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Collaboration Story Contest Winner Gail Desler
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Honorable
Mention Each August,
my fifth grade class would become the Buddy Reading Class for a
second grade class at our school... Read
more. I had been teaching a first/second grade combination at Escondido Elementary school on the Stanford campus... Read more. |
Gail Desler's class on a fieldtrip to Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay.
Ports of Entry: Angel Island and Ellis Island
A collaborative research project
Gail Desler, Fifth Grade Teacher, B.C. Morse School, Sacramento, California
The Internet is changing the way teachers view collaboration. At my own school, for instance, collaboration used to mean working with the teacher next door or across the hallway. Today, on-site team planning is a starting point for many of my lessons - but not a limitation. In addition to the four teachers I plan with in "real time," I meet on a regular basis with a virtual teaching partner at Dalton School in New York City.
My classroom reflects California's changing demographics with its increased cultural pluralism. As my fifth grade students study about immigration, I want them to know that there is more than one chapter in our nation's immigration story. I want them to know the importance of Angel Island -- the other port of entry. I want them to challenge the notion of Ellis Island as the metaphor for immigration. For many of my students, their personal immigration stories began when their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents crossed the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic.
Two summers ago I met Monica Edinger, a teacher at Dalton School. She too wanted her students to know the other chapters in our immigration story. A project began to take shape. We agreed to take each our classes on an October field trip. While her class explored Ellis Island, mine explored Angel Island. We linked our web pages so that our students could generate questions for the other class to research. My students soon realized, and began to question, why less information was available on Angel Island compared to Ellis Island. As they worked in teams to answer questions posed by Monica's students, they moved beyond the textbook and began to investigate, rather than study, history.
Impressed and inspired by how readily our students became the experts on Angel Island and Ellis Island, we agreed to continue our collaboration in the new school year. Although our students may never actually meet in "real time," over the course of the school year, they will form a community of learners.
Technology makes our collaboration possible. But our project is not really about technology; it's about giving students access to information and the opportunity to build relationships within a community - local, national, or worldwide. Through collaboration, I hope to create a classroom that reflects, responds, and links to a changing world.
View the Ports
of Entry: Angel Island and Ellis Island website!
View Gail Desler's class page.
Contact Gail Desler at gailhd@jps.net.
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