Working on Integrated Unit w/ Colleague - Stage 1

Working with colleagues from my school on an integrated unit has been an interesting process so far. There have been some frustrations, but also some positive accomplishments as well.

The frustration began right at the beginning of this process. Finding the time to meet and discuss the unit was challenging. It took me all of last week to find a time to work with my peers. I am working with two other third grade teachers and it was impossible for us to find a chance to meet all together. I ended up only meeting with one of them because the other was swamped with work and did not have the free time.

In discussing the expectations and sharing stage one, there was some initial resistance from the teacher I met with. She stated that she was very willing to work with me, but felt like an awful lot was expected of her for a course she was not taking. I completely understood her point of view and explained that I would do my best to limit the pressure and workload. After a bit of sweet talking and a little bribing (dinner), we were able to continue along with the process.

Interestingly, as conversations continued, she explained that she had actually learned about Understanding by Design in the late nineties so she had some background. She was curious how things had changed since then.

I began teaching (or reviewing) about stage one by sharing my completed template for the Social Studies portion of the unit. I walked her through the process that I went through and asked her for feedback on what I had already done. She was pleased by the outcomes and acknowledged that it appeared to be an organized way to lay out ideas for the unit. I think that she liked being asked her opinion on what I had already done.

Next, I pulled out a blank template and began modeling the process used. I told her we could work on it together. I had us start by thinking of the big understandings and the essential questions for language arts that could apply to this unit, Life in the 1800’s. This was a challenging task and a bit frustrating because Language Arts is so broad. After much discussion over big ideas versus tasks, my colleague settled on the ideas that “writing is a useful communication tool to express and explain events in life” and that “literature can help students understand their past.” It was challenging for us to think of these big ideas, but I think they will work. Using these ideas as our framework, we next found some goals in Maine’s Learning Results and the district curriculum that would fit.

After clearing the “big ideas” hurdle, the rest of the template was not too bad. Together, we were able to pretty quickly establish the knowledge that students should know for both reading and writing. Coming up with skills to go with what students should know also went quite smoothly though it took much support on my end in order to use the six facets. My colleague, I have to admit was not really into using all six facets, but we managed it.

Overall this process took a lot of give and take. I had to be very supportive and encouraging. The modeling and working on the template together worked well and it was probably the only way that my colleague would have participated.

After working on stage one, I shared my ideas on the end of the unit performance assessment. I explained that the end result had to use type II technology and this made my colleague a bit nervous, but she was eager to learn more about using technology so it should work out. She liked the idea of using Garageband and having the kids create podcasts with pictures demonstrating what they knew. She wasn’t sure about including the Historical Society, but was willing to go along with it. She felt that the assessment would be a good measuring tool for both the Language Arts and Social Studies content.