The ever changing role of the Teacher Librarian

Every year I am amazed at the way in which my role somehow changes and morphs around how I am needed in the current teaching and learning situation. The basic role of managing resources both physical and digital remains the same but the scope and vision of my role changes as teaching and learning needs arise that can be met by the school library and teacher librarians.

 

The American Association of School Librarians has developed “National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries” (AASL Standards) which build on the already adopted AASL Standards Framework for Learners. The teacher librarian plays a vital role in supporting learning within these standards.

 

 

 

 

Scott Beck, in his recent post on the National Association of Secondary School Principals blog (NASSP) entitled The nonnegotiable role of school librarians, quotes Ted Dintersmith and Tony Wagner from their 2016 book Most Likely to Succeed about the skills needed in the 21 Century.

        • Critical thinking and problem-solving
        • Collaboration across networks
        • Agility and adaptability
        • Initiative and entrepreneurship
        • Effective oral, written, and multimedia communication
        • Accessing and analyzing information
        • Curiosity and imagination

He goes on to say that:

“School librarians are the resident experts in the development of these skills. Accessing and analyzing information, collaborating across networks, cultivating curiosity and imagination—this is the life blood of an outstanding school library. More importantly, these are the skills that will allow our students to become thoughtful and engaged citizens equipped to navigate a world full of increasingly complex information.”

The Role of the Teacher Librarian (Library Media Specialist)

It was announced yesterday that I was the Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year 2012 What an incredible honour and privilege! I have been inundated with congratulatory emails and social networking messages from family, friends and colleagues – many of whom  know what the role of Teacher Librarian entails.

It has been interesting to hear the reactions from many who do not know what a Teacher Librarian does in the day-to-day life of the school library. A relative of mine jokingly said to my daughter: “So what did she do to win this award… invent a new Dewey Decimal System or a new way of filing?” … I want to thank my two Cert III qualified Library Assistants who make it possible for me to do much less of the “book” work behind the scenes (shelving, cataloguing, covering) and a lot more of the specialized teaching role that is that of Teacher Librarian!

The role of Teacher Librarian means
• Working with and for the whole school community – not just a few classes, but all students, teachers and administrators and even parents and grandparents
• Selecting and providing resources for all curriculum taught in the school – not just books both physical and digital but also online links to sites and database access to authoritative works in journals, magazines and newspapers
• Determining how new technologies can be best incorporated into units of work to make the tasks more interesting and/or collaborative
• Assisting in the teaching of ICT skills across the curriculum – for both staff and students
• Promoting reading and literature – this is a constant, enjoyable, daily part of the job as literature is discussed with students and teachers looking for appropriate reading material. Events to promote reading need to be organised (We have Library Lover’s Day, Grandparents in the IRC, National Simultaneous Storytime, Book Week Activities and a Book Fair every year)
• Leading in introducing new pedagogical skills (Guided Inquiry has been introduced and is being used widely at Broughton and the Teacher Librarian teaches along side the class teacher to assist with supporting the process, information literacy skills and digital literacy skills)
• Having a voice on various collaborative school committees to discuss school policy and direction (eg IT Committee, Assessment Committee, Professional Learning Committee)
• Caring for students who use the library as a refuge from the playground and often develop new friendships in this environment
• Overseeing and assisting students in the library since it has become the school’s “lounge room” (where students relax together before school and at lunch, collaborate together over projects, play board games, read quietly or discuss books together)
• Display work for all classes and students K-12 in a prominent place for the whole community to share in their achievements

The list could go on. Above all Teacher Librarians are passionate about what they do, about promoting life long learning for everyone – which means finding new ways of teaching and learning and promoting older ‘tried and true’ methods, accessing new digital literacies but still using the best of the old, integrating learning and making it relevant to a student’s experience and ‘supporting’ all who enter our library doors!

At a time when the role of Teacher Librarian is so misunderstood and therefore many TLs (Library Media Specialists) are disappearing from schools under budget restraints, we need to ‘shout it out’ and make School Principals aware of the role – and the need for information specialists in every school.
The Dewey Decimal System barely comes into it ☺

The One Hundred Acre Wood – 2B learns about relationships

Towards the end of last year and with a focus on the coming National Year of Reading class teacher, Kate Bradley, drew on A. A. Milne’s timeless classic Winnie-the-Pooh to help her class learn about relationships and also to use this literature to bind subject areas into an integrated unit of work. The students read the book then created their own characters who had to live together in their own class One Hundred Acre Wood behind the IRC. Students visited their ‘Wood’ often -sometimes bringing down their writing materials and working outside for added inspiration. This became their presentation area with characters (plastic bottles) standing next to poetry compositions (laminated on sticks). The display became a collaborative effort between the classroom teacher and Teacher Librarian with some Senior Students also assisting during study periods and the students benefited from all the added attention! In the following video Kate describes this unit of work.

