Twitter Chat: Job-Embedded Professional Development

This fall graduate students in “IS516: School Library Media Center” are participating in bimonthly Twitter chats. The schedule is listed below. The chats will be based on the pull quotes from chapters in Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy (ALA 2018). We invite you to join us for our first chat on Monday, September 9th from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Chat questions will be posted on this blog on the Wednesday before our Monday chats.

Monday, September 9, 2019: #is516 Twitter Chat: Job-embedded Professional Development

“A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other” (Sinek, Mead, and Docker 2017, 104).

Professional learning embedded in the everyday practice of educators is an effective way to transform teaching and learning. In this model, school librarians can serve as professional learning leaders. They enact this role in a number of ways: through providing formal staff development; by serving as a member or team leader in one or more professional learning communities (PLCs); and through classroom-library collaboration, which involves trusting colleagues in coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing learning outcomes.

Coteaching offers educators the opportunity to hone their craft while teaching “actual students in real time, with the taught curriculum, available resources and tools, and within the supports and constraints of their particular learning environments” (Moreillon 2012, 142). School librarians add value when they co-collect evidence (student learning outcomes data) to demonstrate the effectiveness of their teaching in terms of what is important to colleagues and administrators. These data point the way toward continuous instructional improvement. Coteaching also creates the opportunity for school librarians to co-lead in a culture of adult as well as student learning in their schools.

#is516 Chat Questions
These are the questions that will guide our chat on September 9, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. CT.

Q.1: What does the term “reciprocal mentorship” mean in terms of classroom Ts & #schoollibrarians #collaboration? #IS516

Q.2: What is your experience in coplanning w/Ts? #IS516

Q.3: What’s an example of “engaging curriculum”? #IS516

Q.4: How do #schoollibrarians & administrators work together for change? #IS516

Please respond with A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4 as each question is posted.

Join us and bring your ideas, resources, experience, questions, and dilemmas to our conversation so we can learn with and from you!

Thank you!

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. 2012. “Job-embedded Professional Development: An Orchard of Opportunity.” In Growing Schools: School Librarians as Professional Developers, edited by Debbie Abilock, Kristin Fontichiaro, and Violet Harada, 141-156. Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited.

Sinek, Simon, David Mead, and Peter Docker. 2017. Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team. New York: Penguin.

 

#IS516 Twitter Chats: Time: 7:00 – 7:30 p.m. Central

Second and Fourth Mondays – Fall 2019

September 9 | Twitter Chat #1
Topic: Chapter 2: Job-embedded Professional Development
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 9/4/19

September 23 | Twitter Chat #2
Topic: Chapter 3: Inquiry Learning
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 9/18/19

October 14 | Twitter Chat #3
Topic: Chapter 6: Digital Learning
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 10/9/19

October 28 | Twitter Chat #4
Topic: Chapter 7: Assessment
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 10/23/19

November 11 | Twitter Chat #5
Topic: Chapter 8: Leadership and Advocacy
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 11/6/19

December 9 | Twitter Chat #6
Topic: Chapter 9: Sustaining a Connections in a Culture of Collaboration
Questions posted on Twitter and on my blog (SchoolLibrarianLeadership.com) on: 12/4/19

Reading the World, the Globe, and the Cosmos

In the month of August, I am blogging on WOW Currents. You can access today’s post “Inquiry into Nonfiction and Informational Global Literature Focused on Prejudice and Discrimination against Children and Teens.”

Each of the four August School Librarian Leadership blog posts are focused on professional books related to the WOW Currents posts

Along with members of the Worlds of Words (WOW) Board of Advisors, I have been engaged in a monthly professional book study of Suzanne Choo’s Reading the World, the Globe, and the Cosmos: Approaches to Teaching Literature for the Twenty-first Century. The other members of the study group regularly teach children’s and young adult literature in universities across the U.S. and in Mexico. As a library science professor who mostly teaches courses related to school librarian leadership and instructional partnerships, I have rarely had the opportunity to focus on literature per se in my teaching.

