Post-Reflection

As I look back over my experiences with this collaborative process, I am reminded of the mixed feelings I had throughout the project. My first feelings were definitely of apprehension and confusion. The task at hand seemed too large to manage, and I felt unsure of the general requirements. As the collaboration progressed, I felt lucky to have a partner who was easy to work with and responsive. We shared our concerns and worked together to find the answers we needed. After our initial ideas were finalized and we started working, I became more interested in financial literacy than I ever thought possible. I brought home armloads of books from the library and spent days weeding through online resources. Now that the project is complete, I feel proud of our work and look forward to collaborating with teachers in the future.

From this collaboration, I learned about the overwhelming number of resources available for collaboration and financial literacy for all ages. These resources helped make the task at hand seem less daunting; there were ideas and tools already developed that we could build upon and customize for the needs of our students. I also learned about effective communication methods when in-person meetings were not possible. This knowledge will help in the future when teachers are too busy to spend a lot of time meeting with me. We could have a preliminary meeting and use online tools, such as email and a wiki, to communicate ideas when we are not together. I also learned about the value of setting mini-goals and mini-deadlines. By breaking the large project into smaller segments, the work became more manageable. Having a clear idea of who was doing what and when helped to keep the project progressing and on track. All of these skills and experiences will be beneficial to me as a school media specialist.

Now that I have had this collaborative experience, I am interested in learning even more about successful collaborations. I would like to learn more about how a teacher and media specialist collaboration would work in a real school situation. I wonder about the time restrictions and the level of involvement of both parties. I am also interested in knowing how the financial literacy unit we created, and the units created by our classmates, would work in practice. I wish there were a way to assess the effectiveness of and be able to modify the unit plans to make them even better.

The value of having a good partner was made very clear in this project. I am thankful that Kimberly and I were able to find a way to communicate that worked well for our situation. Since our schedules seemed to be opposite, using email for asynchronous communication worked the best for us. The wiki also allowed us both to work on the unit plan and make sure that our styles and ideas were meshing together. When working with a classroom teacher, I will now know the importance of finding a way to work together that suits our needs.

The peer evaluations have given us the opportunity to look back at our work and see areas for improvement. Our classmates are looking at the unit with fresh eyes and new perspectives, and that is very beneficial for us. I hope that Kimberly will be able to use the financial literacy unit that we created, and I am sure she would use some of the great suggestions our classmates have made. Overall, I think that this collaboration was a positive experience, and I look forward to collaborations in my future career.

Assessment

I am pleased to say that our unit is coming along nicely. Kimberly and I continue to work well together. Much like a true school collaboration, our biggest obstacle has been just finding the time to work on our project. Luckily, we have both been able to find time, and we are getting to the final stages of the unit.

Assessment

Assessment is an important component of this plan, and it will occur in several forms throughout the unit, helping to guide the teacher and media specialist in their teaching. Our main issue and main goal was to create assessments that would accurately reflect student learning and give feedback to guide teaching. To meet this need, we chose to incorporate both formative and summative assessments into the unit plan. In addition to assessment by the teacher and media specialist, the students will have the opportunity to reflect and assess themselves as individuals and as group members.

The summative assessment of our financial literacy unit will be a PowerPoint presentation. Students will have the opportunity to choose a career and research real-life potential financial scenarios. Students will present information about their chosen career, specific scenario and how to be financially successful in light of their scenario. A joint rubric that includes both academic and information literacy components will be used to score the presentations.

As a formative assessment, students will have an individual conference with the teacher or media specialist at least once during their research process. Students will also complete a checklist that evaluates their research sources. Observations will also be used to help guide the teacher and media specialist. Pre-tests will begin individual lessons, and post-tests will end them. This allows for immediate feedback for necessary modifications that may need to be made to better accommodate student learning.

Communicating Assessment

Evidence of student learning will be communicated to stakeholders in a variety of ways. A discussion of the project and samples of student presentations will be shown to parents at conferences. With parent and student permission, the presentations will be put on the school website for parents, administrators and community members to view.

Individual scores and rubrics will be discussed with parents. A graph will be created to show the overall improvement of all students based on a comparison of pre-test and post-test scores. This visual representation of student achievement in quantifiable terms will be presented to the principal and available to the school board or other administrators. Along with the graph, a listing of all of the standards met in the unit will be included.

