Mid-Planning

This project is finally starting to feel like a collaboration! Mary and I were able to talk face-to-face a couple of weeks ago when I was home for my sister's birthday which helped us a lot in getting this unit going. At that point, we were able to divide the work up into what would be appropriate for the teacher to do and what the librarian would do. Our divisions can be see on our wiki page under "Teacher Responsibilities" and "Librarian Responsibilities". These two sections divide what we did for the collaboration and what we will do when actually teaching the unit. We tried to each fill in the parts of the planning sheet that pertained to our responsibilities.

Our unit is Folktale Fever for 3rd graders. It was fun to bounce different ideas off of each other for things to add or change in the unit that Mary has been using for a few years already. I suggested a WebQuest, but when we talked through how to do it, we realized that her students don't have enough Internet experience to be able to do something so complex right away. Instead, we decided on a simple website that allows the student to make a timeline and creating PowerPoint slides that recommend the students' favorite books to others. I'm excited to see how the technology works for Mary in her classroom since this is something that she rarely, if ever, uses.

Tweaking the worksheets that Mary has used for a few years was also a much needed update to the unit. These worksheets now look much better and we even changed how some of them were laid out or what they asked because Mary said she had never liked them. It is wonderful to work with another person on a unit because if you can't think of a better or easier way to do something, the other person probably can!

We were also able to add in another project that incorporated some art and creativity instead of having the students fill out worksheets for the whole unit. This was something I had done in school for a similar unit. It's wonderful when we can use other people's ideas!

Incorporating standards and assessment into this unit were big tasks because there was nothing previously set in place. Mary works in a private school where standards are not required. Lesson plans or unit plans do not have to be turned in and therefore many of the teachers ignore the Michigan standards. We were able to read through the Michigan ELA GLCEs to find appropriate standards for this unit. It was reassuring to see that this unit fit perfectly into some of the appropriate grade level standards.

The only assessment that Mary had for this unit was to receive each student's packet of worksheets and look through them and give a grade. This did not help the student's to see what was expected of them or how they would be evaluated. It also did not provide for any concrete assessment to be shared with parents or administrators. We were able to talk about what Mary currently does for assessment in this unit and how we could change it. We started by simply talking (over the phone) about what were the most important things in the unit and what could actually be measured. The unit rubric we developed covers these things and even incorporates some topics from the report card rubrics that Mary uses for reading and writing.

Our planning sheet is basically complete. There are a few things that are missing that I'm still waiting to find out more information on. It is exciting to see how Mary is taking this as her own and getting excited to teach this at the end of the school year. I wish I really was the librarian at her school and could actually help her teach it!