This summer, I taught “IS445: Information Books and Resources for Youth” for graduate students pursuing degrees and certifications as school librarians and children’s and teen public librarians. I joined the WOW professional book study group in order to consider ways to privilege global literature in IS445. In our course, we defined global literature as a comprehensive term that encompasses both international and multicultural literature that “honors and celebrates diversity, both within and outside the United States, in terms of culture, race, ethnicity, language, religion, social and economic status, sexual orientation, and physical and intellectual ability” (Hadaway and McKenna, 4-5).

In Reading the World, the Globe, and the Cosmos: Approaches to Teaching Literature for the Twenty-first Century, Suzanne Choo critiques pedagogical approaches to teaching literature in English: nationalistic, world, global, and cosmopolitan. My interpretation of Choo’s framework for pedagogical criticism is that it centers on approaches informed by conceptual values that are shaped by global and nation-state forces that create “global waves” that extend beyond the classroom, geographic region, world, and globe (see Figure 1.2 on page 23).

Nationalistic Approaches
Choo makes a strong case for the historical impermanence of the borders of nation-states. She notes that, in the past, we have misguidedly examined literacy texts as representative of nations of the world when national boundaries and the movement of people across them has always been dynamic. With that understanding, there have always been “interpretive communities” that have assigned meaning and value to texts, privileging some over others. Choo offers publishers, reviewers, and award committees as examples of entities/people who mediate between texts and readers. What is “beautiful” art or “good” literature has always been judged based on changing mores and values bounded by cultural considerations. In that light, readers can and must take a critical stance regarding what has previously and is currently considered the “best” texts.

Literacy educators (including librarians) also serve as mediators who select, promote, employ, and privilege certain texts for student engagement. They also intervene in readers’ motivation or deeper understanding of texts through various instructional strategies. School- or institution-level decisions also come into play in terms of what texts are sanctioned or “acceptable.” Although the number of traditionally published books that meet the needs of readers in our increasingly multicultural U.S. society are growing, they are insufficient. Today’s preK-12 students must be invited to explore the cultures and experiences of ever more diverse classmates and U.S. peers… and in the opinions of our book study members, they must also explore beyond our country’s borders.

The World
Where is the “world” view in literature? Choo argues that “a world paradigm subscribes to a belief about the good of teaching literature that is tied to the goal of world citizenship as articulated via concepts of collective taste and universal humanity” (83).

Choo offers many examples including the concept of the “ideal citizen” as penned by the late 18th-century, early 19th-center German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. She summarizes Goethe’s world citizen as one who privileges the world over the provincial, universal over the particular, and common humanity over one’s own countrymen (73). Choo goes on to write about how this universal concept of humanity “takes over the religious function of the Absolute or God” yet is based in Christianity. In this context, there will be texts that win (are included) and texts that lose (are excluded).

She suggests (and critiques) four approaches to teaching world literature. The first approach: Teach students to read across historical time and geographical space; this was the way early world literature courses (1900–1930s) were organized. The second approach: Teach English, U.S., and global literature in English with a focus on readers reflecting on the global, political, and philosophical ideas of the time in which they were created. The third approach: Use literature to make history (facts) come alive! (I just witnessed how contemporary nonfiction and informational books can make historical/contemporary events and issues vivid.). The fourth approach: Integrate literature with other subjects through thematic units; her critique of this approach suggests a fear that literature will be marginalized by disciplinary content.

Globe
What is the difference between a “world” and a “global” literature pedagogy? Suzanne Choo captured my goal for IS445 in this quote: “The teaching of global literature is used to describe approaches aimed at promoting a global mindset in students so that they will perceive themselves and others as members of an interconnected global village” (91). Considering the current political climate in the U.S. and various European countries, in particular, the focus on human rights over citizenship rights seems timely to me.

Choo mentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), When it was written, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. While the United States signed this Convention in 1995, no U.S. president has sent it to the Senate for ratification. (If you agree this is unconscionable, see next week’s post about “childism.”)