Communicating the results of the collaboration with teachers will help to encourage future collaborations between teachers and the media specialist. A sample of an exemplary student presentation will be shown to demonstrate the high quality of work that resulted from the collaboration. A discussion of the numerous academic standards met will also be presented.

Looking Ahead

As we enter the final week of our collaboration, I am confident that the unit we are creating could be used successfully. I hope that Kimberly has the opportunity to use it with her students soon. Though we still have several areas of our unit to refine, our basic ideas have been solidified. I fully anticipate that we will have an excellent unit by next Friday, and I look forward to hearing about how the unit was implemented in the classroom!

Mid-Planning

Our unit collaboration is going very well so far. Kimberly and I have been able to discuss ideas and make plans through email communication. The unit planning is becoming more interesting as we delve deeper into our topic of financial literacy.

Financial Literacy Lessons

Our unit begins with an overall introduction to financial success and a pre-test to assess students’ prior knowledge. Kimberly has found some multimedia resources to add interest to the initial lesson. The next lesson will focus on possible careers, and students will locate information about the necessary educational levels and typical salary levels. After students choose one possible career, they will use it as a lens to guide their research and learning throughout the rest of the unit. The remaining lessons will follow our essential questions and tentatively include: wants vs. needs, checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and types of investments. The culminating experience will incorporate technology skills, including a presentation using PowerPoint. A rubric that includes both financial and academic literacy components will be used to assess the students.

Role of the Media Specialist

As the media specialist, my role will include participating fully in the collaborative process. By being an active participant, I will be able to better assert my role as the media specialist. This will allow me to add ideas and information literacy skills to the unit as it is developed, allowing them to flow naturally and integrate with the lessons. The media specialist will be the key educator for instructing students on researching skills and gathering resources. The media specialist will also be responsible for teaching students how to evaluate the resources they find, especially online. The media specialist will guide students toward appropriate sources for their ability levels, helping to meet the individual needs of struggling readers, ELL students, and students with other specific circumstances. Assessment will be done by both the classroom teacher and the media specialist.

Meeting Student Needs

To meet the needs of all students, including those from historically underrepresented groups, students will be given the opportunity to choose any career that they are interested in researching. This allows students to find out about the educational and professional requirements of the career and the possibilities of following that career path. By incorporating print and multimedia materials and hands-on researching, students are able to learn the necessary concepts using their preferred learning style. Students will also have the opportunity to work together, which will be beneficial for students who are learning English or struggling with reading. Because being financially literate includes being aware of what is happening financially in other countries, as well as in the United States, we can introduce students to a broader spectrum of financial literacy and delve into issues that they may be aware of in other countries. We can also explore the economic differences that are affecting people here in the United States.

Financial literacy is a very important topic, and we are approaching it with the needs of the students at the forefront of our minds. I am excited to be moving forward with this unit, and I look forward to our continued communication and collaboration.

Early Planning

Kimberly and I have decided to focus our unit on financial literacy, a new hot topic in Michigan schools. It was very important to me that our unit would be beneficial and useful to Kimberly, and I am glad that we were able to find a topic that she will be able to use in her classroom. We have been brainstorming and comparing ideas through email for the last couple weeks, and I am pleased with our progress so far. I think we are both making a good effort to think critically about the unit and respond honestly to the ideas that are presented.

We created several essential questions for our unit, and we are prepared to make changes or fine tune our questions as we progress through the process. As we saw another group do, we also divided our questions into essential questions for the students, for the media specialist, and for the classroom teacher.

Student Essential Questions

1. What are sources of income and how do education and career choices affect income?


2. What is the difference between wants and needs?


3. How does a savings account differ from a checking account?


4. How is a credit card different than a debit card?


5. What are some types of investments?
   

Teacher Essential Questions

1. How can I incorporate the benchmarks for the Jump Start Coalition with the Benchmarks for Career and Technical Education?
   
2. What are ways that I can get the students to understand that financial literacy can affect them for the rest of their lives?


3. What are ways that I can take this information and make it relevant to the students’ lives?
   

Media Specialist Essential Questions

1. How can I ensure that the assessment is an accurate reflection of student performance?


2. How can I ensure that there are enough appropriate resources for each student, and that students have the proper skills to locate the resources?


3. How can I communicate the successful collaboration with teachers, administrators, parents and the community?


4. How can I ensure that the special needs of individual students are met?
   

We have also decided on a preliminary division of tasks. Again, we realize that these may have to be altered as we delve deeper into our unit. We also fully anticipate working together to plan for many of the tasks.

