Collaboration

1. C O L L A B O R A T I O N
T E A C H I N G P R O J E C T
A R L I N P E R E Z

2. COLLABORATING WITH OTHERS
Schools and teachers benefit in a variety of ways when teachers work together. Some
example are: sharing of ideas, more than one teacher invested in a set of students,
you have two sets of eyes to observe students, and you have two people to evaluate
the lesson.

3. WHAT DOES COLLABORATION LOOK LIKE
Collaboration can be teachers meeting in teams to review student data and guide
instructional decision making. It can be getting regular support from a coach or lead
teacher. It can be getting together with the teacher next door and planning a lesson.
It can also be working together with other professionals on your campus like:
administrators, librarian, campus technology specialist, or fine arts teachers.

4. WHO CAN I WORK WITH?
• The first requirement is a willingness to work with others. The best way to find that help is by
asking questions.
• The second step is to seek out the support faculty and staff. Those are the people in the school
who know your students best. Schedule some time to sit down with the department chair and/or
the teacher who works with your students and pick their brains.
• The third requirement is to be humble. Listen to the wisdom gained by veteran teachers.
• The fourth step is to plan with other members of your grade level team. You might have a great
idea for presenting a lesson, but another teacher might be able to add to that idea and make it
better.
• Don't forget about the other professionals in your building. The librarian, art, physical ed, and
music teacher is an excellent resource and should be consulted frequently. Let him or her know
what you are teaching and ask for ideas or resources.
• Each person in your building has a variety of strengths and talents. Get to know each one so
you're better able to call on those different resources within the building.

5. WHO I CHOSE TO WORK
WITH
My collaboration started because I wanted to integrate technology into some of my
lessons. When thinking of someone who could help me in that area, the first person
who I thought of was Ms. Sloan, our librarian. Every time our class went to the
library Ms. Sloan had a new technology tool to show our students. I knew that she
was aware of the latest and best practices, when it came to technology tools. I was
sure that she would be the best person to help me achieve my goal.

6. HOW WILL YOU MAKE COLLABORATION
WORK
There hast to be:
• Clarity of Purpose
• Individual Commitment
• Time
• Understanding of Sharing and Listening to Ideas
• Communicating in a way that works for both people

7. HOW I MADE COLLABORATION WORK FOR
ME
I knew that if I wanted this collaboration to work, we would both have to put forth the effort
to find the time to meet. Thankfully, we both had the same conference time, this made the
scheduling conflict a lot easier. Then we made sure to set some dates, as this would hold us
accountable. We decided to meet four times. The first meeting, we would focus on setting
objectives. The second meeting, we would come with activities that we had in mind. For our
third meeting, we would show up with the materials we would be using, and we would come
up with two assessments. Finally, we would meet the week after doing our lesson to evaluate
how the lesson went. We were able to keep this schedule, while also using email to
communicate when we quickly wanted to share an idea. I knew that she was giving up her
free time to help me, so I made sure that I actively participated in this collaboration.

8. COMING UP WITH OBJECTIVES
When working on the purpose of your lesson, you want to make sure that you are
thinking of the needs of your students. Don’t base your lesson on a technology tool,
instead look at your objectives, and see where that tool could add something
different to your lesson. You want to make sure that this lesson isn’t centered around
learning how to use a technology tool, but that it is part of a bigger lesson.

9. HOW WE CAME UP WITH
OBJECTIVES
When we got together to come up with the purpose of our lesson. Ms. Sloan, who has been teaching many years, suggested
that the best thing we could do for my students would be to work on an objective that was coming up in our curriculum. I
wanted to focus on language arts TEKS, because I knew that not only was Ms. Sloan great at working with technology, but
she would also be able to suggest some great literature to fit our lesson. When narrowing in on language arts, I looked at
our TEKS, and saw that there was an objective coming up about identifying details in expository text. I wanted my students
to be able to identify the difference between fiction and nonfiction, as I knew that Ms. Sloan could give me a list of some
wonderful books. When I told her about my idea she mentioned that the library had just acquired Lightbox books, these are
informational texts about animals, that offer an e-book with various activities. I told Ms. Sloan that we could combine our
language arts objectives with science objectives, as we had a fieldtrip to the zoo coming up.
Subject / Overall Purpose of Lesson:
• Students will be able to identify the difference between fiction and nonfiction by reading about zoo animals
Curriculum Objectives to Cover:
• TEKS 4B ask and respond to questions about texts read aloud 9A identify the topic of an informational text heard 10A identify the
topic and details in expository text heard or read, referring to the words and/or illustrations VI.B.1 Child observes, investigates,
describes and discusses the characteristics of organisms.

10. TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION
Technology should be integrated, not as a separate
subject, but as a tool to promote and extend student
learning on a daily basis. For some teachers a lack of
personal experience with technology presents and additional challenge. This is why
it is important to turn to people like librarians, who are trained on the best practices
for technology integration.

