Collaborative Instruction
Course
Team Planning for Collaborative Lessons [6:06]
Team planning can happen in a variety of different ways. The librarian can team plan with an entire grade level, individual teachers, or across grade levels.
Grade level planning happens whenever an entire grade level is preparing for the same unit or individual lesson. It is easiest for the librarian to plan with an entire team, especially in the beginning of the transition from the fixed non-collaborative library to a flexibly scheduled collaborative library. It is easiest for the librarian to start this way because the librarian can model and coach the grade level team through the process of learning how to collaborate together.
However, even with planning for an entire grade level, there will be individual differences within classes. If individual class needs are to be addressed, it might be best to address those needs at a separate time. Some of the classes might have special needs students in which case you might revise the plans made with the entire grade level team to include the part of the special needs teacher or how adaptations can be made for vision impaired students.
One of the classes may have a large portion of students who are gifted and will need some independent enrichment. Another class could have a high population of English language learners for which special considerations might need to be made with vocabulary usage and there are some classes that, while they don't have special needs, they just have a really hard time working in partnerships or small group activities.
Modifications might need to be made for each class dependent upon a variety of specific needs. A librarian needs to be prepared to spend some individual time with each teacher outside of the grade level planning meeting to accommodate these needs. Once the teacher and librarian are accustomed to working together and they each understand the class dynamics, the time planning specific adaptations might decrease, although some of the lessons that are planned with the grade level team might not need extra planning outside of the team meeting. This depends upon what the lesson is and whether the lesson has been previously taught.
One of the most important parts of planning with an entire grade level team is to make sure that every participant on the team has some responsibility during the preparation and execution of the lesson. The responsibility could be a relatively small one in the beginning of the transition to collaborative teaching.
In the beginning of the collaborative partnership there might be times when the librarian has to model a research procedure or a technological concept for the teacher. In this case, I always ask the teacher to bring materials to take notes that we can discuss once I assign an independent assignment to the students regarding the modeled lesson. Then the teacher and I sit down for five minutes and discuss any questions that he or she had. However, lesson preparation and execution should become more of a partnership between the librarian and the teacher over time. If someone does not have any responsibilities during the lesson, that individual might just determine that the librarian could do it all herself and will be less likely to participate in the future.
Individual teacher's planning with the librarian becomes a natural progression as the teachers realize the librarian is there to support the needs of the teacher and the students. Planning with an individual teacher starts to occur when a teacher realizes that his or her class is not ready for the team planned lesson. This teacher will come to the librarian to either ask to plan for lessons to provide background information for the students or to possibly change the entire focus of the lessons for this class of students.
Over the course of time the teachers start asking if they could try something new in the library. For instance, I've had two teachers on a grade level ask about having student work published in some format in the real world which led to investigating how we can encourage that to happen and to determine which students wanted to try it. Happy accidents often happen when teachers want to try something new. Then other teachers hear about the success of the new activity and come to the library with their own ideas.
Across the grade levels is another way to plan. This method includes more than one grade level. Fifth grade students were writing their own versions of fairy tales and then presenting them to first grade students. Fifth grade students were divided into teams to rewrite a traditional fairy tale into a more modern version. Then the teams had to create a way to present the new tales to groups of first grade students. The first graders needed to practice identifying the beginning, the middle, and the end of the stories as well as utilizing clues to predict which original tale the modern version was based upon. As the librarian, I planned separately with both teams and then coordinated between both teams during the planning phase of this project.
Another time, the second grade team wanted their students to perform their reader's theater plays to an audience to practice their fluency. After talking with the preschool teachers, it was determined that preschool students needed to practice good audience skills, so that they would be well prepared to attend school assemblies. We got together and determined what plays would be practiced, what props needed to be made, and what skills the preschoolers would need to practice and how we could incorporate that all into the production.
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Donnelly, Andria C. "Collaborative Instruction. Team Planning for Collaborative Lessons [6:06]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, September 2016, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1995739?learningModuleId=1995731&topicCenterId=2158571.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1995739?learningModuleId=1995731&topicCenterId=2158571
Entry ID: 1995739