I appreciated Choo’s perspective on the differences between the flat map view of the world and the spherical reality of the Earth. She suggests that a “world” depiction of the planet suggests that parts make up the whole; while a spherical “global” view suggests the whole is made up of parts. (This resonated with me in light of the 50th anniversary of the moon walk. I was eighteen at the time and clearly remember the awe-inspiring view of the spherical Earth from space.) “Education that emphasizes spherical seeing of the human prioritizes students’ consciousness of themselves as citizens of the human race first followed by citizens of their nation or community” (96).

The Cosmos
To be honest, Choo lost me in the “cosmos” section of the book. While I found support for a shared urgency for privileging global perspectives, I did not as clearly see the cosmopolitan frame. “This idea of shared community and shared responsibility for each other and the fate of the human species is the starting point for a new kind of cosmopolitanism that might help us better transact the devaluing of our intellectual labor in the present age of neoliberal globalization” (xi). For me, the global view does result in a shared community and shared responsibility for the fate of humanity and for our planet.

In my quest to increase graduate students’ ability to build empathy through exploring diverse worldviews and experiences through nonfiction and information books and resources, I didn’t understand the need to go further than the globe. For educators and librarians who have been “schooled” in multicultural literature and education, globalizing curricula seems to me to be the next frontier. Leaping to the cosmos would be, I believe, too giant of a leap. That said, I hope to learn another perspective from my colleagues as they implement cosmopolitanism in their courses.

Works Cited

Choo, Suzanne S. 2013. Reading the World, the Globe, and the Cosmos: Approaches to Teaching Literature for the Twenty-first Century. New York: Peter Lang.

Hadaway, Nancy L., and Marian J. McKenna. 2007. Breaking Boundaries with Global Literature: Celebrating Diversity in K-12 Classrooms. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Image Credit

Altmann, Gerd. “Web Networking Earth Continents.” Pixabay.com. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/web-networking-earth-continents-3079789/

Maximizing Leadership: Chapter 2

Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy will be published by ALA Editions in June, 2018. As a preview to the book, I am using one blog post a month to share a one-page summary of each of the nine chapters in the book.

Chapter 2: Job-Embedded Professional Development

“A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other” (Sinek, Mead, and Docker 2017, 104).

Professional learning embedded in the everyday practice of educators is an effective way to transform teaching and learning. In this model, school librarians can serve as professional learning leaders. They enact this role in a number of ways: through providing formal staff development; by serving as a member or team leader in one or more professional learning communities (PLCs); and through classroom-library collaboration, which involves trusting colleagues in coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing learning outcomes.

While all of these contributions to professional learning are important, collaboration for instruction gives school librarians the optimum opportunity to learn with and from their colleagues. Coteaching is personalized learning for educators. It is aligned with adult learning theory that puts educators in the driver’s seat—controlling the content and context of their learning while they solve self-identified instructional problems.

Planning for instruction is teacherly work. It requires connecting curricula with students’ interests and motivation and making learning experiences relevant. It involves determining goals, objectives, and assessments. It includes identifying compelling resources and effective instructional strategies. Through the hands-on implementation of coplanned lessons or units, educators monitor student learning and the success or areas for improvement in their instruction.

What you will find in this chapter:

1. A Rationale for Coteaching as Effective Job-Embedded Professional Development;
2. A Description of Classroom-Library Coteaching Approaches;
3. A Levels of Library Services and Instructional Partnerships Matrix;
4. An Explanation and Application of the Diffusion of Innovations Model:
5. A Coplanning and Coteaching Self-assessment Instrument.

Coteaching offers educators the opportunity to hone their craft while teaching “actual students in real time, with the taught curriculum, available resources and tools, and within the supports and constraints of their particular learning environments” (Moreillon 2012b, 142). School librarians add value when they co-collect evidence (student learning outcomes data) to demonstrate the effectiveness of their teaching in terms of what is important to colleagues and administrators. Data points the way toward continuous instructional improvement. Coteaching also creates the opportunity for school librarians to co-lead in a culture of adult as well as student learning in their schools.

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. 2012. “Job-embedded Professional Development: An Orchard of Opportunity.” In Growing Schools: School Librarians as Professional Developers, edited by Debbie Abilock, Kristin Fontichiaro, and Violet Harada, 141-156. Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited.

