Barb and Marilyn’s Magnificent Adventure

Barb and Marilyn’s Magnificent Adventure The Journey Starts with a Single Step April 2007 and beyond Barbara Raught and Marilyn Kulkarni

What Is Collaboration? • Collaboration is a structured, recursive process where two or more people work together toward a common goal—typically an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration

How does it work? • Everyone involved in the lesson is there from the beginning to the end. • Everyone is involved with the design, implementation and evaluation of the unit. • Everyone contributes based on their area of expertise.

Why Did We Collaborate? • Students would achieve more • Students will experience more success • Past experiences with collaboration told us so • Two minds are better than one • Bouncing ideas off someone else provides for confident and competent decisions • Fewer melt downs • It’s more fun to work together

UbD Understanding by Design • The emphasis of UbD is on "backward design", the practice of looking at the outcomes in order to design curriculum units, performance assessments, and classroom instruction … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_by_Design

The essence of backward design Sick child Accident on Route 1 Arrive at the Beach Take Routes 9 & 13 Potty stops Head for the Beach

Unit Title:Where were you in 2002? • Relevant to kids • Personal connection • Choose a topic in their lifetime • Improves self-esteem • Authentic

Goals – Big Ideas Your Past affects your Future

Essential Questions • What is the purpose of research? • Why is evaluation of sources important? • What is the relationship between ethics and research? • How do your personal ethics effect your research? • How do the choices you make effect your life?

Delaware Content Standards • 1.5 Listen to and comprehend oral communications. • 2.4k/2.6b Students will be able to demonstrate an overall understanding of printed texts by (k) relating the content of the text to real-life situations and (b) applying information from printed, electronic, and oral tasks.

Delaware Content Standards • 3.1a1 Identify and locate a variety of sources including printed materials, personal interviews, oral reporting, forums, and technological forms of information • 3.1a2 Develop and use procedures to gather information and ideas.

Delaware Content Standards • 3.1b Independently extract information to achieve a specific purpose, extract information relevant to a specific purpose. • 3.2a Use technology to synthesize information into a meaningful format to express ideas and experiences, and to create text, drawings, graphs, diagrams, photographs, videos and graphics.

Delaware Content Standards • 3.2b Independently present information which is sufficient in quantity and depth to achieve a specific purpose, avoiding plagiarism. • 3.3a2 Establish criteria by which sources and information can be analyzed for accuracy, bias, stereotypes and validity. • 3.3b1 Independently interpret information as appropriate for specific purpose.

Activities • Watched Star Trek episode – “Tomorrow is Yesterday” • Birth Order Essay and Citing Techniques • Cut and paste organizing activity to simulate note cards • Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and “The Feast of the Jungle” were read. Wrote stories on “What if”The Jungle was never published.

Activities • Selection of topics • Website evaluation – Bogus websites • QUICK online tutorial • UDLibsearch to find sources for working bibliography • Citation machine to format citations • Highlighting, margin note taking and formatting of note cards.

Scaffolding was required to make sure they got it Preliminary work took much longer than expected but when it was done the students began to see the big picture. • Citing in birth order papers led to citing in research paper. • Finding and using quotes into birth order paper led directly to using them in the research paper.

Assessments • Birth order essay rubric • “What if…” group project rubric • Oral presentation • QUICK checklist • Working bibliography rubric • TRAILS pre and post tests of Information Literacy Skills • Final research paper

Websites used • http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus • http://www.dhmo.org/ Dihydrogen Monoxide • http://www.genochoice.com/ Genochoice • http://www.trails-9.org/ • http://www.quick.org.uk/menu.htm • www.easybib.com • http://www.ozline.com/electraguide/thesis.html

How did they do?Standard 3: Information Literacy Improvement in area taught compared to controls (not taught at the time of the test) Students improved in their ability to evaluate sources that would be used in their papers.

How did they do on the Research Paper? • Number • Quality • Works Cited Pages • Citing

We Worked Together with Technology Using technology ourselves and with the students increases all our learning. • UDLibsearch led to reliable sources • Citation machine helped create the bibliographies • Thesis Builder helped create thesis that could be defended • Word helped to create our documents

Bibliographies were richer All students produced Working Bibliographies of good to excellent quality when appraised for format and acceptable research sources. --- No more questionable websites!!! And they were completed in one and a half hours in the library.

Paying it Forward Students transferred their newly acquired knowledge to others

Students helped other students Over the course of several weeks students from our classes were observed helping students from other classes with their research projects – One academically challenged student was able to help a senior with her paper. His pride was palpable.

Collaborating is the Name of the Game With so many students on so many levels, it helps to have more hands to work with them all. Students being confident enough to help their peers was an added plus.

On the Collaborative Experience “The support and the results one gets from collaborative work has such an impact, that once teachers try it, they’ll never want to go back to working alone again.” Barbara

Co-operation makes it happen “Knowing what teachers are doing in the classroom makes it so much easier and productive when I help students in the library” Marilyn

A sense of humor is quite helpful What Leads to a Great Collaboration?

Better Living through Chemistry This has been such a great experience that both of us cannot wait to continue.

Why Collaborate? • 11th grade ACT scores are highest when there is a high degree of true collaboration between library media specialists and classroom teachers in a wide spectrum of activities… Illinois Study (Lance, Rodney and Hamilton-Pennell, 2005)

Why Collaborate? (part 2) …high schools tended to have better test results where teachers reported initiating collaboration with their library media specialist on the design and delivery of instruction. Indiana (Lance, Rodney, and Russell, 2007)

Our Next Collaborative Project We are currently working on our next unit – a revamping of the required Literary Analysis. The Big Idea is “white privilege.” Standard 4: Multicultural Literature

After all is said… what was done? The Teacher and librarian worked together to plan lessons that students loved and will retain. “Right now I might be researching topics to write papers, but some day I might need to read about health issues or something like that, and I want to know the facts I’m getting are accurate.” …LaNita, 11th grader “Being able to judge the truthfulness of the information I am looking up is a life skill.” … Chris, 11th grader

Barb and Marilyn’s Magnificent Adventure