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Longitudinal Case Study

Two Heads Are Better than One:
Influencing Preservice Classroom Teachers' Understanding and Practice of Classroom-Library Collaboration

Judi Moreillon: Home | Author | Educator | Advocate Two Heads Are Better than One: Interventions During Participants' Preservice Education Two Heads Are Better than One: The Factors Influencing the Understanding and Practice of Classroom-Library Collaboration Additional Collaboration Data and Table 1: How Participants Define the Benefits of Classroom-Library Collaboration One of my objectives for the interventions in the study was to infuse the participants' preservice teacher education program with collaboration concepts and collaborative teaching strategies. To that end, we revisited this learning and teaching model often. I included an essay question related to our exploration of collaboration on the final examination for the elementary curriculum course: "Compose a definition of collaboration. Then write a paragraph about the benefits of classroom-teacher and teacher-librarian collaboration." Participants' responses about the benefits of collaboration clustered around these concepts (Table 1). These data reflect the responses of the students who were participants in the study rather than all of the students in the course. Table 1: How Study Participants Defined the Benefits of Classroom-Library Collaboration (N=15) - March 2005 Concepts Times Mentioned by Individual Respondents (Percentage of Participants) More individualized attention for students 11 (73%) Increased ideas 9 (60%) Increased/integrated resources 9 (60%) Increased creativity 8 (53%) Broader perspectives on curriculum 7 (47%) Support for planning 5 (33%) Shared responsibility for curriculum 3 (20%) Increased potential for success 2 (13%) Lesson/unit assessment 2 (13%) Increased student achievement/motivation, Integrated curriculum, Modeling partnership or teamwork, Professional growth for teachers, Support for curriculum standards 1 (7%) Clearly, the participants understand the benefits of collaboration for students. In their teacher aide practicum experiences, they had occasion to work one-on-one and with small groups of students, and realized that lowering the student-to-teacher ratio assisted both students and teachers. Access to more ideas, integrated resources, and increased opportunities for creativity were noted by more than half of the participants. Another of the most encouraging concepts was the understanding that collaboration results in broader perspectives on curriculum. If these benefits became values for these preservice teachers, the likelihood that they would practice collaboration with colleagues, teacher-librarians, and others could increase. On the other hand, only one of these preservice teachers mentioned student achievement as a benefit of collaboration. Although achievement can be inferred from some of the other concepts, particularly individualized attention for students, it was surprising that more participants did not specifically cite this benefit. This was especially unexpected since one of our texts was Increasing Student Achievement through the Library Media Center: A Guide for Teachers (Loertscher and Achterman 2003). We continued the use of the Loertscher and Achterman text in the social studies methods course, the final course of their first year in the program (spring 2005). We continued our collaboration conversations and worked with Information Power's information literacy standards for students (AASL and AECT 1998) in our social studies explorations. On the final examination for that course, I provided a scenario in which the social studies standards had changed for 6th grade and the textbook did not address that particular concept or historical event. I asked the students what they would do. Six out of sixteen students (38%) said they would attempt to collaborate with colleagues; only four (25%) mentioned collaboration with the teacher-librarian. The infrequency of a collaboration response was surprising. My interventions were not as effective as I'd hoped in helping these preservice educators integrate collaborative work into their curriculum problem-solving schema. Return to Interventions Menu. Last updated: 1 February 2008 Judi Moreillon: Home | Author | Educator | Advocate