Reflection of Stage One

Cindy Stevens and I are working with the Art specialist in our district. All three of us met together to make the planning easier and more effective. I found that finding a common meeting time was difficult especially for Kim, who works in multiple schools. Trying to arrange a time that worked for all of us outside of school time was tough, but we did it.

I am very thankful to be working with Kim, she was very open to ideas and by nature is very creative, so she proved to be a wonderful partner. Together we had a great conversation, that really inspire all of in different ways. The time to plan and share ideas was truly beneficial and powerful. Kim was a little apprehensive about the requirements, expectations, and dedication to this unit when she does not have to take a course or receive credit. Cindy and I did explain that she would not be graded and not accountable for the overall unit outcomes. After that she was comforted of her responsibilities and role within the unit.

Cindy began by introducing Kim, the art specialist, to the process of Understanding by Design. Cindy began first and shared her completed Stage One for Language Arts and showed Kim the basic format of what we were to discuss with her. Cindy shared her unit first then I shared my unit. Naturally, Kim wanted to know about the activities that both she and we were going to do for our unit and we explained to her that we would decide those later based on our understandings. We explained that we were going to focus on the learning that the children will have after completing the unit of study.

We began by looking at the MLRs for Art and Kim told us that MSAD9 was in the process of changing the Art standards and they may change in the future. This may in fact impact us later on, but we decided to continue on in the process. We decided to focus on the Artist’s purpose for PreK-2, this worked out for both of our units. For my unit, we discussed the conceptual lens of identity and how to answer the essential question of how people are alike and different? Kim expressed that she can talk about perspective and provide children with different mediums to explore identity.

We then talked about the understandings, key knowledge and skills. The more detailed section like this one and the six facets sections were difficult to discuss. We problem solved and worked together to solidify how to incorporate art concepts into our units. Together we decided to meet again and firm up details of these concepts and sections. Before the meeting ended we talked about the performance tasks and the type two technology grid. Kim was most excited about the technology piece of the unit. She sees great value integrating technology in the classroom. This part of the conversation was the most inspiring to me and I think the rest of the group. It was a good note to end on.