ID_+Thought+Provoker+4

ID Thought Provoker 4 Prompt

Background Reading: Ch 4-6 of HTT and Ch 3 of UbD Chapter 4 of //Helping Teachers Teach// addresses the initial level of instructional consultation. At this level, "assistance does not involve a great deal of interaction between the teacher and the school library media specialist" (Turner & Riedling, 2003, p. 33). At the assessment of student performance step, for example, the school library media specialist might "[obtain] an article on using portfolios for assessing student performance" (Turner & Riedling, 2003, p. 33). The nature of involvement at this level has a lot to do with the instructional consultant inserting herself in small ways where possible. This level focuses a lot on the gathering of useful materials and equipment for teachers' professional development and for instructional purposes. It is important to build up resources at this level to scaffold higher-level instructional consultation efforts that may grow out of initial lower-level consultations. If you want to help a teacher later on to incorporate Galileo into an interdisciplinary unit (at a higher level), you must first gather all your materials (such as the Galileo login and perhaps target specific resources in Galileo that apply), which is a lower-level, and foundational, task.

Chapter 5 of //Helping Teachers Teach// addresses a growing committment to building relationships with teachers and adding value to what teachers are trying to accomplish. It takes the initial level up a step, where the instructional consultant is putting a little more time and effort and interest into the consultation. For consistency, I'll share an example at the assessment of student performance step again. At the initial level above, the teacher might forward along an article on using portfolios. At the moderate level, the involvement goes deeper. In the example provided in the text, the school library media specialist has put out a query on a listserv to inquire about the NEA's new recommendations for using authentic assessment. This may seem like the same level of interaction as the example in level1. But it is a step above because rather than forwarding an article URL and being done with the interaction, the school library media specialist is actually inserting herself into a path of inquiry that builds relationship. She's saying she cares and she'll get back to the teacher with follow-up. The media specialist is putting herself on hold. By following-up properly, she has demonstrated that she cares and is reliable. So, I see relationship building techniques as a crucial aspect of the Moderate Level. The best tip that I gleaned from the list of "skillful communication" tips was to "remember." This may be my biggest flaw. I don't remember things. But taking notes and taking the time to review them, we can build our memory, and show that we care enough to pay attention. I also really grabbed onto this tip, and I plan to try it out in my own practice: "The secret to raising instructional consultation above the initial level is to sell the innovators and middle adopters and forget the late adopters" (Turner & Riedling, 2003, p. 57). Great tip. Instead of feeling like a failure with a few teacher rebuffs, just tell yourself that for every 9 nos you will get one yes. :)

Chapter 6 of //Helping Teachers Teach// delivers the goods on the In-Depth Level of instructional consultation. At this level, the school library media specialist has a place at the table with teachers in working on instructional design projects. The role of the instructional consultant is that of helper. The final instructional decisions still rest with the teacher implementing the instruction. An example here of in-depth consultation might be that a team of teachers brings in the school library media specialist to collaborate on the revision of a unit on the Civil War. For a large enough audience, it may be advisable to conduct in-service trainings as well. The chapter gives good tips on making in-service training relevant. Wow, what a novel idea!

Chapter 3 of //Understanding by Design// addresses the topic of "gaining clarity on our goals" (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 56). This chapter is about big ideas, core concepts, and how we design instruction for transfer. What I take away from this chapter is that we have a responsibililty to uppack the learning standards we are given and then prioritize them in terms of the big ideas and the core tasks hidden in them. Just as with every other chapter I have read in this book, I kept having A-ha moments as I read this today. I like the way in which Figure 3.3 helps us to prioritize content, with //Big Ideas and Core Tasks// in innermost place, //Important to know and do// (knowledge and skills) in the next ring, and then //Worth being familiar with// in the outer ring.

Responding to the Prompt

Ms. Barrabbas,

IIt is a pleasure to meet with you today to provide you with an overview of the curriculum process here at Happy Hearts High School. I tend to lecture, so please feel free to interject questions as I go. People usually don't interrupt me, though.

Today in my presentation, I would like to provide you with an idea of the goals of the curriculum process as well as describe the different ways in which teachers, media specialists, and technology specialists can all be involved in the curriculum planning process.