Ten inspiring teachers share in TED talks

The TED Blog informs us about, and links to, ten inspiring ‘Talks’ by teachers from many areas of school education.

Arthur Benjamin: Teach statistics before calculus
John Hunter: Teaching the World Peace Game
Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change
Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
Aaron Sams: How to speed up chemical reactions and get a date
Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
Liz Coleman: a call to reinvent liberal arts education
Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers
Clifford Stoll: The call to learn

E-Portfolios for reflection and goal setting

Traditionally schools have collected student work samples to store physical examples of accomplishment and compare individual achievement over a period of time. E-Portfolios have so much more potential. They can be used to “help students find purpose and passion through reflection and goal-setting” as they develop their own record of learning. Dr Helen Barrett explains how it is possible to incorporate the use of digital tools in learning to achieve this goal.

Best websites for teaching and learning

The American Association of School Libraries have published links to the top 25 sites that “foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. They are free, Web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover.” The sites are grouped with standards for each.

Follett Challenge entries are a source of inspiration

The winning entries of this challenge have been published and focus on the work done in school libraries – a great source of ideas and also advocacy for the role of Teacher Librarians in school libraries everywhere.
In Australia, 2012 is the National Year of Reading and I know that in our library we will be working hard to promote literacy in all subject areas with a focus on integrating the library (IRC)and Teacher Librarian in teaching and learning activities across the school (K-12).
View the winning entries here:

The 4 Cs: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity

Encouraging students to share thoughts and ideas leads to improved creativity. The potential of shared learning is immense. This video story illustrates the possibilities when two minds work together.

“Created through collaboration by members of Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the talented folks at FableVision, Above & Beyond is a story about what is possible when communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity take center stage in schools and transform learning opportunities for all kids.Visit www.p21.org, www.p21.org/4Cs and www.fablevisionstudios.com for more info.”

National Inquiry into School Libraries

Julia Gillard initiated a House Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in March 2010. This was to address the issue of falling numbers of qualified Teacher Librarians in schools across Australia.

382 submissions were received and after hearings around Australia, the Government has until August 23 to respond to the recommendations.
Please support this Inquiry by being informed of the value of having a trained Teacher Librarian in your school and please write to your local member and ask them to address the issues.

Information about about the issues, the Inquiry and recommendations can be found on these sites:
My School Library: What every parent should know

The Hub: Campaign for Quality School Libraries in Australia

ALIA and ASLA’s School Libraries 2011

What a Difference a School Library Makes, by our Australian professional library and school library associations. Leave comments on their Facebook site.
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“Have our schools reached their limits?” Will Richardson

In his blog The Huffington Post, Will Richardson discusses the paper “Right to Learn: Identifying Precedents for Sustainable Change”
He says:
As a parent and a former classroom teacher, I for one hope all of the current ideas for “reform” fail because few, if any, of them put our kids’ learning lives first. Right now it’s about more standardization in our classrooms, more competition between our schools, and whatever is easiest and cheapest to implement. In many ways, it’s embarrassing the depth to which the conversation has sunk.

And I agree with the premise of the report: if we continue to place our energy toward “fixing the system,” literally millions of kids will be under-served in the process. Instead, what if we put a laser-like focus on improving real student learning, not test scores? (And yes, the two are decidedly different.)

Let’s start talking about how we can begin to deliver more personalized, relevant learning to kids right now. Let’s rethink our definitions of teacher and classroom and school, in some profound, albeit, radical ways. Let’s deeply consider the affordances that technologies bring to the learning equation, despite being made decidedly uncomfortable by those potentials in some big ways.

Read this thought provoking blog entry and click on the paper if you want to go further.
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K-12 Online Conference

K-12 Online Conference

Teacher and interested parents – here is a free online conference dealing with:

“innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2010 conference theme is “Cultivating the Future.” This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 11, 2010. The following two weeks, October 18 and October 25, forty presentations will be posted online to our conference blog and our conference Ning for participants to view, download, and discuss.”

Experience taking part in a Ning, join the organisational Wiki, read the Blog and follow on Twitter!