Sinek, Simon, David Mead, and Peter Docker. 2017. Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team. New York: Penguin.

Image Credit: Word Cloud created at Wordle.net

Coteaching Inquiry and Reading Comprehension: A Perfect Match

PM_logo_3_sizedToday, I am facilitating a half-day preconference workshop titled: “Coteaching Inquiry Learning and Reading Comprehension Strategies: A Perfect Match.” I am a long-time practitioner and staunch advocate for the school librarian’s instructional partner role.

In this workshop, I bring together two areas of teaching and learning about which I am passionate: inquiry learning and reading comprehension strategies (RCS). These two processes can be aligned in order to increase students’ success with both. Inquiry and RCS are metacognitive processes that invite learners to think about their thinking. They can help learners grow their ability to “learn how to learn.”

And both processes are best taught with a coteaching approach. In the workshop, participants will review these processes, complete a puzzle that spotlights how they are aligned, and practice coteaching close reading with literature that can lead to an inquiry unit of study. Coteaching RCS builds on the school librarian’s strengths in teaching information literacy skills and makes a more successful learning outcome for students.

When classroom teachers, specialists, and school librarians combine their knowledge, skills, and talents, everybody wins!

This workshop is based on my previously published books regarding coteaching RCS as well as one that I am authoring: Building a Culture of Collaboration: School Librarian Leadership and Advocacy (ALA Editions 2016).

The AASL Conference is just getting underway today. If you are not in Columbus and attending this event, check it out on Twitter at #aasl15, on the Knowledge Quest Blog, and on the AASL Facebook page.

P.S. Since I am not able to be at Treasure Mountain this morning, I am sharing my thank-you note video to Dr. Loertscher via the BACC.

Word cloud created at Wordle.net

Seeking Online Professional Development: #txlchat

This month the BACC co-bloggers will share snippets of our research in school librarianship and preservice school librarian education. One of our goals is to provide practicing school librarians (SLs) with research-based evidence for how they prioritize their teaching and other professional activities. Another is to spotlight how the co-bloggers prepare preservice SLs for their future leadership roles in their school libraries.

logoSLs must make a commitment to lifelong learning. The changing educational environments in which we work require it. Whether we lead by integrating new resources, tools, or instructional strategies into our teaching or respond proactively to new required curriculum initiatives, effective SLs are called to be leaders in change and to model continuous learning for students and faculty alike.

In order to stay at the forefront, many SLs are making a regular practice of engaging in online professional development (PD). Webinars and social media groups for networking and learning are growing resources, particularly for librarians who serve in districts without district-level supervisors who organize PD for their cadre of professionals. Twitter chat groups are one such venue for self-regulated PD.

In the last academic year, I had the opportunity and pleasure of studying a Texas-focused school librarian Twitter group. The #txlchat meets on Tuesday evenings from 8:00 to 8:30 p.m. CT during the school year. The chat founders, @sharongullett, @_MichelleCooper, and @EdneyLib, and selected core group members actively supported my research by participating in virtual interviews regarding the importance of this PD and networking venue in their professional lives. Twenty-five #txlchat participants completed an online survey and shared their experiences of learning and connecting with this group of job-alike colleagues.

Thanks to the founders’ commitment to archiving the weekly #txlchats on a Weebly site, I had access to data from forty-five chats—from the very first chat in April 2013 through February 24th, 2015 (the last chat included in my study).

This is just a glimpse of what I learned. During the period of my study, 111 Texas librarians and 121 librarians, authors, and others from out of state participated in the chats. It was not surprising that the most frequent chat topic during the period of my study was technology. Thirteen of the 45 chats I reviewed (29%) focused on using technology tools in the library program. Connecting on Skype, being a “connected” librarian, and social media marketing were among the chat topics with the greatest number of participants, tweets, and retweets.

I learned that #txlchat members have a strong sense of belonging. The founders and core group members who rotate moderator responsibilities are committed to making sure all participants’ voices are heard and valued. Everyone involved expressed pride in their participation–both in learning from others and from sharing their knowledge and expertise with the group. My complete study report will appear in the next issue of School Libraries Worldwide. See citation below.

