The Teacher as Curator Part Four: Present

In this post, the fourth in The Teacher as Curator series, we come to my favorite part of teaching, working with the students. This is a snapshot of how I presented one lesson within my multiplication/division unit. I want to reiterate that I am certainly 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 better than I am. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm, and inspire each other.

As mentioned in the video from Part One of this series, a curator’s job is to bridge the gap between the material being presented and the people to whom it is being presented. Of course, this is a huge goal in teaching as well. 

Just like curators, teachers might consider the following when planning a unit/lesson:

  • What is the story I want to tell?

  • What do I want to do with the physical space to tell the story?

  • How does this presentation fit with what came before it (last lesson/last unit, for example)?

  • What is the logical order of images/information for the story and audience?

  • What tools does my audience need?

  • Is the content accessible to this particular audience?

  • What is there too much of and what’s missing?

  • What are the focal points?

  • Who can help me?

Sometimes, a curator works with an exhibition designer to get the help they need with their presentation/exhibit.

How is the physical space for an exhibition designed? Want to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at the Milwaukee Art Museum? Check out the Kohl...

In the video, there were additional considerations that the exhibition designer took into account that I found compelling:

  • Safety 

  • Flow of traffic

  • Eye Level

  • Flexible spaces/options for layout, ex. moveable walls

  • Staging the content to give the complete picture

  • Make content accessible

  • Help content speak for itself as much as possible, interactive 

These are powerful questions and considerations when making decisions about how we present information to our students. I wanted the learning experiences to be flexible and “at eye level.” For my purposes in the classroom, this meant that the learning was differentiated with experiences that can grow in height and depth with the students’ ability and interests. I recently began seeking out math explorations, open questions, and open middle questions that have low floors, high ceilings, and as Mitch Resnick says in his book Lifelong Kindergarten, “wide walls.” The wide walls allow students to explore deeper and see connections.

Within the workshop model, I mostly presented materials and experiences for the students to explore and then share what they found during the debrief at the end of class. I shared the link below in an earlier post, but will share it again just in case you are new to this blog and the concept of the workshop model. 

Workshop Model

There is no one best way to teach math workshop. The way I present lessons and structure my class environment will naturally be different from the way you do it. My math workshop is a work in progress considering this is my first year doing it this way. Due to Coronavirus, it was not even a full year! I make decisions based on my content, teaching style, and most importantly, my students’ needs/interests. 

The comprehensive training provided by my district was very helpful for seeing the big picture of voice and choice in math workshop. We were encouraged to lay out options for students to choose from instead of having a rotating schedule of students visiting certain activities each day. Like a curator, I had to make sure all the options presented to my students were at “eye level” and could be accessed successfully. In addition, they all needed to be linked to the essential question for that day’s lesson so that all students would have something to share and learn at the debrief.

I will share one example of how, like a curator, I presented a “story” to my students. Below was the first day of students working with the Sieve of Eratosthenes. 

Presentation Overall:

My teaching style tends to be dramatic and I use a lot of humor with my students. I ham it up sometimes and at other times, I whisper to grab their attention. However, you do not have to be an expressive personality or be an actor to get your students psyched about the task they are about to do. A simple question posed for students in which they turn and talk to notice and wonder can get them just as excited. I am learning that making your approach novel in tone or physical space piques students’ interest. 

I know some of you have experienced what I am about to share. It amazes me how riveted my students are to my every word when I am feeling under the weather. I tend to get laryngitis with the slightest hint of a cold starting. Sometimes, I give a lesson silently to rest my voice. The students’ attention is at a high level when I do this and I learned a lot from that! I think there are three reasons for this, and I strive for these three elements now in all my mini lessons:

  1. My mini lesson had to depend on strong visuals/objects.

  2. It also had to depend on more participation from the students.

  3. It was a novel experience.

Focal Point and Story I Want to Tell: 

The focal point for this investigation with the Sieve of Eratosthenes was the essential question What patterns can I find with multiplication facts that I can use to help me uncover the answers?

The “story I wanted to tell” is that numbers are fun and fascinating and we can study them like Eratosthenes did. I started off the mini lesson by briefly telling the story of Eratosthenes’ Sieve in my own words. I did this in a way that showed I was thrilled to be sharing this with them and that I couldn’t wait to set them off to discover. Remember, in your way, share your enthusiasm for your content area with your students, and “stage the content to give the complete picture.”

One big choice I made in presenting this lesson was not to read The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky. It is an excellent book, but it is lengthy and is not just about the sieve. Like a curator, I kept my “story“ in mind for the lesson and chose to read this book instead during Social Studies class since it is primarily about the time that Eratosthenes lived in and his desire to measure the Earth. I love using literature to integrate content areas.

The Physical Space/Safety/Flow of Traffic:

I chose to start at the carpet for the mini lesson, which is what we normally do, but the novel part for this mini lesson was that I started with storytelling, like I explained above. Once I set them off to work, they chose where they would settle around the room with their partners. At the beginning of the year, I spent a lot of time setting up routines and practicing workshop behaviors. So, when we got to this lesson in November, students already knew who their math partners were and I sent them off at the end of the mini lesson by simply saying, “Go explore the sieve!” 

The students chose where they would work around the room and they knew which areas were unsafe, such as near the door that can open and hit them. One expectation is that there are spaces between groups of students so that the adults in the room can get around safely to meet and talk with the groups.

Content Should Speak for Itself and Be Interactive:

This sieve investigation is a perfect example of the content (multiplication patterns/multiples) speaking for itself and being interactive. This lesson kicked off a week’s worth of investigating the sieve. Students color coded the multiples and explored patterns. Finding patterns helped them discover multiplication strategies such as double and double double, etc. This process of discovery was much more powerful than me directly teaching these strategies. Even after that week, students often pulled out their sieve as a reference when working in math class.


In this lesson, math workshop was structured so that all students were working on the same task/exploration (ex. the sieve). On other days, there were multiple tasks/explorations around the room in which students could choose. Either way, these tasks/explorations speak for themselves and are interactive. Once students are sent off to work, the teacher’s job is to circulate and facilitate learning.

Click here for Sieve resource

“Story” Revisited:

I have been teaching the workshop model in writing for years and incorporated reading workshop last year. This year, math workshop was quite new to me. I experimented at the end of last year during my unit on two dimensional shapes, as well as with my elapsed time lessons, but that was basically it. 

Being so new to it, I found it a challenge to debrief every class period, though I knew it was where the “story” gets crystallized. The students were wrapped up in the tasks/explorations and so was I for that matter. We would realize we were late for music, for example, and leave the room a mess. Students being engaged and losing track of time is certainly a positive outcome. However, the debrief is equally important in order for students to talk about their learning and have that learning stick in their brain for the long term. So, I eventually came to the realization that I would need to set the timer on my phone to make debriefing a priority. Taking this time to revisit “the story,” during this debriefing time, allows students to share what they found and hear what others discovered.

Once I set students off to work, I walked around and facilitated by asking questions. I saw and heard amazing ideas and I often asked a student or two to share their discoveries during the debrief. This is a wonderful way to boost the confidence of all your students and it helps students see each other as a valuable resource. Take the time to revisit “the story” at the end of your math class.

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The Teacher As Screenwriter: Understand Your Characters

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The Teacher as Curator Part Three: Select