I don’t think that I have ever subscribed to the librarian stereotype featured in the item about the Gillard enquiry into school libraries on the 9th April 2010 edition of Channel 10’s The 7pm Project. I think that I have long had a view of the librarian as a resource person to whom one went as a class teacher for assistance with locating, acquiring and organising resources for class assignments. More recently, I have appreciated the key partnership and leadership of the librarian in introducing and supporting online resources and digital literacy (Cooney 2010).
There are three aspects of the role of the teacher librarian that this course has brought into clear focus. The first is the pedagogical foundation for the teaching strategies and resources that my teacher librarian has helped me adopt in my teaching. These are Inquiry or Resource-based Learning and Information Literacy. By understanding these learning strategies and models more completely, I am able to better appreciate the teaching role and collaboration of the teacher librarian as well as more effectively employ them in my own teaching (Cooney, March 13th, 2010).
The second aspect is the importance of research-based reporting. Here’s my forum posting about this from March 7th:
"Having read the extended list and description of excellence in teacher-librarianship from the ASLA site, I was somewhat concerned about the suggestion that TLs [teacher librarians] should be involved in evidence-based research to justify the effectiveness of their role" (Cooney 2010).
Fellow student, Graham Bebington’s, response put my naïveté into sharp perspective.
"I tend to agree with you that it is strange that we have to justify and try and prove that we are effectively doing a job that for us we can see the tremendous benefits on student achievement and learning outcomes. However in this day and age there is a massive demand and an expectation of accountability and proof that we are facilitating and having a direct link to student academic growth" (Bebington 2010).
While working on assignment two I have come across a similar reference to research in Elements 6 and 7 of the NSW Institute of Teachers Professional Teaching Standards (NSW Institute of Teachers). However, I still think that the type of research described for teacher-librarians is different from that prescribed for teachers in general. The use of the same word may be misleading. When a graduate teacher explores “educational ideas and issues through research” or a professionally competent teacher explores “educational ideas, issues and research”, I suspect that this means locating, reading and evaluating professional literature and reports, whereas the ASLA standard – if the work of Ross Todd (2003, 2007) is to be the exemplary model – involves empirical research. I found the Delaware Case Study provided a compelling argument (Todd, 2009).
This is related to the third aspect that participating in this course has made clear: the precarious budgetary situation and the uncertain future for school libraries and teacher librarians. Whether the sobering budgeting guidelines of Debowski (2001), the case against invisibility set out by Oberg (2006) or the many stories set out by subscribers to the Australian Teacher Librarian Network (OZTL_NET) and the daily newspapers such as the Courier-Mail (2010) and The Age (2010), this has been a revelation. It has led to illuminating discussions with our own teacher librarian about the state of our school library collection and the effect that tighter budgeting has had upon it. These were certainly different from the views I expressed in an earlier blog from March 13th (Cooney, 2010). Having had to fight for many years for funds to resource my own subject area, I am no stranger to this situation but seeing the library as a central hub of the teaching and learning mission of the school, I had little or no awareness of the overall impact that this was having. I’m pleased that I kept note of the suggestions from Dianne McKenzie (McKenzie, 2009, 2010) in my blog entry from April 2nd (Cooney 2010).
I think that this is an issue that has genuine consequences for current teacher librarians and those of us who aspire to this profession. Without action to raise awareness and recognition of their role and effectiveness within the school, teacher librarians will be under threat (Cooney, May 9th, 2010). Those of us training for this role need to also be aware of the situation and ensure that our training and professional practice (including on-going training) enables us to lead in the making and monitoring of effective change and a positive difference in the learning and lives of our students.
References
Bebington, Graham. (2010, March 10th) Message posted to ETL 401 Sub-forum 2
Cooney, Philip. (2010, March 7th) Message posted to ETL 401 Sub-forum 2
Cooney, Philip. (2010, March 13th) Past and Future of School Libraries. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Cooney, Philip. (2010, March 13th) Guided Enquiry Learning. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Cooney, Philip. (2010, March 13th) Topic 2 Teacher Librarian Rules and Standards. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Cooney, Philip. (2010, April 2nd) ETL 401 Readings. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Cooney, Philip. (2010. April 8th) Assignment Reflection 2. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Cooney, Philip. (2010, May 9th). Future of Teacher Librarians. Message posted to http://valleyofwaters.blogspot.com
Debowski, S. (2001). Collection program funding management. In K. Dillon, J. Henri, & J. McGregor (Eds.), Providing more with less: collection management for school libraries (2nd ed.) (pp. 299-326). Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.
Libraries at Risk. (2010, March 30). The Courier-Mail, p. 40-41.
