Collaboration as School Reform: Are There Patterns in the Chaos of Planning with Teachers?.

Emphasis on collaboration is a significant thrust in both current school reform and school librarianship. Planning for instruction is generally included in various definitions and models of collaboration. Some research exists about individual planning done in isolation (Warren 2000), but little is known about teachers’ planning with other professionals. While school librarianship has been concerned with collaboration, we also have very little about the actual work of planning (Wolcott 1994). What does planning sound like? Would it sound chaotic to novices and other outsiders? To begin to develop a more robust model of what collaboration entails, this paper describes the patterns found in the planning meetings of a team of second-grade teachers and a school librarian. Transcripts from the team’s eight planning meetings across a school year were analyzed for patterns. The analysis identified these five activities: orienting, coordinating, drifting, making sense, and making connections. The findings of this study were significant for several reasons: (1) they provide a description of an actual year of planning between a school librarian and a team of teachers, (2) patterns were uncovered in the activities of planning, (3) these activities bear strong resemblance to many models of problem solving and instructional design, and (4) the role of the school librarian was particularly strong in the activity of making connections. While this study confirmed Wolcott’s (1994) suggestion that planning is not a linear process, the study did uncover persistent patterns in the types of activities that made up planning. One year, as the school librarian at Obama Elementary School, I had a student intern who was completing hours for her school library practicum. Eager to have her understand collaboration, I invited her to join a planning meeting with the first-grade team. Obama Elementary School had a flexible schedule, and as the school librarian, I met regularly for an entire afternoon, at least once a month, to plan with teachers of each grade level. These meetings were held in the school library while assistants covered the teachers’ classes. This particular meeting was very productive with library books and lesson ideas tossed around, and included the scheduling of several lessons in the school library. The next day I asked the intern what she thought about the meeting, and she responded that it seemed really “chaotic. ” Volume 15 | ISSN: 2165-1019 The intern’s reaction to what I had considered a good example of collaboration led to this study about planning by the school librarian together with teachers. Emphasis on collaboration is a significant thrust in both current school reform (Cochran-Smith and Lyttle 1999; Dufour and Eaker 1998; Fullan 2001; Hord 2004; Kane and Henning 2004; Schmoker 2004) and in school librarianship (AASL 2009; Bacon 2008; Branch 2005; Brown 2004; Buzzeo 2002; Bush 2003; Doll 2005), and planning for instruction is generally included in various definitions and models of collaboration (Grover 1996; Loertscher 2000; Montiel-Overall 2005). Some research exists about individual planning done in isolation (Warren 2000), but little is known about teachers’ planning with other professionals. While school librarianship has been concerned with collaboration, we also have very little research about the actual work of planning (Wolcott 1994). What does planning sound like? Would it sound chaotic to novices and other outsiders? The purpose of this study is to describe the patterns found in the planning meetings of a team of teachers and a school librarian; the study is intended to begin the development of a more robust model of what collaboration entails. Such a model would enable school librarians to better articulate the work of planning and collaboration to new and pre-service school librarians, to the teachers we aspire to work with, and to the administrators whose support is needed for collaboration (Morris and Packard 2007). This research question guided the study: What kinds of activities characterize the talk of planning between a team of teachers and a school librarian?