Anyway, my next-door neighbor and I no longer have to talk over one another in our instruction -- a sound barrier (read: finished wall) has been installed! Don't get me wrong -- I bet that open-concept classrooms could work as intended if you had multiple teachers, grade levels, and professional development geared toward that model...but that's not what we're dealing with at Pikesville High School.
Now onto instruction. I've learned a lot about history through sports in these first three weeks, and I thought I would dread the class because of all the extra work going into learning new content and structuring an 80-minute lesson around it. Well, the kids are pumped about learning and sharing opinions about their views on political, social, and economic history through a medium that is comfortable for them: sports. So far, we've covered most of a unit on Olympics and History, including the history surrounding Berlin, Mexico City, Munich, and Lake Placid. Well, one of my colleagues approached me on Wednesday to ask if we could do a joint observation lesson with my "sports" class, and I'm all for it. In fact, three of us will be merging physical education, business education, and history into an 80-minute observation lesson with my kids -- talk about transdisciplinary planning, implementation, and learning! Since we're in the early stages of brainstorming, I don't have many more details than that, but I am inspired to blog about it and document it so that other teachers might see the value in transdisciplnary approaches to instruction. I'm also very fortunate that I have an administration that is supportive of this approach and encouraging us to take on this challenge.
So, look for more on that in a couple of weeks! Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.
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