Mckenzie, Dianne. (2009, June 27th). Importance of creating an annual report. Message posted to http://librarygrits.blogspot.com
MPs to hear school library concern (2010, April 27). The Age. Retrieved from:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/mps-to-hear-school-library-concerns-20100426-tnci.html
Oberg, D. (2006). Developing the respect and support of school administrators. In Teacher librarian. 33, 3. 13-18.
Todd, R. (2003). How to prove you boost student achievement. In School Library Journal, 4/1/2003 retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA287119&publication=slj
Todd, R.J. (2007) Evidence-based practice and school libraries. In S. Hughes-Hassall & V.H. Harada (Eds.). School reform and the school library media specialist (pp. 57-58). Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited
Todd. R. J. (2009). School libraries and continuous improvement: a case study. In Scan. 28(2). May. 26-31.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Professional Practice
Whether or not my evaluation of the ASLA Standards is found to be satisfactory, one personal note is that I find them describing much of what I aspire to do in my own teaching, both with my students but also as a collaborator and leader of innovative educational practice with my colleagues. While there are still aspects of the teacher librarian role that I find daunting, the opportunity to promote lifelong learning and engage in professional discussion and collaboration about our profession is something that I enjoy. If only there were more time for such things. This is one reason why I take the opportunity to contribute articles to various publications. I hope that this will allow an exchange of ideas in a manner that is convenient for others to engage with in their own time.
More on ETL 401 Assessment Task 2
Unlike the previous assignment, I held back submitting this one until almost the deadline. This has been helpful because I have learnt more about the expectations and other aspects from Roy's responses to the forum posting by myself and others. In fact I have re-written some of Part B before submitting today, based on Roy's comments about professional practice being more than just teaching. In doing so, I have abandoned some more specific observations that I made about the standards, which I'm including here.
There are two aspects upon which the two sets of standards differ. The first is the skills that are required to create and maintain “a safe and challenging learning environment” (NSW Institute of Teachers, 2005, pp. 10-11). For the NSW Institute this includes discipline, managing student behaviour and ensuring student safety (pp. 10-11). The ASLA standards appear to emphasise the management of systems and information rather than students. This is probably not the intention but it has the potential to infer that teacher librarians do not require the same management skills as class teachers, which is not the case.
The second example is the reference to the implementation of the school’s mission in 2.3 of the ASLA standard. In this instance the ASLA standards have demonstrated a better acknowledgement of the role of schools as not just knowledge communities, but rather learning communities, which seek to address a variety of developmental needs in their students within a particular social, ethnic, religious or geographic context. The reference to knowledge of library and information management in ASLA 1.4 may seem to be unique to the teacher librarian but it has a parallel with the teacher “continually improving their professional knowledge and practice”.
The other aspect of the assessment task is this blog. Looking at the marking criteria, I am concerned at how much more I may have been expected to log here. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the expectation of writing this blog and forum posting and actually doing the reading, research and reflection required by the course has been a big ask. I also reflected earlier that I had used Word documents to make my own notes and (as I discovered while reviewing material for Part A and Part B) I had copied and pasted and referenced the Forum comments of others in those Word documents rather than this blog. Right or wrong procedure? I suppose that I will soon find out.
There are two aspects upon which the two sets of standards differ. The first is the skills that are required to create and maintain “a safe and challenging learning environment” (NSW Institute of Teachers, 2005, pp. 10-11). For the NSW Institute this includes discipline, managing student behaviour and ensuring student safety (pp. 10-11). The ASLA standards appear to emphasise the management of systems and information rather than students. This is probably not the intention but it has the potential to infer that teacher librarians do not require the same management skills as class teachers, which is not the case.
The second example is the reference to the implementation of the school’s mission in 2.3 of the ASLA standard. In this instance the ASLA standards have demonstrated a better acknowledgement of the role of schools as not just knowledge communities, but rather learning communities, which seek to address a variety of developmental needs in their students within a particular social, ethnic, religious or geographic context. The reference to knowledge of library and information management in ASLA 1.4 may seem to be unique to the teacher librarian but it has a parallel with the teacher “continually improving their professional knowledge and practice”.
The other aspect of the assessment task is this blog. Looking at the marking criteria, I am concerned at how much more I may have been expected to log here. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the expectation of writing this blog and forum posting and actually doing the reading, research and reflection required by the course has been a big ask. I also reflected earlier that I had used Word documents to make my own notes and (as I discovered while reviewing material for Part A and Part B) I had copied and pasted and referenced the Forum comments of others in those Word documents rather than this blog. Right or wrong procedure? I suppose that I will soon find out.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Future of Teacher Librarians
Before I post my assignment review of the role of teacher librarians, I thought that I would post part of my submission to the Gillard Enquiry.
