Collaboration on a Fixed Schedule

Collaboration.  It's something that is fundamental to our job as teacher librarians.  We are support personnel, using our expertise to guide students in their quest for information literacy skills while at the same time grounding that quest in a topic that has relevance to them in their lives and in their classrooms.  To accomplish that feat, we have to collaborate with classroom teachers.  Teaching teachers how to co-plan and collaborate is part of most teacher preparation programs (for a guide, see this packet from William and Mary). Yet in many schools, especially at the elementary level, the library is part of the resource rotation, and classroom teachers are having their planning time while the librarian is instructing their classes.  How can we collaborate when we are not available to plan at the same time?

Last fall, I began my first job as a teacher librarian in a PK-8 school with around 1100 students.  I share the instructional load for all grade levels with one other teacher librarian, and we run a fixed schedule.  On the elementary side, we are part of the resource rotation, so teachers are planning while we teach their classes.  On the middle school side, the English teachers bring their classes on set days at set times for information literacy lessons and checkout.  Their schedule is slightly more flexible than the elementary schedule, but it is mostly fixed because we were having trouble getting some of the classes into the library regularly.  Even so, our planning time as teacher librarians does not coincide with the planning time of our middle school teachers, either.  In fact, the other teacher librarian and I are only able to meet with each other on a regular basis for co-planning.

So, how do we collaborate with classroom teachers on a fixed schedule?  Here's what works for us:

1. Email.  When we are not sure what students are learning about in the classroom, or what skills they need more practice with, we email the teachers.  This has been especially helpful with our PK classes, since they don't have an official curriculum that is available for us to see.  We have also used input received from teachers through email to plan lessons for an individual class that needed remedial help with concepts that other classes had mastered.  When we are having trouble catching up with an individual teacher or need input from an entire grade level, email is an excellent collaboration tool.
2. Brief face-to-face talks.  Our teachers come into the library to drop off their classes and pick them up.  When we have simple questions, talking to the classroom teacher face-to-face is quick and helpful.  This is an excellent way to build relationships and let the classroom teachers know that we are working to help support their instruction in the library.
3. District Pacing Guides.  Our district launched a new website from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.  This website includes links for the curriculum of every core subject in grades K-12 and the curriculums of the Career and Technical Education, Health and Wellness, Foreign Language, Library Services, Music, and Visual Arts Departments.  This website has been a godsend for cross-curricular planning, and has allowed us to stay up to date on what students should be learning in the classroom so that we can integrate that into our library lessons.  

Do you have other strategies for collaborating with classroom teachers on a fixed schedule?  Share them in the comments below!

For more information on collaboration between teacher librarians and classroom teachers, check out this article from School Library Media Research.