As you consider how you will access PD opportunities in the coming school year, I hope you will consider Twitter as a possible venue. Everyone is invited to participate on Tuesday, September 1st in the first #txlchat of the 2015-2016 school year. Check it out on Twitter at #txlchat.

Coming soon: Moreillon, Judi. “#schoollibrarians Tweet for Professional Development: A Netnographic Case Study of #txlchat.” School Libraries Worldwide 34.3 (2015).

#txlchat logo used with permission

School Librarians Are Connectors

collaboration_sizedThis month the BACC co-bloggers are previewing our upcoming (May 19th) Texas Library Association Webinar. See the end of this post for information. Along with our guest blogger, Melissa Johnston, each of us will be previewing our piece of the collaboration puzzle in our May blog posts. BACC co-blogger Karla Collins will offer the final contribution this month with a post-Webinar wrap-up.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Difference, notes that “connectors” have the “ability to span many different worlds,” which may be a “function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy” (47). Thanks to our big picture view of our school learning communities, school librarians are positioned to be connectors. (And hopefully we embody at least some, if not all, of the dispositions Gladwell associates with connectors.)

When we are engaged in building a culture of collaboration in our school learning communities, we determine the best ways to meet the needs of each of our library stakeholders. Through communication and collaboration and to use a construction metaphor, we build relationships that can help cement the foundation of a culture of learners—young and older—who strive to make school a joyful, relevant, and effective learning environment for all.

On Thursday, I will introduce collaboration with students as one of the pillars necessary for building a culture of collaboration.

Webinar Information:
May 19, 2-3pm Central Time: Building a Culture of Collaboration (Collaboration Series) – FREE
How can you increase collaboration in your school learning community? Building a Culture of Collaboration at Edublogs co-bloggers will share strategies for reaching out and developing collaborative relationships with four library stakeholder groups: administrators (Judy Kaplan), classroom teachers and specialists (Melissa Johnston), students (Judi Moreillon), and families and community members (Lucy Santos Green). Bring your commitment to building partnerships, your experiences, your ideas and your questions to the conversation.

Register at https://join.onstreammedia.com/register/80146595/register_for_culture

All Webinars will be recorded. A link to the recording will be sent to all registrants (i.e. you may want to register even if you know you cannot attend the live event). All Webinars will carry Continuing Education credit.

Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Difference. New York: Little, Brown, 2000. Print.

Maxwell, Scott. “Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept.” 2007. Flickr.com. Web. 25 April 2015 <https://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2137737248/>.

Online Professional Development: A Key to Adult Learning

mouse_keyThis month the Building a Culture of Collaboration bloggers will share their ideas and experiences related to innovation. This week, I will be sharing two examples of virtual professional development.

Library 2.014 was the 4th-annual virtual conference hosted by the San José State University (SJSU) School of Information; this year it was held in real time on October 8th and 9th. Presenters from around the world shared their work in this free global forum. Attendees could have participated on the actual conference days or view recordings and YouTube video archives after the event.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Library Journal webcast  entitled “Participatory, Continuous, Connected: Top Trends from Library 2.014,” moderated by Michael Stephens, SJSU assistant professor. I was most interested in learning about the top trends identified during this year’s conference. In the webcast, Samantha Adams Becker talked about emerging digital communication formats; Ayyoub Ajmi described one academic library’s experiences using Google Glass; and Susan Hildreth shared do-it-yourself (DIY) learning opportunities that are taking hold in libraries and museums.

Dr. Stephens framed the 3-part webcast with this concept: “Library of Classroom.” He and the speakers challenged librarians to conceive or reconceive of the libraries as physical and virtual continuous experiential learning spaces. This concept aligns perfectly with my philosophy and experience of school libraries.

Ms. Becker shared highlights from the NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Report – Library Edition 2014. (These reports are targeted to different constituencies; you may be interested in the K-12 Edition as well.) Ms. Becker talked about removing books to make space in libraries for face-to-face social gatherings and group learning. The Texas Woman’s University Pioneer Center, located in the Blagg-Huey Library on the Denton campus, is a great example of that concept.

