Post-reflection

The collaboration is coming to an end and I'm reading over the evaluations. This was definitely a learning experience for me. Working with Brenda, who fortunately has experience in the school library, was great. She had some great ideas that I never thought about before and that I'd like to inplement this year when I do this project with my seniors.
The evaluations have been interesting to read, as well. There are some that I think, "yeah, they're right", "yes, that is a good point". It's always nice to get a difference perspective of things from someone else's point of view. I've always been a strong believer that anyone can give you ideas, even if they haven't been teaching as long as I, they still have a different way of thinking. So, I respect everyone's opinions and took them into consideration.
I will work on "perfecting" this project with my students this year. From here, we can only go up and learn more from each other.
It was also nice to see how a school librarian can really help me and I know that don't utilize our school librarian enough. Now that I know what can be done with both of us working on a project for the better of the students, it can only get better from here.

Assessment

Brenda and I had discussed the assessment. There are a few things that we've decided to do, which improves the lesson as whole, and I look forward to really teach all this to my students. We are doing smaller assessment through-out each lesson. Then, the final assessment will be the presentation that the students will prepare. With the help of the LMS they will learn the reasons that plagarism is not right or allowed. And they will be able to do their own work. Working on the project, and producing something that they researched on their own and learned from class, will truly show to me what they learned and how it affected their thoughts on Japan. This project is not only for them to learn about Japan and the history, but also think about the history and how it has affected Japan today and why it is the way it is today.

Mid-planning

I took the role of the classroom teacher and Brenda took the role of the school librarian. Together we are working on a plan for my upper level Japanese students. At this point in their learning, the students have mainly focused on language, with some culture where it became appropriate. Cultural aspects, such as; schools, homes, prefectures, etc. have been taught and discussed in class. The students know a lot about Japan, but history has not been focused on too much. So, the purpose of this lesson is to have the students research a little deeper into Japanese History and understand the various eras that made Japan what it is today.
With the help of Brenda, the school librarian, we will work on a lesson that helps students research on their own an era of their choice. Not only is this imperative in the project, but also teaching about plagarism. Unfortunately, students still don't understand that you can't just copy and paste from the internet. So, Brenda will help me by teaching my students about plagarism and why it's wrong. The students need to learn lesson, even though it may seem a bit too late, better late than never.
Now, with the project in mind, students will also need to compare this to something familiar to them, mainly American History. Or, if there are students from other backgrounds, they can compare to their other history. Learning about various cultures and history is the meaning of this lesson.

Early-Planning

Here are the demographics and a bit of a background of my high school.
1% Asian American
3% American Indian
4% Asian
2.6% African American
3.2% Hispanic
92% Caucasian
There are a total of 1,939 students, 10th-12th grade.

Last year, with 544 students in the graduating class:
66% go onto 4-year college
29% go onto 2-year college
3% go straight to a full-time job
3% go to business or trade school
2% join the armed forces

You mentioned about LRC students or special education students, some of them have para pros, some of them just have K-NEX kids (students who go with them to class and help them in class-these are the students who don't need to have someone constantly with them).

This lesson, as I said, will be geared towards my senior class of Japanese 5. Generally, this class is smaller in size and these are students who are more than likely going to study Japanese in college. However, when it comes a project like this, any student who is in the special education program will have any accomidations made to them, as labeled in their IEP.

Collaboration

So, Brenda and I have decided that we will do the collaboration on the Japanese Era and also put a bit of focus on plagarism. But, my only fear/concern is that not many people know anything about Japan/ese, how will a media specialist be able to help me with helping the kids do research on such a subject? Of course, with my help it can be done. But, it just seems that your average History teacher goes up to the school librarian and says, "I'm doing a project on Women's Rights, can you pool some books together for me?" And they get the books and the kids are all set to go. With Japanese, or even any world language, it's not quiet that simple. They generally don't have books that are specific to something like Japanese Era's. Although, I know this will get worked and there always the internet, but I don't want my students to forget that there are real books out there for them to look at and read. That Wikipedia is not all that it's cracked up to be. But, I know with the help of the school librarian, we can do this......successfully.

My thoughts...

When I first started teaching, we had a media specialist, but I honestly had no idea what her job was. I knew she checked books out to kids, helped them do research projects, but I never thought about asking her for help on my own lessons. Through out the years, I left that school and went to another school. However, the second school I went to, was inner-city and there just wasn't the resources for me, much less in the media center for the students. So, I just kinda dealt with it. Now that I'm in a different district, where the media specialists are more hands-on, I see what they do, aside from just dealing with books.
At the high school level, our media specialist is very involved in the IB program and the research that needs to go into it. I always see her helping other teachers and I see "collaboration" happening. I put it in quotes, because maybe there's more to it, than what I see or know at this moment.
I am a bit nervous, to be honest working with a classmate on this project. Luckily, she's been in the media specialist position. It's me that I'm worried about. I hope use the "media specialist" to the best of my ability and am able to collaborate and actually the lesson that we create in my classroom.
The plan right now, is the use my Japanese 4 class as the focus of the lesson. They do research on Japanese Eras and it's a project that I've always felt unsure about. I never thought what I did was enough. But, with my partner, I'm hoping to tweek it and work it out so that it a great project and beneficial to the students and that they learn from it.

Yay, I finally figured this out! I will get a picture up later today after school. I have expereince purely in the classroom of junior high and high school level. I'm excited about this collaboration, because my partner, Brenda has expereince in the media center. Please come back for more on our progress. Thanks.