Lesson Plan—Pedagogy (Prof. Ball)
March 3, 2014
Theme: Lecturing Outside One’s Subject Area
Introduction (10 min)
Ask students to introduce themselves, prior teaching experience, why they
are taking the class
Icebreaker Question: “How many of you are scared or worried or
concerned in some way about teaching?”
Follow up question” What are the things you are scared/worried/concerned
about?” (Discuss)
AHTR developed, in part, out of this class—students realizing that sharing
teaching resources made teaching less “scary.”
One of the major concerns teachers at all stages have is--within the art
history survey or perhaps if you get hired somewhere as the only art
historian in your department and need to teach “everything”—“how do I
teach outside my area of expertise?”
This is what we’re going to approach/discuss/work on today.
Explain AHTR (show website on screen, flip through relevant pages)
(10 min)
 AHTR is peer populated
 Provides a forum for talking about pedagogy (blog) and sharing
teaching practices and resources (lesson plans)
 Something you might find most useful as you prepare to teach are
the “coursepacks”—readings and resources to use instead of or in
combination with the survey textbook—and syllabi examples (show
syllabi and coursepack page)
 AHTR just received a Kress grant so we’re able to commission
teaching content in areas we don’t teach regularly or are not
primarily specialized in (non-Western, themes like
transnationalism and citizenship)
What does a lesson plan look like? (10 mins)
 Talk about concept of backward planning (they have already thought
about it in class). What have you discussed? What do you remember?
What questions do you still have?
 If we plan backward for a lecture in a survey class, what is the
“key goal” we hope for with each lesson at survey level? Basic
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knowledge of a chronological/geographic nature? Visual
literacy? Writing skills?
Are there “key goals” specific to classes where you are
lecturing outside of your subject area? Teacher’s own survival
;)? Mastering vocabulary or new geographic knowledge? New
visual literacies?
How do you begin a lesson? What grabs students’ attention?
(Suggest always starting a class with one compelling image
that relates to the class theme; the first 10 min of class should
be response and discussion to this image—either through
open ended questioning, blind-drawing with a partner, or
similar)
Share lesson plan template with class
Go over possible resources: Smarthistory, Met’s TOAH &
educator packets, AHTR “coursepacks,” PBS Nova, A History
of the World in 100 Objects etc
Making a lesson plan outside your subject area in groups (45 min)
8 people
2 x groups of three, 1 group of two (with teacher input if needed)
collaborative effort
Instructions:
Each group will tackle one subject area, using the lesson plan template. Be
prepared to present your work to the group for discussion at the end of the
lesson, and to finalize and post it to AHTR in a group blog post in the next
two weeks.
Arts of the Islamic World
Arts of South and Southeast Asia
Arts of Africa
Discussion of lesson plans (30 min)
Discuss each plan individually—ask for feedback from the group in terms
of goals/themes/objects chosen.
What was easiest/most difficult about the task?
What was hardest in terms of finding resources?
Wrap up/ group blog entry (15 min)