Most Heartening Piece This Week

I'm a little unclear on how any of the assigned readings this week were "heartening." I didn't find anything that we read specifically cheerful or encouraging. If anything, it made me more nervous. A lot of the pieces we read this week were about planning collaboratively. Teachers and media coordinators working together to create materials, lessons, units, etc. together.

The article that I liked the best was "Understanding How Teachers Plan: Strategies for Successful Instructional Partnerships." I feel like this article gave the most helpful hints as to how to work together. For example, media coordinators should "be open to new ways of looking at teaching and help teachers to do likewise." I think that media coordinators should be the more open-minded of the two who are planning together and should be responsible for suggesting "out of the box" ways to address the same standards that the classroom teacher is looking to address in a particular lesson or unit.

I really appreciated that the collaborative reflection and planning is supposed to reflect the teacher's teaching and planning style. The fact that this article encouraged media coordinators to truly help the classroom teacher was great. When teachers and media coordinators talk about their planning and about their work, it will eventually become obvious that the teacher's style and desires will drive the instruction. When the media coordinator can add to that without being hostile or overly demanding, the planning will go a lot more smoothly.

My favorite part of this article was where the author said, "Don't wait to be asked; assume partnerships and look for opportunities to plan with teachers." In my district, at least, I do not ever see teachers go out of their way to plan with the media coordinator. However, if the media coordinator were to come to our common planning with some ideas ready to be contributed, we would not turn him or her away. We are very receptive to new ideas but do not have a lot of time during the school day to seek out the help.

--Andi