The Teacher As Curator Part One: Overview

Welcome to The Teacher As blog where I explore areas in which educators and other professions intersect. Teachers’ passions outside the classroom that inform their teaching will also be an area of focus for this blog and soon to be podcast. You have probably heard people compare teaching to other professions like coaches or therapists. The Teacher As will highlight some common and not so common metaphors to teaching. Most importantly, there will be practical ideas shared that you can use in your classroom. The Teacher As blog and podcast are for anyone looking for creative ways to improve their students’ confidence, engagement, and achievement.

The teacher metaphor I will investigate in these first four blog posts is the teacher as curator. What is the job of a museum/gallery curator and what can we glean from their work? What does it mean to curate ideas for a lesson or an entire unit of study?

Curate: to collect, select and present information or items such as pictures, video, music, etc. for people to use or enjoy, using your professional or expert knowledge.

Below is an overview of the next three posts that focus on the process I took to curate my multiplication/division unit this past fall.

Collect

When planning a new lesson or unit or trying to liven up an old one, the collection process is the first step. Gathering materials, strategies, and any other resources that you may or may not eventually use is a valuable use of planning time. In the next three blog posts, I will share the process I went through to develop my third grade multiplication/division unit this past fall with the new lens of implementing math workshop.

Luckily, my district did a good deal of “collecting” for us. They recently adopted the workshop model for reading, writing, and math. We were provided the Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study for reading and writing, and we have had training from the Teachers College the past two years, which was invaluable. Many math resources were collected for elementary teachers as well, including the adoption of Math in Focus years ago. Recent district purchases for math included Kathy Richardson’s Developing Number Concepts book and materials, Marian Small’s book Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Math, Origo Think Tanks, and various manipulatives including fraction kits from Hand2Mind. Our administration also trained teachers in how to implement math workshop last year in preparation for full adoption this school year.

Like many educators, I supplement my district’s adopted materials by collecting online resources, professional books, notes from educational podcasts, etc. for use in my lessons and units. This collection process helps me investigate the creative work of others, as well as what has been handed me by my administration. Luckily, our district and its curriculum leaders and principals are quite progressive. They have made some exciting decisions lately, including taking on the workshop model for not just reading and writing, but math as well. These four curation posts will center around my development of a math unit for multiplication/division.

Select

Once I have collected everything I possibly can for the unit, it is time to select which resources and materials I will actually use in the unit. Certain questions arise for me during this selection process: What are the standards I need to teach, what do I have to formally assess, and what are my essential questions? How do I know if this material or strategy will work with my students? Do these materials and strategies fit how I teach and do they align with my beliefs about how children learn best? Will my workshop model time be primarily centers or explorations? Are there pieces here that are gold that I can use and disregard the rest?

Present

The curator of an art museum presents their pieces in very thoughtful ways and makes the visit to the museum an experience. How do you present the ideas and materials you have curated for your students? Do you allow for inquiry and provide a chance for students to collaborate? How do you hook your audience and set them up for success?

I certainly am not the only experienced teacher in the world and many of you are already doing what I am about to share. Some of you, I’m sure, are doing it a lot better than me. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm, and/or inspire each other. I would love to hear what works for you when collecting and selecting materials and strategies, as well as hear the decisions you make for presenting lessons and units.