And since I've never actually had a full time media specialist position, after I'm done freaking out, and have turned in an application, my next thoughts go to lesson planning for the year! (I realize that this is pretty premature, since this step comes before I even get a job interview, but that's just how my brain works.)
Right now I have my targets on an upper elementary media specialist position that is literally within walking distance to my house. It is my dream job, and I will be totally and irrevocably crushed if I don't get that position. I am actually trying not to get my hopes up too much, but you can see how that's going. Anyhoo - my brain is spinning with ideas for next school year, and I know that it's going to be super important to be organized. That first year of teaching is going to be tough! I somehow want to map out the school year for all three grades and decide what standards I want to address, what skills I want to introduce, and the big overall picture.
We, as media specialist, don't necessarily have a set of standards that we need to teach - we have more guidelines in the form of Common Core, AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, International Society for Technology in Education Standards, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and I'm sure I'm forgetting more. The way I see it, my job is to help out classroom teachers by taking a little bit of the Common Core load off their shoulders, do my profession proud and include as many of the AASL standards as is feasible, continually look for ways to embed technology skills and standards, and keep in mind the importance of upgrading lessons to include 21st Century skills. Holy crap - that's a lot!
Add to that, I've had the idea lately that I want to have an overarching theme to each grade level at school. Specials teachers are in the rare and enviable position of having the same students three years in a row, which provides a great opportunity for building off of the previous year's skill set. Right now I'm thinking of the following for a 4-6th grade upper elementary school:
- 4th Grade Focus - Research
- Introduction to the Big 6
- Asking Questions
- Notetaking
- Sources of Information
- print, internet, databases, primary sources, media, etc,
- 5th Grade Focus - Presentations
- Various Presentation Tools
- Creative Commons, Licensing, Attribution, etc.
- Creating Quality Presentations
- Presentation Techniques and Public Speaking
- 6th Grade Focus - Creativity
- Generating New Ideas and Products
- Fair Use, Copyright, etc.
- Digital Citizenship and Website Evaluation
- Sharing with a Global Audience
