Standard 2: Teaching and Learning
Knowledge of Learners and Learning
Effective and Knowledge Teacher
Information Literacy Curriculum
..
Artifact: House on Mango Street Unit
Learner Assessment
Collaborative Lesson

I have received the beginning tools to become an educator. This collaborative plan developed with an eighth grade language arts teacher assesses learner needs and provides instructional methodologies in a manner that supports the learning of all students with diverse learning styles, abilities and needs. As stated in my background, coming to see myself as a teacher has been my most difficult task. I felt extremely slow in grasping the Understanding by Design Model, but I have come to expect the need for a high level of planning around instruction. I believe this unit plan expresses all four AASL Standards for the 21st century learner. It reveals the integration of the School Library Media Specialist and the classroom teacher to effectively teach the classroom curriculum and literacy standards.

As I reflect on Standard 2, I see a growing edge for me in developing ways to document the relationship of information literacy skills instruction with student performance on standardized tests. First, I must establish myself as a teacher; then, I can begin to evaluate and assess the impact my program upon school performance. I felt the need to acknowledge my growing edge since my target goal is to document that library media curriculum is significant to overall academic success of students.
..
..

One way of having impact in collaborative instruction is to work with a unit teacher to develop an instructional tool for the classroom. It may make it more effective if that instructional tool can used in the home environment as well. Working with a sixth grade science instructor on learning objectives concerning weather, we developed the video that serves as an artifact. During its development,the teacher and I dialoged about ways story boarding can be a tool for instruction. We began to dream about moving our students beyond the normal powerpoint presentation and into the 21st century. Reflecting on this video it would have been more effective for us if we could have documented its success by having a pre-test and post-test evaluation of the viewer's knowledge. Most of my educational collaborative plans have been with the Language Arts Department, but this artifact reflects work that moves literacy standards across the curriculum.
..
..

The 21st uses technology tools to communicate, the School Library Media Specialist must assist his or her teachers in integrating these tools into classroom learning. Of all my artifact in this portfolio, I am most proud of these two artifacts. I am choosing to showcase student work instead of my lesson plan. The product speaks for the production. In both artifacts, there was as much learning for the instructors as for the students. Reflective work on the planning and execution of the plan will lead to greater success in the future. The power of both artifact is the sense of pride the students have about their work and the fact that it is available to the universe. The sense of excite around the publication of these student projects enhanced the teacher's and student's views of me as a leader and a teacher. I am coming to understand the role of collaboration in my career. Perhaps, my sense of pride comes from the fact that these were my first experience standing before students as their teacher. The sense of intrinsic accomplishment made be aware that I have taken the correct path with both my education and my career. I will include the rubric upon which these student's podcast were graded.