11. HOW I INTEGRATED
TECHNOLOGY
I asked Ms. Sloan for help with this part, we looked over informational literacy objectives, and she suggested that we look for an objective
that was similar to our language arts objective with the addition of technology. Since we were using some tools that were new to me,
she suggested we use the SAMR model, as this model allows for more flexibility.
Technology
Informational Literacy Objectives to Cover:
• 1.1.6 Read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g., textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather
meaning
• 1.1.8 Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry
Technology Integration Model
• SAMR- I decided to choose the SAMR model because I feel that when it is your first time using a particular technology tool, it is important to start
small. Using this model, gives the teachers the most flexibility and the ability to test out technology in the classroom. The purpose of the model is
to assist teachers in designing and developing lessons that utilize technology to transform the learning experiences for their students. I would put
the tools used in this lesson in the augmentation and modification stage of the SAMR model. I believe that tools like the Chatterpix app allow for
significant task redesign.

12. DECIDING ON ROLES
Collaboration often functions most effectively when
members have designated roles. These should be
determined by everyone involved in the collaborating
process. Many times the roles will be based on the goals of the assignment.

13. OUR ROLES
We decided that we both would stick to what we teach on a daily basis. I focused on curriculum objectives and
goals, while Ms. Sloan worked on technology goals.
Learning objectives taught by the teacher:
• Reading Comprehension
• Comparing and Contrasting
• Fiction Vs. Non-fiction
Learning objectives taught by librarian:
• Media Literacy
• Information and Communication Technology
• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication and Collaboration

14. CO-TEACHING
Teacher
Teacher will read the book Animal Strike at the Zoo. It’s True! Teacher will discuss fiction elements. Teacher will ask the
students questions about the setting, characters, and plot, and will do a quick activity on making predictions about what the
animals are going to do. We will discuss animal characteristics, and what jobs they could be good at.
Librarian Part of the lesson
Teacher will use a flipchart on the promethean board where students will have to choose which animals they would see in
fiction books and which animals they would see in nonfiction books.
Librarian
Librarian will explain that they will be using the app iA Animal Kingdom, along with the book, and they will get to experience
augmented reality. She will explain that she will give them some playtime so they can get used to the features of the app,
and then they will get to choose their favorite animal to research. She will also introduce students to Lightbox books; they
will look at the book Meet the Lion. They will read some interesting facts about lions. Librarian will then explain how the iA
Animal Kingdom app works. Students will be able to play with the app; they will then choose an animal to look up and will
listen to facts about their favorite animal.
Teacher Part of the lesson
The librarian will go over how to use the app Chatterpix and will give an example of how to use it. The students will then create
their own, and each student will present it to the class.

15. EVALUATION
Once objectives have been set for the lesson, all members should come up with a list
of how they will evaluate their work in this lesson. This will be done after the lesson
has been taught, where you will meet with all members to discuss your thoughts.
The evaluation will focus on: materials, student behavior, and teaching strategies.

16. EVALUATION
OF LESSON
Teacher Evaluation
Teacher will evaluate the lesson, by looking at student mastery. This will be done by
observation: story retell, answers to comprehension questions, and general understanding
of directions. The teacher will also be able to see if students achieved their learning goals
by looking at the work they did. Teacher will reflect on what worked and will come up with
solutions to what didn’t work.
Evaluation for Librarian
The librarian will be able to evaluate her part of the lesson, by looking at student mastery.
This will be done by observation: general understanding of directions, understanding of
how to use the tools provided, answers to questions about the tools they are working with.
The librarian will also be able to see if the students achieved their learning goals by looking
at the work they did using the technology tools. Librarian will reflect on what worked and
will come up with solutions to what didn’t work.

17. OUTCOME &
CHALLENGES
I believe that our lesson was successful, as the assessment scores showed that students had a good grasp
of fiction vs. nonfiction, their presentations proved that they were able to work with technology and
communicate facts on zoo animals.
Meeting with Ms. Sloan was a challenge because she is currently working at two schools, so her schedule is
not consistent. We made sure to plan ahead of time what days we were going to meet to avoid not being
able to catch each other. Besides meeting in person, we emailed each other when we had an idea or we
wanted to make changes to what was talked about in person. The good thing about planning ahead was that
we had time to process what this lesson would look like, and we were able to think and correct some
possible issues that may have caused the lesson to not work out the way we envisioned. Another factor was
time, as we don’t have a lot of library time so we knew that this could be an issue if the lesson went over our
library time, it also wouldn’t allow time for reflection. We decided that I would go over the language arts
objectives in the classroom and then we would head to the library for the technology piece. Then back to my
classroom for assessment and reflection, since this was her conference time we didn’t have to worry about
her finding someone to cover for her in the library.

18. WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
If I could do this differently I would use our PLC days to meet and plan out our lesson, as this
would give us more time to plan and not have to try to find each other. I think that was the
hardest part, actually finding the time to meet and plan, especially towards the end of the school
year where we are both really busy.
Overall, I really enjoyed collaborating with Ms. Sloan and really learned a lot about all the
technology tools that are out there that we don’t take advantage of. Collaboration allowed for us
to come up with some great activities, as we both gave each other ideas.

19. WHY YOU SHOULD COLLABORATE
Collaboration takes hard work and effort. Its not easy, but it's worth it. Ultimately,
your students are the ones who benefit, but you don't lose out either. In the process
of collaborating with different colleagues within your school, you are building
relationships, and making a place for yourself within the school community. Being a
team player is a win-win situation for everyone.