There will be many more experienced and learned people making submissions to this enquiry. I am a teacher of over thirty years experience who has just begun to study for qualification as a teacher librarian. I do feel that this allows me to see the continuing significance of the school library and the central role of the school librarian from more than one vantage point.
The Federal government's focus upon literacy and numeracy, while in itself worthy of some commendation, has continued a narrow focus on the definition and assessment of these two skills. In twenty-first century classrooms much more emphasis should be being placed on inquiry, critical review and the applied use of information for solving problems.
This is not just literacy, even in the expanded form of reading, comprehension and writing. It is about the larger domain of information literacy. To be a successful reader today means to question the source of what you are reading, it means being able to locate the information you need from amongst the ever-expanding amount of information available. It means being able to process information in the form of text, images and sound. It means understanding how to decode, evaluate and use that information for your own purposes and to ethically use that information to persuade others or to solve problems. There is a further ethical imperative to teach students how to be discerning in their own selection of information and information sources.
The role of the library as the information media centre of a school has not changed. While computer access is now more widespread, the teacher librarian remains the school staff member best placed to know the information needs of students, to demonstrate effective and wise practice when it comes to information literacy and to evaluate the development of information literacy skills across the whole curriculum. It is this flexibility or transportability of skills from one context to another that will be required of our work force in this century.
However, the development of these information literacy skills should not be seen merely as an economic tool. They are important to the maturing of responsible citizens, able to make informed decisions. This is important, whether those citizens are consumers or, as is increasingly the case, creators and manipulators of information themselves.
It makes sense to commit this crucial role of literacy learning to people who are trained, dedicated and engaged in the business of information in the school. It also makes sense to ensure that they are adequately funded for this task. This includes the need to fund access to recognised, authoritative sources of relevant information, both in printed and digital form. This becomes all the more imperative as teachers grapple with the task of implementing a new national curriculum. The need for resources together with the need to develop the full range of literacy skills, including digital literacy, make the role of the teacher librarian even more necessary than before if we are to truly nurture the citizens of the twenty-first century.
There will be many more experienced and learned people making submissions to this enquiry. I am a teacher of over thirty years experience who has just begun to study for qualification as a teacher librarian. I do feel that this allows me to see the continuing significance of the school library and the central role of the school librarian from more than one vantage point.
The Federal government's focus upon literacy and numeracy, while in itself worthy of some commendation, has continued a narrow focus on the definition and assessment of these two skills. In twenty-first century classrooms much more emphasis should be being placed on inquiry, critical review and the applied use of information for solving problems.
This is not just literacy, even in the expanded form of reading, comprehension and writing. It is about the larger domain of information literacy. To be a successful reader today means to question the source of what you are reading, it means being able to locate the information you need from amongst the ever-expanding amount of information available. It means being able to process information in the form of text, images and sound. It means understanding how to decode, evaluate and use that information for your own purposes and to ethically use that information to persuade others or to solve problems. There is a further ethical imperative to teach students how to be discerning in their own selection of information and information sources.
The role of the library as the information media centre of a school has not changed. While computer access is now more widespread, the teacher librarian remains the school staff member best placed to know the information needs of students, to demonstrate effective and wise practice when it comes to information literacy and to evaluate the development of information literacy skills across the whole curriculum. It is this flexibility or transportability of skills from one context to another that will be required of our work force in this century.
However, the development of these information literacy skills should not be seen merely as an economic tool. They are important to the maturing of responsible citizens, able to make informed decisions. This is important, whether those citizens are consumers or, as is increasingly the case, creators and manipulators of information themselves.
It makes sense to commit this crucial role of literacy learning to people who are trained, dedicated and engaged in the business of information in the school. It also makes sense to ensure that they are adequately funded for this task. This includes the need to fund access to recognised, authoritative sources of relevant information, both in printed and digital form. This becomes all the more imperative as teachers grapple with the task of implementing a new national curriculum. The need for resources together with the need to develop the full range of literacy skills, including digital literacy, make the role of the teacher librarian even more necessary than before if we are to truly nurture the citizens of the twenty-first century.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
ETL 401 Assessment Task 2
I'm feeling a little more confident about this task. I'm only using the NSW Teachers Standards for comparison but I think that's enough. I hope that's enough. I certainly think that I have some worthwhile points of comparison and evaluation. I've also tracked down some Forum comments for Part C. I'm glad this have been left up. I've also downloaded the referencing sheet for blogs and forum, as well listening to the vidcasts. I feel that I am giving myself a good foundation for tackling this task. I have to go back and change a few terms (steps not stages) in Part A and I want to look at the use of terms and the comparison with the Information Process model from the Learning from the Future book. It seems to be closer to the Big Six than the two that I have preferred. I wonder what that says?
