Communication is very important when it comes to
collaboration. As a media specialist it is very important for me to collaborate
with the teachers to understand where their students are and need to go in
their learning. I am able to support the classroom teacher with classes I offer
and resources they can use in the classroom if we are able to communicate
effectively. This tends to be a challenge many times to be able to sit down in
collaborative meetings with the teachers since I do not have a clerk in the
media center. I tend to have to be creative when it comes to communicating with
the teachers. Many times I have to collaborate through email, in passing or
while eating lunch with teachers. This seems to work okay for the most part;
however, I wish that I were able to be able to truly collaborate through
meetings every week with the teachers.
Not only is it important for teachers to collaborate with
one another, but also it is important for students to have an opportunity to
practice collaboration skills amongst each other. For my project this semester,
the students have an opportunity to work together and collaborate with one
another on their projects. They are able to practice these skills by
researching together and discussing the best way to depict their Native
American tribe through Photo Story. While reading I thought it was interesting
how Egbert described cooperation and collaboration as different terms. She (2009)
stated, “cooperation generally implies that students have separate roles in a
structured task and pool their data to a specific end, whereas collaboration
means that students work together in different ways from the planning stage on”
(p. 69). I have never really thought of the two as different terms, but this
makes since. The students I am working with will be practicing collaboration
and not cooperation for this particular project. However in future projects it is just as important to
practice cooperation skills, so this is something I would like to revisit one
day.
I agree that it is important for students to practice communicating and collaborating with one another! These are life skills that many students need help with - being able to share their ideas with one another as well as work together towards a common goal.
ReplyDeleteI hear you about communication as a media specialist. I often don't think the teachers know what I can bring to the table, so I need to do a better job of advertising. Getting to their meetings would be key though, since I don't instinctively know what middle school teachers need in the way of content support. Well keep fighting the good fight for a clerk, and I'll do the same, maybe we can find a strategy that works for getting some help.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if you could do a newsletter for your teachers that's distributed over email? Maybe include a technology tip of the week, a cool technology tool of the week and any announcements that you need to get out to the other teachers? Our media specialist just started doing this, and I have to say, I have really enjoyed the technology tips and cool tools section. If I don't use the suggested tool, I at least look it up.
ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteYou made a good point that teachers also need to communicate and collaborate with other teachers and media specialists like you! Yes, that could be a challenge especially given their busy schedule. As we ask students to do, teachers can also take advantage of many communication and collaboration technologies out there!