Week 5 Early Planning Thoughts

The collaboration project has begun and I have Therese as a partner. She works as a teacher-librarian now and is very knowledgeable. We have had a couple of virtual meetings and are beginning to shape the vision of our collaborative unit. We have set out to do a learning unit revolving around recycling. The lesson will discuss the three Rs of recycling. We are in the process of narrowing the topic and focusing the lesson. We are looking at what we want our students to learn, as the lesson will be geared to students with disabilities. This is the population I teach and would like to use this lesson with my students, so it will be practical. During the planning process, we have used the virtual classroom in Blackboard and will use Delicious. Other planning and real-life documenting are yet to be determined.

Because the idea is to work backwards, assessment will be the starting point. Initially, I am considering some type of finishing document such as a brochure or power point presentation that can be shared with the school community. The idea of creating a pre-test to see where student knowledge is now has been suggested. With the use of a pre-test and a finishing process, student learning can be truly assessed. It will also support the theoretical framework of how collaboration with a teacher-librarian improves student achievement.This is a good idea because it will document the learning growth during the project. But what will be the content of the document?

The roadblocks that I foresee and have experienced is the fact that I have no experience working with a media specialist and am still a little unclear on how the collaboration would work. Also, therese is moreknowledgeable about different information sharing sites. I never heard of Delicious before this class and don't even have an account. Therese's experience is proving to be very useful, not to mention she has very good ideas. I do currently teach and use GLCEs and have access to teacher materials and webisites through my district and can use this to shape the lesson.