Again, King Henry V by William Shake-speare.
Co-teaching to the third power.
All of my co-teaching was done last week. I had two sessions triple co-teaching with Karlie and Claire and another session triple (double? I’m not sure what the standard is for this. Teaching in triplicate? The bermuda triangle of co-teaching? Instructor, intern, and intern/GA… a trinity?) co-teaching with Kayla and Lauren.
Aside from not being sure what I was doing 100% until just before the sessions, I feel as if they were effective and went rather well. For the first teaching in triplicate with Karlie and Claire, I went through the powtoon of popular vs scholarly sources. I always notice that the students eyes kind of glaze over halfway through, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with that so I just kept going. Them getting the information is better than just shooting from the hip and not getting the information across the way it needed to be. In the second session with Karlie and Claire, I went through what sources were by going through Karlie’s scripted questions in her slideshow. I added things about how you can also use unusual resources (like tweets, pictures, etc) in papers as long as they are used in context and not thrown in like some undergraduate students tend to do if not directed otherwise. This I threw in because Karlie mentioned it after Claire gave her talk in the first class. Learning on the go!
I co-taught again the next day, this time with Kayla and Lauren. This time I ran the unusual resources activity, which I felt like I did fairly well. These classes were real confidence boosters–because two days later, I would be teaching on my own. On to the next!
Collaborative teaching is an art unto itself. You guys did a great job juggling and keeping the classes flowing. As for managing attention span, perhaps you can think of some ways to interact with students during your powtoon slides? Engagement is the key. We can brainstorm about this at our next meeting if you like!