The Art of Lesson Planning

On November 12th, TATIP reconvened at The Drama League for the third installment of the Saturday training days. We had some special new partners with us as well, staff members from the Memphis Music Initiative. We hope to share more with you about this exciting partnership in the coming months.

After an intense election week that left many feeling rattled and lost, the trainees and facilitators were able to come together, share, celebrate one another, and heal. Facilitator Heidi Miller led the group in an activity to start the day off and reflect on why we were all there.

After our warm up... it was time for the lesson plan presentations!

For the last two weeks, the trainees have been working on a collaborative lesson with a partner. Each participant was matched with a person of an opposite art form and together they created a lesson that showcased both art forms, targeted a specific age group and scaffolded to allow for gradual experiential learning.


The trainees presented an abridged version of their lesson for 15 minutes. Then, facilitators Patti Chilsen, Karla Robinson, T. Scott Lilly and Heidi Miller provided feedback to help make their lessons stronger.

These presentations give our trainees the opportunity to experiment and test drive teaching a lesson in front of their peers, allowing them to work out the kinks of the lesson before actually teaching it in a classroom.