Pre-Planning

Up until this point, I feel like I have given very little thought to the actual Unit Plan and spent my time on setting up. I am starting to become comfortable with the wiki and I already have some experience with blogger.com, so that shouldn't be a problem. My main concern at the moment is that I am not exactly sure what this project entails. I, like most students, love to have all the expectations spelled out for me but that generally does not happen. So, I will take it a step at a time.

I am very grateful that we are able to partner with another student in the class. I had a teacher partner selected but I knew she was going to be of minimal help on the assignment because she is so busy and she does not have the personal stake in the project that I do. I asked a few other teacher friends and their response was some variation of "okay, but don't expect too much." I am excited to work with Martina, I can tell she is dependable and hardworking.

I am also happy to be assigned as the school librarian (I am trying to use the "new" title). While I have no experience working in a media center, I am hoping to gain more knowledge about the profession through this project.

I have some experience in teacher/school librarian collaboration. When I taught high school in Las Vegas, the librarian was very helpful and knowledgeable. While we did not collaborate on specific items of curriculum, she was always interested in hearing about my student's assignments and quick to recommend library resources that would supplement my curriculum. She set aside library funds for teacher recommendations and worked with departments to choose new items for the library collection.

I have a good deal of experience in teacher to teacher curriculum collaboration. One thing I have learned is that educators are passionate about their profession and their ideas. It can be difficult at times to get everyone on the same page because teachers are used to being the final say on what happens in their classroom. I can think of many times when teacher collaboration ended in hard feelings and negative resolutions. One major asset is flexibility in these circumstances. I remember one instance when three art teachers in my department came together to plan the curriculum for beginning, intermediate and advanced art. Our goal was to make the classes build from one level to the next so students would have a uniform art experience, regardless of who taught the classes. This is a common for most academic departments but not always in the electives. It was particularly difficult because all three art teachers came from different backgrounds, generations and art specialties and had completely different views on how art should be taught. We were all convinced that our way was the right way! This collaboration went on for many weeks and was a good learning experience. I learned that our ultimate goal, to provide a sense of structure throughout the art curriculum, was worth the time and compromise necessary to accomplish it.

I have some reservations about the Unit Plan project. In my experience with group projects, the planning stages are always the most difficult. This is compounded by the fact that rarely do the group members actually talk or meet face to face. Most communication is conducted through email, making brainstorming a challenge. I am eager to work with Martina to develop an Unit Plan idea. My hope is that it will be something she can use in her classroom and will be beneficial to her students.

Kara and Martina's Collaboration

I am just in the preliminary planning stages, there will be much more to follow!