A Collaborative Teaching Model to Mimic Even When There’s No Eclipse

For one Vermont district, this week’s solar eclipse brought with it a unique opportunity for collaboration among educators across the K-12 spectrum.
Amy Clapp, a 4th grade teacher in the Addison Central school district, created a working group of educators last October. Together they created a set of lessons that could be modified to meet the needs and abilities of each grade level as they learned about this week’s solar eclipse.
These lessons included a read-aloud facilitated by the school librarian, a math exercise in which students calculated how old they’ll be for the next eclipse, a series of scientific models built by students, and more.
The districtwide collaboration energized teachers and students, according to Clapp, and created a learning environment that reminded her of why she entered teaching.
But this approach can be applied beyond this week’s solar eclipse to a variety of memorable events, and can be used as a collaborative teaching model across any number of subjects.
Here, she explains how it works, and how others can bring a similar approach to their own curricula.