Collaboration with Colleague
Cindy, Stacey, and Kim met together as one group for scheduling and convenience reasons as well as to collaborate and share ideas with each other. The time to collaborate with other professionals was very interesting. Having the time and new learning to apply is exciting and purposeful, while there is some nervousness to implement all the stages and integrate technology within all content areas.
We began by showing Kim our art integration sections of our blog with the embedded links and resources. We really wanted to show her our understanding and empathy towards the value of arts in the classroom. We felt this was a great way to start the meeting, as we showed our appreciation for her as a fellow professional.
At this time, Kim did express the concern that she is going to be involved in a masters program and that she truly wanted to help us, but does have some hesitancy towards the amount of work and time needed to implement the lessons (length of time, limited time with children, assessments, technology).
Before sharing stage 3, we thought it was important to share our stage 2 templates with Kim. This could give her a view of the type acceptable assessment evidence that would be expected during the units. Additionally, we had not previously shared our end of the unit authentic performance tasks, sharing these was important so that she would know the products and performances that would demonstrate student understanding. We also shared our product and presentation criteria. Kim expressed that she saw great value in these artifacts and was interested in knowing more about this stage and the backward planning model. Her experience has been to design activities before looking at assessment products and performances. This lead naturally into a discussion about the six facets. These lenses were the most difficult to share and explain. By using our completed stage 3 products we assisted Kim in beginning to organize her planning through the use of this design. We gave copies of our work for her to use as examples. We recognize that next fall, she may only be able to support us in implementation on a limited basis. She was however, interested in this backwards design model as this learning may be useful as she furthers her education.
The rest of our conversation focused around the perspective lens that we both chose for our units. We recognize that further conversations need to be held. She needed some thinking time to formulate ideas and suggestions about how we could integrated perspective into our units from a art educators point of view.
