Collaborative Instruction
Course
Preparation for Planning with Staff [6:25]
Being prepared when it comes to planning with the staff for collaborative library lessons is the key to successful library lessons, student achievement, and winning the staff over to this new method of delivery of library services.
While this may seem overwhelming at first, really the standards are very similar from grade to grade with each grade level going more in depth than the grade before it. The easiest standards to learn will be the language art standards, because the librarian has already been using them in the non-collaborative library setting. I keep a notebook of all state standards for each grade level in each subject area. At the front of this notebook is a correlation chart of all my local state and national library standards and the grade level state classroom standards.This way I can see at a glance which library standards I can target while collaboratively teaching with the grade levels. It took quite a while to complete this chart. However, it helped me to learn or at least become familiar with many of the standards that the classroom teachers must teach.
Grade level pacing guides are either completed quarterly or yearly. This decision often depends upon the school administration. Our school prefers quarterly but some grade levels do it for the entire year. There are many ways that the librarian can access the grade level pacing guides. Ask each team leader for a copy of the grade level pacing guide. Another way to gain access to the pacing guide is to check the grade levels website links to see if a copy has been posted for parent access. If the school building administrators require it to be turned in, ask them if the library can have copies. Once the librarian has a copy of each grade levels pacing guide, it is time to review the guides in terms of the library's collection of materials.
As a first-year librarian many years ago, I determined to weed the entire library collection that year. Not really so I could get rid of materials, but so I could put my hands on each and every item in the entire collection, so I could begin to build knowledge of the materials in the collection and areas of weakness within that collection. My assistant generally pulls together unit materials for teacher requests; however I resolved to do all gathering of unit materials for each request during that first year. I would hunt for every material that was even peripherally related to what the teacher requested. Then I would print out a list of all materials gathered and file it in a notebook. The next step was to personally deliver the materials to the teacher with a short explanation of the purpose of the peripheral materials. The last step was to go back to my printed list and make notes related to items that were delivered to the teacher regarding usefulness and need.
The more effort that is put into learning the collection, the more surprised the teachers become when they offhandedly mention the topic in front of the librarian and the next thing they know there is a perfect book waiting in their mailbox related to that offhand comment. The teachers will need for the librarian to be flexible. Changes tend to be stressful and almost any given day requires a change of some sort to the classroom schedule. If the library schedule is flexible, they will be relieved that switching library time is not as difficult as they imagined it could be. If the schedule is a fixed library schedule, try in some manner to accommodate the teacher.
My schedule moved from a fixed collaborative schedule to a mostly flexible and collaborative schedule, because I bent over backward to accommodate the unexpected changes that came up. If the library has a fixed schedule and changes come up, this could mean that in providing flexibility the librarian's lunch happens at 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM, but I felt that the benefit of having flexibility for the staff far outweigh the minor cramp in my schedule. Transitioning, eventually, to a mostly flexible schedule was not a big shift, because the staff was used to me moving the schedule around to accommodate unanticipated changes to the teachers' schedule.
Connecting library standards to the collaborative lessons is relatively easy. I always allow the classroom standards to take first priority as the collaborative library lesson objective, because I can fit library standards into almost any activity. After the librarian has spent some time working with a team, trust begins to develop and the librarian can suggest certain activities to enhance a unit that will have direct application of library standards. Once trust is built between collaborative partners, the teachers will start to allow revisions to lesson plans. Problem solving is a skill that librarians should always be prepared to practice.
For teaching staff that do not want to collaborate, they will always have problems with any collaborative lesson, but if they see the librarian has anticipated problems, they will begin to notice that the librarian is seriously invested in making collaborative lessons and the library work. I also try to anticipate any item that the teacher could forget to bring, so that I can provide reminders or solutions to the problem of whatever has been forgotten. The teacher forgets to bring the graphic organizer? No problem. Use the chart paper on the easel to do a graphic organizer. The teacher forgot to bring the book that was going to be the model for the collaborative lesson? No problem. Here's another book that would work just as well.
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Donnelly, Andria C. "Collaborative Instruction. Preparation for Planning with Staff [6:25]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, September 2016, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1995738?learningModuleId=1995731&topicCenterId=2158571.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1995738?learningModuleId=1995731&topicCenterId=2158571
Entry ID: 1995738