One Small Step...

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."- Neil Armstrong.  To this day, these famous words are passed on through generations.  He placed his left foot on the moon on July 21, 1969.  Thus, the first person to walk on the moon. 

 Some say that collaboration is just a simple step between teachers and media specialists, but in fact is more involved than thought.  Most people think that it is just these two working together, in fact it is needing a shared vision, different roles played by each, planning, strengths brought by each person, and the positive results (Stripling & Hughes-Hassell).  This is a concern that is shared through all schools in the world, and an experience that I have had dealt with in the past.  

In my current position as the media specialist at Lincoln Middle School, I came into the school expecting that the teachers will work closely together with me and there wouldn't be any problems with using the media center.  In fact, it was quite different.  The previous media specialist had just retired and did not try to collaborate with  the teachers and just saw them when it was time for the classes to check out books.  I knew that this needed to be changed in order for the students to be successful.  Yet, how could this be accomplished?

The second week of school, Mr. Knox was speaking to another 6th grade teacher and was complaining that he wasn't excited about the upcoming solar system unit.  He said that it is always boring to teach and that the students never like learning over those two weeks.

I politely stepped in and said, "I am willing to help with this unit if you are looking for some more information and resources to make this unit more meaningful."  Mr Knox. seemed to be eager to receive some help and agreed to meet with me after school.

We met in the media center so we would be able to utilize any materials necessary.  He wanted to begin the unit with a great motivation [19], but didn't know where to start.  We worked on a way to get the students motivated and he decided on a DVD that the media center had [1].  It being the beginning of the school year, I knew that this is the first step to building the collaborative partnership for the rest of the year [2]. 

I explained to him that it is important to research information about the topic, especially at the 6th grade level where the students are more higher level thinkers than concrete thinkers [20].  Understanding that is the first step to the success of your unit and the students.  We began researching and found some great resources that can be used within the class and school [3].  Some of the websites found are http://www.nineplanets.org/; http://www.kidsastronomy.com/solar_system.htm; and http://www.solarviews.com/eng/homepage.htm. 

Mr. Knox said, "These are all great resources, but in order to have the entire class involved, I would need 25 separate computers!"  I reminded him that is part of the media specialists responsibility, making sure that the teachers are able to use the media center and have all the resources needed to keep the student success [4].

In order to improve more upon what Mr. Knox already had planned and what he wanted to accomplish, I felt that it was necessary to see what needed to be improved upon the most.  Mr. Know explained that he usually just uses the school textbooks and does the lessons that they have already created [11].  We looked at what was available and I said, "These are great sources to have available, but they can be boring and repetitive for the students."  In order to find out what the students already know, Mr. Knox explained to them that they were going to create a KWL chart [12] and determine what they a know, what they want to know, and what the have learned in the end.

The students would say, "I know there are nine planets!"; "We live on Earth and can see the Sun an Moon!"; and "I can name all nine planets!"  They wanted to know, "How does space travel really happen?"; "Could we live on any of the other planets?"; and "What about stars in the solar system?"  Mr. Knox loved that the students had these questions, but he felt as there was something missing.  He returned to the media center and discussed with me the fact that even though he has introduced the students to this, he doesn't know how to continue.  He asked, "How am I to know that they are actually learning all along?"  I said, "The KWL Chart will help you determine if you are actually following what they know and what they are wanting to learn and it is important to complete ongoing assessment to determine if learning is occurring" [6].

Saying this opened up Mr. Knox's mind to all sorts of possibilities!  He decided that he still wanted to collaborate with me in order to make the learning experience effective [5] and to determine what resources are available in order to know at what level he can teach and use the media center [10].  I told him that if there was something that he found he needed, but we don't have, to let me know so we can determine if there are finances available [7].

Mr. Knox worked separately for a few days and I continued to gather resources that I knew he could use.  One day at a staff development session, the media specialist from all schools were collaborating and brainstorming, and on mentioned a technology aspect that they had covered with their teachers [8].  The website offers videos that the teachers can use in their classrooms that are published by Discovery, called United Streaming Videos http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm [13].  The company works with schools and has a lot of videos available for classroom use and some have questions that can be answered in order to evaluate learning.  I explained to Mr. Knox, "You can use the video as an in class resource for group discussion [14] and then have them formulate more questions [15] based on what they have learned in addition to what they already knew."

He liked this idea, so he utilized it in the classroom and the students came up with critical and concrete questions that could be added to the KWL Chart.  Mr. Knox also explained to me that he wanted the students to learn more specifically about the moon and it's phases.  I told him about an experience I had when I was teaching; "In order to help my students understand more about the moon, I had them complete journals [16] of the moon phases for those two weeks.  They drew pictures, wrote what they observed (cloudy, rain, stars, etc.) and then the whole class compared what they wrote and we determined each phase as a class discussion."  Mr. Knox thought this was a great way as well to get the students thinking and observing the world around them and creating real-world connections.                 

At the end of the unit, Mr. Knox came in and thanked me for the collaboration [17] with him and for clearly communication the functions of the media center [9].  I said, "In reality, you were the facilitator [18] in this unit and I was just the cooperative learning partner, pass the word on that I am here to help."  In the end I am finding myself booked more and more for collaboration with the teachers.