Ms. Becker shared a collaboration between Wikipedia and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), which librarians may be especially interested in exploring further. She also talked about embeddable technologies—planted under the skin. An implantable GPS is already being tested. The youth in my community will be delighted to learn that implantable ear buds are not a pipedream!!!

These were just some of the innovations and trends Ms. Becker shared from the Horizon Report. Check it out!

On Thursday, I will share some of the innovations Susan Hildreth, Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services, talked about and what Texas school librarians are doing with the concept of badging. Please tune in again.

Copyright-free Image from Morguefile.com

People Create Change

Deep_Change_cropEdSurge is an organization that connects “the emerging community of edtech entrepreneurs and educators.” They recently published a graphic called “How Teachers Are Learning: Professional Development Remix.”

The graphic shows “old school” professional development, including all-day workshops, observations, and professional learning communities. (Personally, I wish they hadn’t included PLCs in the old school model…)  In their new model, technology tools provide linkages to personalized professional development that meets the “just-in-time” needs of adult learners (teachers).

Lest we lose sight of the importance of the whole school culture, I believe this new model must be placed alongside an article published on EdSurge in April by Ben Wilkoff: “People Create Change Not Products.” Ben Wilkoff, who is the Director of Personalized Professional Learning for the Denver Public Schools, reminds us that it is the “people implementing tools that make or break it [professional development].”

I couldn’t agree more and encourage everyone to read his article. I know that while I have learned a great deal through technology tools, I have learned the most from coplanning and coteaching with colleagues in the same room, at the same time, working through challenges and sharing successes with real students in real time.

Technology-facilitated learning has a starring role in 21st-century education, but it can keep preK-12 students isolated from one another and educators isolated from colleagues. An individual learner, child or adult, simply cannot make the lasting changes we want to see in education and in the world that a collective of students or educators can.

If you believe that building a culture of collaboration can support people in making change, consider Ben Wilkoff’s current manifesto for professional development as you plan for the new school year:
•    Community over Content
•    Friends over Features
•    Conversation over Credit
•    People over Products

Works Cited

Edsurge. “How Teachers Are Learning: Professional Development Remix.” Edsurge. Web. 7 Aug. 2014. <https://www.edsurge.com/guide/how-teachers-are-learning-professional-development-remix>.

Quinn, Robert E. Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996. Print. (Image created with Microsoft PowerPoint)

Wilkoff, Ben. “People Create Change Not Products.” 16 Apr. 2014. EdSurge. Web. 7 Aug. 2014. <https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-04-16-people-create-change-not-products>.

Summer “Time”

Tropical beach scene on a sunny day in Oahu, Hawaii

As a teacher or teacher librarian, how often have you heard, “Oh you are so lucky, you have the summer off!”?  Of course those are the folks who are on the outside looking in. Those of us in the trenches know otherwise.  Summer time is just a different wavelength for many in the field of education.  In fact, most teachers I have known, are juggling family time, recreational adventures, and personal professional learning in the few weeks between the wrap up for one school year in May or June, and the preparation for another that may start in the first weeks of August.  The idea that educators are basking in a long summer hiatus is a pipe dream.

Even in the reboot and recharge mode, teachers are thinking ahead to the challenges of a new set of students, and how to meet their individual needs. Time without required meetings, committees, and assessments is time to reflect on the big picture. What has been successful and what needs improvement?  That kind of time is precious during the crush of the school schedule, and summer provides an opportunity for R and R-and collaboration.  As teacher librarians we have to make those connections with our colleagues.

In a recent AASL Blog, Brooke Ahrens asks, “When is the best time?”  In her post, Let’s Get Together Thursday, (June 12, 2014)  she shares the experience of working with colleagues in her district in curriculum and program planning just after classes ended for the year.  As she says, working together beyond the constraints of standards and grades was refreshing, but mental fatigue influenced their progress. She wonders if August would be better, but realizes that time is problematic also.  Collaboration and input are important, but what are some possible alternatives to make it happen?

