Early Planning

Despite this being an e-collaboration, Mary and I did meet last week to get her set up on the wiki and talk a little bit about the unit she wanted to work on. She has a folktale unit that she teaches every year that she would like to update. Right now, the unit involves the students reading a certain amount of folktales and completing different types of worksheets for a select number of them. She wants to update this and incorporate some technology and new folktales. I'm excited to be able to help her with this goal!

Getting her set up on the wiki went well (better than for me!). I'm interested to see how editing it will go from both ends of the collaboration. I think I will have to help her a bit to get started, but I'm hoping that she will get the hang of it the further we go along. I'm not sure if I would choose to use a wiki with a teacher at a school that I work at, but it would be nice to have one document that both people can edit. If a teacher wanted to do a complete e-collaboration (like I'm doing with Mary), I think I may suggest e-mail or a specific drive (if available) on the school's network to keep track of the unit plan form.

Besides the technology issue, I think the collaboration will go well in regards to interpersonal issues because we have always been able to work off of each other's ideas and come up with even better ones. Mary is also very open to having things changed drastically, so that helps making suggestions easier and less threatening.

So far, the biggest roadblock has been the distance and technology. When we met last week, Mary gave me a folder with the information/worksheets that they currently use for this unit. I found some other information that I wanted access to, so now the question is whether that can be found electronically or if it will have to be sent to me through snail mail. No answers yet, but they will come soon.

We do have some initial thoughts on how assessment will occur in this unit because it is a partially developed unit. In the past, students had to read a certain number of folktales and then complete worksheets on a select number of those stories. This basic format will probably stay the same, but the numbers/worksheets/books will probably change. Also, a rubric is needed to keep track of what each student has done to make the assessment job easier for the teacher. This is something we will have to develop because it does not currently exist.

On our wiki page, I have posted a collaboration unit planning form that we will use to organize our collaboration and make it easy to teach. I took ideas from 3 different sources (found at the bottom of the wiki page) to develop a form that I think will work well for our unit. Please take a look at it to understand my discussion of it now.

The information at the top (names, grade, time) is included so that I can keep track of the collaboration. If I were doing this with multiple teachers, this would help to keep the classes and units separate. Having a "Big Idea" or general goal is one of the most important aspects to collaboration. If both the teacher and the librarian have the same goal and keep it in mind throughout the unit, it will be more likely that the unit will fulfill what they wanted it to. Having this will help Mary and I keep the same focus on folktales.

The content area standards table will be used to make sure that state standards are being followed and met throughout the unit. Mary's school does not require this because it is a private school, but I think it is still important to keep some sort of standards in mind when teaching to ensure that students are learning. The assessment section will help us keep in mind what the outcome of the unit is and what the students should learn.

Pre-Requisities are important for this unit because students need to know something about literature before tackling folktales. This section will help Mary make sure that these skills are taught before this unit is undertaken in the spring. The lesson activities section will provide a brief outline of each day's lesson. This will help to keep the lesson on track and on time. The special needs section will ensure that each different type of learner is being addressed in ways that will help them learn the best. I know that Mary has a few of these types of students in her class, so it is important to make sure that these students are being thought about throughout the unit.

Teacher/librarian/student responsibilities will ensure that each person is doing what they should with this unit. If everyone knows what is expected of them, the unit will go along smoothly. Since Mary has never collaborated on a unit, I felt this was important for both of us so that we know what we should do in the unit. The worksheets and assessment rubric sections will provide place to include the various worksheets and rubrics that will be included in this unit.

The resources section will help to enhance the resources that Mary already uses with this unit. Keeping track of different types of resources will also help to enhance the unit by making it more varied. The references section is to keep track of what references we use to develop this form and the unit.

This collaboration unit planning form will be completed by both Mary and I. Mary will focus on the sections that deal directly with the students (special needs, pre-requisites). I will focus on sections that deal with new resources for the unit. We both will develop the Big Idea, standards, and worksheets/rubrics.

For this unit, I am focusing on Level 8 of Loertcher's Taxonomy. This is the "Scheduled Planning in the Support Role" level and is described as, "Formal planning is done with a teacher or group of students to supply materials or activities for a previously planned resource-based teaching unit or project" (Daniel, 2002). Since this unit was already developed previously to this collaboration, I will be working to make it more technological with more electronic resources and ideas. Since this unit is focused on folktales, this is a resource that is already available to me. I will be able to enhance Mary's teaching by providing her with more resources and ideas for the development of the worksheets. In the Montiel-Overall article, I think what I am doing with this unit will fall into the Cooperation/Partnership level. I think that Mary will see me as a support to what she teaches in the classroom.

I'm excited to see how this unit develops from here! It has started well and we seem to have a good sense of the direction that we want to go in. Stay tuned for more updates!

References:
Daniel, E. (2002, January 31). Two taxonomies of the school library media program. Retrieved February 20, 2009, from http://www.ils.unc.edu/daniel/242/Taxonomies.html
Montiel-Overall, P. (2005). Toward a theory of collaboration for teachers and librarians [Electronic version]. School Library Media Research, 8.

Pre-Planning

Hello! Welcome!

My name is Beth Ponstein and I am currently working part-time at the Allen Park Public Library while taking classes for my School Library Media Specialist endorsement to the MLS degree. I am looking forward to this collaboration project and wanted to give you a brief introduction.

My teacher partner is Mary Pfruender, who happens to be my mother. She is a third grade teacher at Legacy Christian School in Grand Rapids. She loves to try new things and has even become a little more daring in her use of technology in her classroom despite working as a teacher for over 20 years. I chose her because she wants to revamp some of her units and I thought this would be a great project to help her do that.

I am a little nervous about this project because I have never done anything like it before. Usually I have developed units on my own for my own teaching and have never done it with someone else. I hope that I can be open to what her thoughts are as well as mine. I'm also a little nervous to do it at such a distance. Mary is learning new things with her computer all the time and the wiki will be a completely new program for her. I hope that I can help her with the technology side of it while making a productive unit for her.

I think the biggest strength that I bring to this process is my organization. I like to have everything ready to go and in order. I think this will help to make this process go more smoothly since we will not meet face to face. I hope this will also come through in the actual unit to make it easy to follow and understand.

Thanks for visiting and hopefully I will have a lot of updates on how our unit is coming!