Collaboration "Assessment"

In our "pre-planning" session, Christina and I chose a list of Third Grade benchmarks for Reading Literacy Development in Rochester Commuinity Schools. We decided to assess the standards which most third graders should be at by the end of the school year. [See pre-planning blog, February 3, 2009]

We prepared our assessments using the "Backwards Design Process." Our rubric was designed covering Language Arts and Social Studies standards placing more emphasis on covering Language Arts areas. We spent a lot of actual time and thought-process-thinking-time to develop a rubric assessment that was age appropriate and showing the elements of collaboration, reading literacy, and enhancing learning through technology and information literacy. We designed an eleven-day rubric plan which assessed each daily lesson. We made sure that Bloom's Taxonomy and Howard Gardner's Intelligences were integrated, so that all students had the opportunity to use their prominent intelligence in performing each assessment. The outcome was a kid-friendly product. Students enjoyed the unit and felt free of "test stress," because of the way Christina and I came up with an enjoyable, easy paced rubric. As we taught each lesson, we found adjustments we would make the next time we would teach this lesson (We commented on our wiki where we would make changes next time). A definite adjustment is time allotments. You will find our rubric assessments scheduled throughout the lessons. Rubrics are specific and clear and certainly communicate evidence of student learning to the school community.

Mid-Planning

Christina and I have completed our project planning which presents the big picture. We decided to title our unit "One World. Many Cultures - an integrated unit on Uniqueness." Both of us felt that concentrating on how people are basically all the same, we would generate a sense of community in our own classrooms. Our collaboration has in itself been unique, because we are teaching the same grade level in the same school. We exchange daily for Lanugage Arts (reading and writing) which means that we see each other frequently, and do a lot of planning together. We are very creative and found it difficult to limit our objectives. Finally, we picked appropriate standards from the Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum, and came up with an eleven-day plan that included a rubric covering a lesson in uniqueness with an accompanying objective and assessment. The lessons are more focused on the language arts curriculum. I will assume the responsibilities of gathering the resources, generating assessment tools, co-planning the unit, and designing rubrics. Christina will be responsible for teaching the unit, co-planning the unit, facilitating discussion and administering evaluations. As the unit progresses, we will be concentrating on differentiation and adjusting plans as needed. We are pround of the amount of classic literature and hands-on activities that our third graders will be exposed to. We have spent many hours picking and choosing materials that will keep our students engaged as we journey into the global world and the unique world of each student. As we work on this assignment, I am amazed at the influence the media specialist can have on the classroom teacher.