First, let me begin by explaining who and what our teams are. We have 4 grade-level teams: 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade and 12th grade. These teams are comprised of teachers, and there is at least one member from the curriculum teams on each grade-level team. These teams deal with all sorts of grade-level-specific things like dances, fundraisers, etc. They also deal with curriculum-related intititatives that affect an entire grade, such as last year's push to address writing across the curriculum for all 10th graders in preparation for this fall's writing test. The members of these teams identify grade-level issues and opportunities and respond with action plans. Members are responsible for reporting all happenings to their curricululm teams, and sometimes, the curriculum teams have to produce artifacts for the grade-level teams.

The curriculum teams are where most of the curricular work is accomplished. Here at Happy High, our teams are the following: Math; Social Studies; English Language Arts; Science; Vocational; Foreign Language; Health, PE, and Athletics; and Art and Music. Each team is responsible for managing the curriculum maps that correspond to their department's courses. Here at HHHS, curriculum maps give a global view of what themes and topics are addressed each 9 weeks, what the big ideas are for that 9 weeks term, and what GPSs or QCCs are addressed. Each team is responsible for posting their curriculum maps to the school wiki at http://happyheartshigh.wikispaces.com. The technology specialist, Ms. Andalucia, maintains the wiki and helps each department at the beginning of the year to get oriented to their curriculum area on the wiki. Usually, Ms. Andalucia (tech specialist) and I work together to provide an overview of the wiki at the first faculty meeting. We have found it's not necessary to do in-depth training, as we have already done that, but what we like to do is hold a training with new faculty in August to teach them about basic wiki use. It takes about an hour.

Here at HHHS, we have found that it is a good idea to provide teachers with guidelines as in our curriculum maps, but we have not pushed the creation of more in-depth lesson plans. One of the problems I think is that teachers are not on the same page in terms of having a common unit planning language, such as that provided by Understanding by Design. When teachers do share their plans and post on the wiki, they often end up tweaking them on their own computers and then evolving them over successive years until what is in the wiki becomes outdated and unfamiliar. Ms. Andalucia and I will be working together this semester to see if we can find a new curriculum mapping software program that is affordable and teacher-friendly such as that offered by School Software Group. We hope to present a proposal--if we find an appropriate tool--by Thanksgiving.

We are also working on a plan to diffuse a system-wide common unit planning system. In particular, we are hoping the system will adopt the Understanding by Design system, as a cohort of us have been trained in it. We can see that not everything is peachy at Happy High in terms of our identifying the most important things we want our students to learn. Teachers have been trying to teach everything in the standards with an insufficient system of prioritization. Ms. Andalucia and I feel that UbD is an easy-to-understand system that will put us all on the same page and allow us to move forward with identifying the most important goals. With these identified, we can update our curriculum maps to improve our big ideas.

The school curriculum team takes a look at the whole picture of curriculum at Happy Hearts High. Members include at least one faculty person from each curricular department. As the school media specialist, I am a member of this team, and it is here that I like to learn about goings on from each curriculum department. One of my major roles here is to provide instructional consultation, which I have done with success with the math and social studies departments. I have done some moderate-level work with an interdisciplinary effort between the Art and Music Department and Social Studies, and I hope to build these efforts into a more in-depth effort this semester. With Ms. Andalucia's help, we provide in-service-type trainings geared towards these curricular efforts. Ms. Andalucia likes to focus on the technology and I on the curriculum, but we work very closely together to ensure that our own understandings of curriculum and its effective mediation through technology are integrated. We teach each other a lot.

One thing I will be doing is a short presentation of my intentions to visit all curricular departments this August. I want teachers to know about the kinds of instructional consultation projects I have worked on with teacher teams in the past, and I want to run my presentation like a focus group to learn what teachers need from me. I have a list of questions I like to bring with me to provoke discussion, because I have learned that if I don't do this, a lot of teachers don't realize that they need my help. With a twenty-minute dialogue, I can leave with a number of ideas for ways in which I can play a role in helping teachers to use my services. For example, I like to make sure that students are using critical thinking skills when faced with information searches. I help teachers embed information literacy skills into their instruction.

Ms. Barrabbas, is there anything else you would like to know about curriculum at Happy Hearts High? No? Well, it was nice to meet you, have a great rest of the summer, and see you in August!

The committee approach

I have trouble seeing how the media specialist and the technology specialist don't compete with one another.
 * Teachers || Media Specialists || Technology Specialists ||
 * drivers and the chairs ||  ||   ||

References Turner, P. M. & Riedling, A. M. (2003). //Helping teachers teach: A school library media specialist’s role//. 3rd ed. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). //Understanding by design//. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.