooms.
The first class I went to was using stretchies to teach geometry. A stretchy is basically just a circular piece of elastic material. Students use the stretchies to make shapes, angles, and other geometric figures using their bodies. They can also use JUST their bodies to make different shapes, lines, and angles. I will try to find the video they showed of our kindergartners using the stretchies. It was awesome!
The second class I attended was called Freeze Tag Tableau. Tableau is just a fancy word for frozen picture with your body! I am attaching the document that explains how to do Freeze Tag Tableaus. These are quick and easy assessments of what your students have learned. They help keep each individual student accountable for sharing what they have learned.
A lot of the IDEA teaching strategies come from the Kennedy Center teaching artists in Washington, D.C. Sean Layne visits our school and comes in to help IDEA teachers implement these arts into their classrooms. If you are interested in having your school participate, you should check out what they have to offer.
In this book I am reading for my comparative international education course, there was a chapter comparing Japan and the U.S. It mentioned that in Japan, teachers usually have a say in what their professional development activities are...wouldn't that be nice? I am glad that you were excited about the I.D.E.A because it's always so rejuvinating to get good ideas and be motivated by good P.D. days.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out, we actually do get a pretty good say in some of the professional development. That's nice for a change! And it's not always the same boring crap like my last school!
ReplyDeleteI got my master's degree a few years ago in "integrated teaching through the arts." (Thanks Lesley University!) While I was in the program, I tried out all sorts of fun, new ideas on my students, but now that I'm back into the daily grind of teaching, without anyone giving me creative assignments to tryout on my class, I find that I forget to make time for the all important, arts integrated lessons! Thanks for reminding me how much fun it can be (and congrats on having a productive and useful professional development meeting! Lucky you!)
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