During my years as a teacher librarian, I found that July was a great month for collaborating informally with my colleagues.  I would sneak into school early a couple of mornings a week to get my book orders in, unpack books and supplies, or revamp a section of the collection. More often than not, a teacher friend would pop in to say hello. Then the conversation would segue to the upcoming school year and what the teacher wanted to accomplish, and how I could help. Without the pressure of a packed schedule, we could tease out projects that we could plan ahead.   Asynchronous collaboration through Google and other social media applications make planning that much easier now.

My school district offered summer incentives for curriculum planning, and I often participated as a resource person in science, social studies, and language arts.  College credit for curriculum work was available for participants. Laptops or other new devices were provided  for developing curriculum units integrating technology.  Stipends were offered for teacher leaders who trained others in a train the trainer model.  When I signed on to take part, I often found that other teachers saw me as a true colleague, and I felt part of the team. I understood their challenges, and they understood mine because we had a chance to have deep discussions and share expertise.  In mid summer, when most of the teachers had a few weeks to unwind, we found mental energy to be creative and innovative.  That energy and planning carried us through during the implementation of our ideas in the next school year and beyond.

So, in July, take advantage of the summer mind of your colleagues. It may be the best time for initiating collaboration.  Join a district summer work group if it is available. They usually only work for a week or so. See if any of your colleagues are lurking in their classrooms when you are at school, too.  Laugh, chat, and make a plan.  Send out some ideas for new books or resources via email, or your blog or website. Stay in touch through Twitter and Facebook.  Find a new application that you can share.  Screencast a tutorial or find one on YouTube.  Cultivate your garden of ideas and invite your friends to the harvest.

 

Happy summer!  And don’t forget your recreational reading!

 

References:

Ahrens, Brooke. (2014, June 12).  Let’s Get Together Thursday-What is the Best Time?  AASL Blog. (weblog) http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/?p=4688

Image: Microsoft ClipArt

 

 

Collaboration in the News, Part II

school_new_collaborative_culturesEarlier this week, I quoted literacy educator Regie Routman from an International Reading Association publication. I mentioned that the National Council of Teachers (NCTE) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) are also calling for collaborative school cultures.

In this week’s NCTE’s InBox: News, Views, and Ideas You Can Use email blast kicked off the week’s communication with a link to the National Center for Literacy Education Survey and this information:

“77% of Educators Surveyed: Literacy Is Not Just the Responsibility of English Teachers. This is the #1 finding in a survey of 10,000 educators from all roles, grade levels, and subject areas, who agreed that literacy is one of the most important parts of their job.”

School librarians who have developed strategies for coteaching reading comprehension and other literacy skills can help colleagues at all grade levels and in all disciplines hone effective instruction in literacy. Meeting teachers’ self-identified needs can firmly establish the school librarian’s role in the academic program of the school.

When ASCD selected their “Best of 2012-2013” articles from the publication Educational Leadership, Rick DuFour and Mike Mattos’s article “How Do Principals Really Improve Schools?” made the cut. As long-time award-winning principals and researchers, DuFour and Mattos combine their testimonials and research when they attest that the most powerful strategy for focusing on learning is creating “the collaborative culture and collective responsibility of a professional learning community (PLC).”

These are the questions they pose for PLC team members:
• What knowledge, skills, and dispositions should all students acquire as a result of the unit we’re about to teach?
• How much time will we devote to this unit?
• How will we gather evidence of student learning throughout the unit in our classrooms and at its conclusion as a team?
• How can we use this evidence of learning to improve our individual practice and our team’s collective capacity to help students learn, to intervene for students unable to demonstrate proficiency, and to enrich the learning for students (DuFour & Mattos, 2013, p. 38).

School librarians who are skilled at instructional design and evidence-based practice are positioned to be leaders on PLCs. When your principal calls for team leaders for this year’s PLCs, will you be one of the leaders at the table?

References

DuFour, R., & Mattos, M. (2013). How do principals really improve schools? Educational Leadership, 70(7), 34-40.

NCTE. (2013). NCTE InBox: News, Views, and Ideas You Can Use. September 4, 2013.

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