Division of Unit Tasks

Unit Narrative Intro - Susan
Roles (with explanatory paragraph) - Susan
Essential Questions - both
Standards (Tech and Academic) - Kimberly
Standards (AASL) - Susan
Assessments (with input from Kimberly) - Susan
Communicating Assessment - Susan
Student Accommodations (special needs and culturally underrepresented students) - Susan
Demographics/Student Info - Kimberly
Lesson Plans (with input from Susan) - Kimberly
Resources (print and electronic) - both
Organization/Page Layout - Susan

Looking Ahead

Our next step is to begin setting up our unit on the wiki. We have already had a chance to discuss the format, and Kimberly has found some clip art to add interest to our unit. By next week, we will have our basic layout arranged and can begin adding content to our pages.

I feel that Kimberly and I are on track for a successful collaboration. So far, everything has gone well, and I am pleased with our progress. We have had excellent communication, and I expect our teamwork to continue throughout the semester.

Preplanning

Welcome! This blog is for LIS 7320: The Media Specialist as Teacher and Instructional Consultant. It will document the collaboration efforts of a classroom teacher and media specialist creating a unit. I will be acting as the media specialist, and Kimberly will be acting as the classroom teacher.

Aspirations and Fears

Through this collaboration, I hope to gain a better understanding of how a teacher and media specialist can work together. I also hope that this practical experience will help me to find good ways to appropriately divide tasks in a teacher and media specialist collaboration. Though I am sure that every collaboration is different, this project could serve as a guide or template in the future. Finally, I hope that this experience and the unit that is produced will be a good example for me to demonstrate to hesitant teachers that collaboration is a worthwhile endeavor.

I am very excited to begin this unit; however, I do have a few concerns and reservations. My main fear is of the unknown. I do not feel confident that I completely understand what is expected on this project. As the semester progresses, I hope that it becomes more clear. For now, I am not sure how the unit should be organized, how in-depth it should be or the best way to divide tasks. I am also unsure how much work is expected to be shown on the wiki.

I feel lucky that Kimberly and I have been able to communicate well already. I know that we are both very busy and, as the semester progresses, I hope that we will continue to find time to work together. Online classes are always more tricky for group work because you do not have the opportunity to meet face-to-face, which I have always found easier when trying to make decisions and get things accomplished in a timely manner. Perhaps we will be able to arrange a few online meetings so that our communication can be even better.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I bring some strengths to the collaborative process. I am very organized, and I am able to plan out tasks that need to be accomplished in a realistic timeframe. This helps to keep projects on track. I also tend to want to finish assignments a little early so that the assignment can be completed thoroughly and to build in a technological buffer. For an online class or any assignment that relies on technology, it is important to plan for unexpected problems.

I also bring some weaknesses to the collaboration. The weakness that I am most concerned about is that I have not worked in a school in several years. My lesson planning skills are a little rusty, and it may take me a little more time to get back into the swing of things. I also sometimes have difficulty with wanting to do too much when I am in a group situation. I need to remember to share work equally, especially in this collaboration so that Kimberly and I both have a good, practical experience.

Unit Ideas

Kimberly currently teaches high school computers and business, so I think it would be great if we could find a way to create a unit that she would be able to use with her students. I think that business might be a better choice for our unit since computer classes are generally already focused on information and technology. Perhaps a unit that involves researching businesses and creating a business plan would be useful. Students would be able to practice research skills, and then synthesize the information gathered to write their own plan. To be honest, I am not positive what the requirements are for high school business courses, so I would want to refer to Kimberly’s expertise to make sure we create a useful unit.

My experience is in the elementary school, so if we decide to branch away from high school, I think I would be interested in a science or social studies unit. Because language arts is so often associated with research and the media center, I think it would be great for students to translate the skills learned in language arts to another subject area.

Teacher/Media Specialist Collaborations

Honestly, I have never witnessed a collaboration between teachers and media specialists. I have seen teachers ask for resources from a media specialist, and I have seen media specialists offer resources and technological expertise; however, I have never seen them work together to teach a lesson. I want to be a more prominent figure in student learning, so I will avoid falling into the routine that may be expected of me. I am hoping that this course will give me the tools to convince teachers that collaboration is useful and to implement a culture of collaboration in a school.