D.+Collaboration

As the media specialist at my school, I will be collaborating with a first and fourth grade teacher for this unit.

April is National Poetry Month and I would like to promote poetry throughout the entire school. I have planned poetry mini-lessons for all grade levels, but two teachers have agreed to doing something on a larger scale. My hope is that the idea will catch on and a few more teachers will participate next year.

My first goal was recruiting willing participants. Approach is everything. I went to the first and fourth grade teachers I know are willing to try new things. In order for collaboration to work, you have to put yourself out there. Offer up your positive attributes. Combine thoughts and ideas. Thankfully, I was able to get them signed on!

Our collaborative efforts will take place in the media center, classroom, and computer lab. I have offered my time to be an extra hand in the classroom. The teachers offered their time to be an extra hand in the media center and computer lab. Whether the extra hand is needed will be based on the lesson being taught at the time.

Once they were on board, I met with them separately to discuss our goals. I had prepared an outline in advance; this acted as a springboard for discussion. We made changes. Agreed on lead roles at specific times. Collaborative projects require collaborative efforts. One person should not be required to do all of the work. Instead, we divided the planning up according to whether I would be teaching the lesson or the classroom teacher would be teaching. The lessons, however, all built on one another.

We participated in co-planning and will participate in co-teaching. I am looking forward to the experience. I believe that the teachers and I have a great working relationship, which will make the experience all the more rewarding.

We also plan to have some collaborative student participation as well. This planning is in the works for the last week of the unit. We will be bringing the two classes together to work on exploring and writing poetry. We are hoping to end the unit with a parent night. We want the parents to see all of the wonderful works of our students.