Reflections on ETL 401 Assignment
The assignment arrived back today. Pleasing result and very encouraging comments. The two key areas that I missed were my own description of the information literate school community. I used a summary from the text and didn't expand this sufficiently to describe what this would mean in practice for the teacher librarian, the students and the teacher. In the end, I think that word limits defeated me bit here but also lack of time to reflect on the material in my own mind and in my own school. It is clear from the marker's comments that this personal reflection is as welcome in this course as the Reflection sections are in the 501 courses.
I also failed to correctly reference a couple of readings. I actually noticed this when I went to use one of the same quotes in the ETL 501 assignment and I found the quote in my notes without an accompanying reference. Once again time. I don't say this as an excuse. It is very much a reality of the context in which this course and the assignments are being completed.
I also failed to correctly reference a couple of readings. I actually noticed this when I went to use one of the same quotes in the ETL 501 assignment and I found the quote in my notes without an accompanying reference. Once again time. I don't say this as an excuse. It is very much a reality of the context in which this course and the assignments are being completed.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Reflections on ETL 503 Assignment 1
The assignments do have useful practical application. I liken it to a student teacher preparing a unit of lessons for an assignment and then having a resource to draw upon in their practicum or their later teaching. But just as an experienced teacher will complete and demonstrate a lesson without necessarily holding a fully annotated program in their hand as they teach, so our teacher librarians do their jobs without referring to a research paper or textbook to support their actions. Doing this now, helps us to understand the why, while talking or working with our teacher librarians helps us to learn the how.
I think that sometimes the readings and even the Kennedy text can seem too theoretical or academic and not enough like a procedure manual. Yet the assignments ask us to bring these two things together: the practical and the theoretical. This also compounds the problem of referencing. How do I reference something that I do? I make notes on each reading and yet I've still struggled to demonstrate wide reading in the assignments because they seem to ask us to describe what we did and what we'd do better, rather than discussing the thoughts of the experts. How do we know what is a better way? From the readings, I think – as well as advice from the librarian. In Assignment 1, it was easy to look up recommended books on SCIS or on a site such as the NSW DET syllabus support sites. This is what librarians do all the time. However, because I wrote my own appraisal (based on the selection criteria in the readings), without referring to this source and other reviews of the two books I included, my work was not as strong as it might have been.
The assignment and text did say to use these type of resources in your selection, so I have no gripes with that appraisal. However, it is important to write out each part of the task and the assessment criteria, if you want to ensure that you have covered everything. The nine-point criteria from Ashley for the collection development policy is an example of this. When they're written in a long sentences in the task rather than points, it is easy to miss something.
I think that sometimes the readings and even the Kennedy text can seem too theoretical or academic and not enough like a procedure manual. Yet the assignments ask us to bring these two things together: the practical and the theoretical. This also compounds the problem of referencing. How do I reference something that I do? I make notes on each reading and yet I've still struggled to demonstrate wide reading in the assignments because they seem to ask us to describe what we did and what we'd do better, rather than discussing the thoughts of the experts. How do we know what is a better way? From the readings, I think – as well as advice from the librarian. In Assignment 1, it was easy to look up recommended books on SCIS or on a site such as the NSW DET syllabus support sites. This is what librarians do all the time. However, because I wrote my own appraisal (based on the selection criteria in the readings), without referring to this source and other reviews of the two books I included, my work was not as strong as it might have been.
The assignment and text did say to use these type of resources in your selection, so I have no gripes with that appraisal. However, it is important to write out each part of the task and the assessment criteria, if you want to ensure that you have covered everything. The nine-point criteria from Ashley for the collection development policy is an example of this. When they're written in a long sentences in the task rather than points, it is easy to miss something.
ETL 401 Assessment Task 2
I have just spent a whole weekend just doing Part A of this assignment, relating to the Information Literacy models. This was very much harder than I expected. I had no trouble selecting three. They were very similar in many ways: The Big Six, the DET ISP and the Alberta model. However, I wrote 750 words just comparing and contrasting the first stage in each model. In reducing the comparison of the whole model to that same length, I am now unsure whether I have achieved the depth that the task requires. It is very hard to know how much personal opinion to include and how much to cite material from the readings. Perhaps I should have included the deleted material in the blog.
I didn't do a word count of my forum positing on the information literacy models, but it wouldn't surprise me if I wrote over five hundred words there, in about thirty minutes. Make this weekend's struggle seem even more frustrating.
I didn't do a word count of my forum positing on the information literacy models, but it wouldn't surprise me if I wrote over five hundred words there, in about thirty minutes. Make this weekend's struggle seem even more frustrating.
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