By Judi Moreillon
What is collaboration? Friend and Cook explain interpersonal collaboration as “a style for direct interaction between at least two coequal parties voluntarily engaged in shared decision making as they work toward a common goal” (1996, 6). Collaboration describes how people work together rather than what they do. It is a dynamic, interactive process among equal partners who strive together to reach excellence. In the 21st century, educators’ overarching common goal is increasing achievement for all learners.
Collaboration can happen in the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of teaching. It begins with planning the partnership itself. In formal collaborations, collaborators must schedule time to meet. Ideally, they preview the lesson ideas to each other in advance of the meeting so that planning can be more focused. Each person can then bring possible goals and objectives to the meeting, along with ideas for curriculum integration, instructional strategies, student grouping arrangements, and potential resources. In the planning process, educators establish shared goals and specific learning outcomes for students as well as assessment tools to evaluate student achievement.
They discuss students’ background knowledge, prior learning experiences, and skill development and determine what resources will best meet learners’ needs. Educators decide on one or more coteaching approaches, assign responsibilities for particular aspects of the lesson, and schedule teaching time based on the needs of students and the requirements of the learning tasks. They may set up another meeting before teaching the lesson and schedule a follow-up time to coassess student work and to evaluate the lesson itself.
Using a collaborative planning form can help guide the initial planning meeting. (Web Supplements 1A, 1B, and 1C are sample planning forms; these planning documents do not replace formal lesson plans.) The goals and objectives are the most important sections on classroom-library collaborative planning forms. While negotiating the best way for the teacher-librarian to coteach curriculum standards and to integrate information literacy skills, the “backward planning” framework (Wiggins and McTighe 1998) charges educators with knowing where they are going before they begin determining instructional strategies and resources. This planning model is centered on student outcomes.
Many teacher-librarian resources provide sample collaborative planning forms. The software program Impact! Documenting the LMC Program for Accountability (Miller 1998) combines both advanced planning and lesson plan support. It also helps teacher-librarians create reports that graphically and statistically document their contributions to the school’s academic goals.
During lesson implementation, collaborators can assume different coteaching roles. In Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals, Friend and Cook describe various coteaching approaches (1996, 47–50). Depending on the lesson, the students’ prior knowledge and skill development, the expertise of the educators, and their level of trust, collaborators can assume one or more of these roles during a lesson or unit of instruction.
Of these five approaches, team teaching requires the most collaboration and is the approach needed to teach the sample lessons offered in this book most effectively. Team teaching requires careful planning, respect for each educator’s style, and ultimately a shared belief in the value that this level of risk taking can offer students and educators themselves. Teacher-librarians, working within a supportive learning community, must develop interpersonal skills as well as teaching expertise that can allow team teaching to flourish.
Collaboration can also occur during assessment. After coplanning and coimplementing lessons and units of instruction, it is logical that evaluating student learning is part of a shared responsibility for instruction. Checklists, rating scales, and rubrics, developed with colleagues and in some cases with students in advance of instruction or early in the lesson, establish the criteria for postlesson assessment. Students should use these tools to guide, revise, and self-assess their work. Educators can use the same criteria to inform their teaching and modeling, guide student practice, and assess students’ learning process and final products.
Educators may decide to divide assessment on the basis of components of the lesson for which each one took primary responsibility. For example, teacherlibrarians may take the lead in teaching notemaking skills and may then take responsibility for assessing students’ notes with a rubric. Joint assessment can happen before designing a lesson when educators administer pretests to determine the students’ level of skill development or prior knowledge of a particular concept. Even if they did not coteach a lesson, educators might ask one another to provide another set of eyes to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction based on students’ learning products. In Assessing
Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners, Harada and Yoshina (2005) provide a comprehensive guide to best practices in assessment. Coassessing the lesson or unit of instruction is too often overlooked. After coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing students’ work, collaborating educators must make time to debrief in order to determine which aspects of the lesson went well and which could use revision. If educators are team teaching, then some of this evaluation occurs as they share responsibility for monitoring and adjusting the teaching and learning while the lesson is in progress. Taking the time to reflect on the lesson after it has been taught is important for professional growth. Reflection helps educators more clearly articulate the relationships between their goals and objectives for student learning and student outcomes.
Reflective practitioners focus on students’ learning as well as on improving their own practice. In “TAG Team: Collaborate to Teach, Assess and Grow,” Schomberg (2003) offers a glimpse into her learning team’s collaborative teaching journey, a journey through the initial planning stages, coteaching and modeling learning tasks, coassessing student work, and sharing responsibility for revising the team’s solar system unit for future use.
Source:
Moreillon, Judi. 2007. Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension – Maximizing Your Impact. Chicago: American Library Association.
Collaboration describes how people work together rather than what they do. It is a dynamic, interactive process among equal partners who strive together to reach excellence. In the 21st century, educators’ overarching common goal is increasing achievement for all learners.
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