YORBA LINDA : Teaching Teams Share Same Theme

Gary Wiedeman’s eighth-grade class spent several weeks last fall discussing how well the various candidates for president were doing during the campaign. The class learned about election polls and charted the candidates’ progress.

All of which is not unusual for a social studies class, but for Wiedeman, a math teacher at Bernardo Yorba Junior High, the election was a new and interesting way to teach math concepts.

As part of a team of teachers participating in a pilot program at the school, Wiedeman has been incorporating events generally not associated with math into his curriculum. The program, called “Villages,” groups students together so that they share the same four teachers for math, social studies, science and language arts.

The teachers also share a common planning period, which allows them to make lesson plans based on a common theme. For instance, while Wiedeman used the election to teach graph-making and percentages, the students also were learning about the democratic process in social studies. In science the students discussed environmental issues, and in language arts they wrote speeches and debated various campaign issues.

“The curriculum is the same as the rest of the school” said eighth-grade language arts teacher Bob Sowersby. “But the application is different. We all work together to teach the same part of the curriculum at the same time, which gives the students a better understanding of why it’s important.”

Both Sowersby and Wiedeman say the benefits of the Village program lie in the teachers’ common planning period. Four teachers brainstorming together come up with a lot of good ideas, they said, and doing so helps prevent burnout and feelings of isolation.

Students also benefit from having a common theme in each class and from being part of a smaller group of students, the teachers said. Instead of having to mentally switch gears after each class, the students carry what they learn in one class over to the next class.

Wiedeman said he has seen several positive results that he attributes to the program. Homework is more consistent with his students because all of their teachers have the same standards, he said. Students also learn to work together and have become more responsible for their work.

Discipline problems have been fewer because the teachers work together to head off small problems before they become big ones, Wiedeman said.

According to school Principal Richard Vouga, the program, which was open to volunteers from the seventh grade and eighth grade, had more volunteers than the school could accommodate. The seventh-grade “Village” has 105 students sharing three teachers for math, socials studies and language arts.

An unexpected advantage of the program has been that the remainder of the school, a total of about 765 sixth- through eighth-grade students, are receiving some of the benefits as well. By reducing the pool of both students and teachers, the program has allowed other teachers to work together as well.

“The whole staff has been working on integrating curriculum,” Vouga said. “The rest of the school is like a village, just bigger.”

Vouga said he would like to add more villages to the program.

“I have been able to accomplish my goals for the class so easily,” Sowersby said. “I haven’t been able to teach ‘The Hobbit’ for quite some time. This is the first time in years I’ll be able to.”