Forum Post 4:

How's it going Everyone! 

Innovategov.org (2012).

Below I engage with the process and benefits of Collaborative Unit Planning. The one major lesson that Teacher's College is allowing me to explore is that we expect our students to collaborate, and we must model this behaviour to them successfully. I understand it can be easy to get lost in our own classroom environment where we can interact with our students more often than our colleagues, and it can become easy to digress. 

OESSTA (2014, October 6). YouTube Video.

This is especially why Collaborative Unit Planning is beneficial, and the video clip Planning for Combined Grades outlines one key area that is extremely important to me as en emerging educator, as I have eluded to above; students have the benefit of hearing common messages. When teachers sit down to collaborative and form a unit plan together, all of the Big Ideas, Areas of Inquiry, Learning Goals, etc. are all similar in their process and their underlying messages. From my personal experience as a student who was on rotary for the majority of my education, there was nothing more frustrating then sitting down with my peers to study only to find out that what I was learning was completely different than what they were learning, even though the classes were titled exactly the same. It not only made it frustrating to try to figure out what the expectations and big ideas were for those classes, but it became competitive between us students in terms of which class was the better one to be in for our success. Due to those types of experiences I had as a student, I believe that as an emerging educator, it is my job to successfully collaborate with my colleagues, especially in regards to Unit Planning, as it ensures common messages are being conveyed, and this consistency is key to ensuring the success of our students. To simply reinforce what I have stated, I found this great post that can be accessed here that simply and effectively outlines the benefits to collaboration. 

References
Innovategov.org (2012). The Benefits of Enabling Collaboration. Website. Retrieved From http://innovategov.org/2012/10/17/the-benefits-of-enabling-collaboration/ 
Ontario. (2013). The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, History and Geography. Grades 1-8. (6th Ed). Toronto: Ontario, Ministry of Education. https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/sshg18curr2013.pdf
OESSTA (2014, October 6). Planning for Combined Grades - Teacher Reflection on the Collaborative Process. YouTube Video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3TzKQyufII 
Srinivas, H. (2016). 44 Benefits of Collaborative Learning. Blog Post. Retrieved From http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/c-learn/44.html