A.9+Collaboration+Plan

Below is my original collaboration plan written just under two years ago.

Within our school there are eight professional learning communities that consist of about 4 to 5 grade general education teachers and anywhere from 1 to 2 special area teachers. These PLCs meet twice each week to discuss academic and field trip planning, study student data, and work collaboratively with administration, reading coaches, counselors, and other teachers. Although I belong to a 5th grade based PLC, consisting of two of my veteran cluster teachers who utilize many strategies for differentiation such as flexible grouping, jigsawing, Bloom's questioning, and anchor activities for their students, I am currently working collaboratively with a 4th grade PLC. It happened very naturally when one of the fourth grade teachers began searching for strategies for her high end learners while she was busy with intervention groups. Together we devised the Tick Tac Toe and genre wheel to take the place of accelerated reader. This was a GREAT place to begin and all of the teachers on that team bought into the idea. We are currently working on a couple of 3-2-1 activities to replace the tick tac toe charts after Christmas. Mrs. Rusk is going to allow her students to compact out of spelling beginning Friday, December 4th and I'm hoping the other teachers will follow suit after Christmas. I meet with this 4th grade PLC team about every two weeks to discuss how the activities are going and so far so good! Collaboration takes time and patience and I am pleased with the progress I am making with this 4th grade team. I briefly talked about our collaboration during the identification presentation several weeks ago and several teachers have asked me about our collaborative reading program for high end learners, even the reading coach.



** * See compacting and PLC Workshops to view activities used. **