Post-Reflection

When thinking back over the entire collaborative planning process, I am pleased with how the collaboration went. From the start it was very nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and someone who could give honest and constructive support/criticism to the unit as a whole. As the SLMS, I had many ideas and skills that I wanted to implement into the lessons. It was hard to narrow down my focus to what I wanted to actually cover and Dave was a great resource for this. As the classroom teacher, he had many time elements in mind that were easy for me to loose sight of in the planning process. I was thinking globally and trying to fit in as many benchmarks as I could; however, he was thinking day-to-day and how many benchmarks would be feasible to cover. I found it crucial, to do this collaborating together, as teachers and SLMS's may have different thoughts in mind as mentioned above. Coming together and sharing ideas, benchmarks and time frames, helped to make the project beneficial to all parties involved.

When developing the lessons, having the classroom teacher as an active participant was wonderful in order to share the teaching of the material. This unit would not even be possible if all elements were to be completed solely in the media center. It was great to have the flexibility with Dave to plan out when and what we would teach in each location. I focused more on the technology piece, whereas he focused more on the language arts portion. Having the flexibility as an SLMS to participate in the classroom instruction was also a huge asset to this project. When media specialists have the time and ability to go out into the classrooms and offer assistance to the classroom teacher, many units such as this one could be a huge success.

I really enjoyed having a partner in order to discuss the assessment portion of the unit. Discussing the benchmarks covered and how to word descriptors on the rubric were very beneficial to me. I often have a hard time thinking about how to accurately communicate student performance. While Dave and I bounced ideas back and forth in this area, the achievement level that I was looking for became much clearer to me. Dave and I both had the same ideas in mind while discussing assessment, since the grading descriptors (exceeding, meeting, approaching, and does not meet) we used are consistent with our district report card.

Overall I thought it was a great experience to collaborate with my teaching partner on this unit. Even still, there were a few road blocks we faced, but were able to work through over the course of the unit. First, it was often hard to find time to meet to discuss the project. Even though Dave is my husband and we live together, that almost gave us more reason to procrastinate and think that we would have plenty of time later to do the task at hand. We also collaborated at specific times throughout the unit and I felt that he was a step behind when we would meet together. I wish we would have discussed more informally throughout the planning process, so that Dave would have been up-to-date with the progress I made on the unit since the last time we met.

I am anxious to continue collaborating throughout my future career as an SLMS. I loved having the opportunity to see what collaboration involves and has the power to be. I can see how beneficial this type of work is to students and their overall achievement. It is great to see a SLMS at work and how valuable our jobs are!

Assessment

Our unit focuses on student research of famous people who have made a contribution to American society. The students are to research a famous person of their choice, who has contributed to America in some way. They will research this famous person and present the information they found in a Power Point or Timeline presentation. There are specific criteria for what types of information should be included in each type of presentation. In the content areas of social studies and language arts, we are hoping to see how students can gather information from a variety of sources and apply it to a final project, how students are able to choose reliable and appropriate sources and pull information from them, and how well students are able to find someone who contributed to American society and communicate their findings with the class as a whole. As for technology, we are hoping to see how well students can use and synthesize their resources as well as utilize technology (Power Point or Timeline software) in order to present information.

When thinking about how to assess this unit, we had a hard time really narrowing down the content and standards that we wanted to assess. We used the "backwards" approach to planning and chose our benchmarks for social studies, technology and language arts that we wanted to incorporate first and then developed assessment ideas and lessons after that. We finally decided on about 3 areas to assess for technology and language arts and one area for social studies. The basis of our assessment will be from the students' research as well as their final projects. We will be collecting their research (Sorting Sheets, notes, etc.) in order to see the quality and depth with which they were able to research their topics. The presentations themselves will show us how well students were able to synthesize the information they found in order to talk about their famous person, his or her accomplishments and his or her contributions to American society. We will also be able to see how proficient the students are with the software that they chose to present with.

We plan to communicate evidence of student learning for this Famous Person Project by including the grades on the third card marking section of the report card in the areas of social studies and language arts. Students will be given a grade on the project in each of these areas according to the appropriate benchmarks. Parents will receive feedback on the project from the student grading rubric that will go home once the project is complete and graded. I will use the rubric to guide my grading and also include comments on it for the students and parents to see. Parents will also be able to see the student progress from the grades that are integrated on the report card. In our district, we have specific technology benchmarks that we are required to cover. Some of these benchmarks will be covered in this unit and will be marked off on each students' Technology Benchmark List. This list is kept in each students' file in the office (CA60) which can be viewed by the teachers and principals. A copy of the Technology Benchmark List for each student is also kept by the media specialist and classroom teacher in her or her files.

We are hoping to support Ethnolinguistic Minority Students through discussion of various American's contributions to society. The unit begins with a timeline lesson comparing the lives of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. Lessons that follow focus on diversity in Americans from the past and the present. Students will learn about Americans with diverse ethnicities and how their contributions to society have helped to shape America. Giving students a choice about who to research will allow them to choose someone who's contributions have an impact on their own lives.