Month: September 2021

ETL401 5.4b Convergence

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Has the school in which you work (or know best) developed an information literacy policy?

How is information literacy approached in your school or experience?

How is digital citizenship approached in your school or experience?

How can a transliteracy approach expand the teaching role of the TL beyond the traditional information literacy paradigm?

Unfortunately if the school in which I work has developed an information literacy policy, it isn’t widely publicised (and I would assume is therefore making less impact than it otherwise could). Before starting this course I had heard about Inquiry Based Learning; for instance, PBL (Project Based Learning) is a popular phrase and process on the various English and History Teachers Facebook groups I follow and many staff at my school (myself included) have created units based around student inquiry. However, Information Literacy is a completely new term! Oh brave new world, that has such programmes in it!

In my school, we do have a STEM course for our Year 8 students called Project Innovate (PI) which is focused on Inquiry Based Learning. However, lack of time, training, and resources have led to poor student achievement and lack of engagement; there have never been enough students who choose to continue it as a Year 9 elective for it to run. The overall negative experience with PI has resulted in staff reluctance to take this course. It feels more like a punishment than a privilege to be given a PI class! This is a shame because student-led learning should be encouraged and not seen as a chore. Apart from this school-wide Stage 4 initiative, information literacy and digital citizenship are largely left up to individual faculties and teachers to plan for and implement.

Transliteracy is another term I hadn’t heard before starting this course. As a practising English and History teacher I can see great value in a transliteracy approach, since the way students are engaging with information is no longer limited to the printed page but expanded to included a variety of different multimodal texts that they need to navigate, understand and evaluate; the transfer of these skills across KLAs is also something that we should be encouraging! If our students are to succeed in an ever-changing employment market and to become responsible citizens, they need the skills encouraged by a transliteracy approach. As the glue which seeps into the cracks and holds all the other KLAs together, adding elements of transliteracy to an information literacy programme will give teacher librarians even more value within the school community.

On that point, I’ll leave you with a meme (since that’s how so many of our students now communicate!).

ETL401 5.4a Information Literacy

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Read:   Fitzgerald, L. & Garrison, K. (2017) ‘It Trains Your Brain’: Student Reflections on Using the Guided Inquiry Design Process. Synergy,    15/2

How might the TL help the school move towards integrated information literacy instruction?

What challenges lie in the way of such instruction?

How teacher librarians and teachers might encourage students to transfer information literacy skills and practices from one subject to another?

The teacher librarian can absolutely help the school move towards integrated information literacy instruction. As shown through the above article, effective collaboration between teacher librarians and classroom teachers in planning and implementing Guided Inquiry units can result in students having a greater understanding of the research process. The article also revealed that GI can increase students’ abilities to transfer knowledge and skills from one KLA to another and increase their confidence and capabilities as lifelong learners. In order to achieve this the teacher librarian must first have a deep understanding of the Guided Inquiry Design Process and be able to apply that understanding to different subject areas. It is important for the teacher librarian to ‘sell’ their skills in this area to ensure that staff are aware of the opportunity to work collaboratively on curriculum design, and for the teacher librarian to identify key staff who might be interested in working collaboratively in this way. The teacher librarian can also deliver professional development to relevant staff, leading their colleagues through the process of programming of a GI unit to ensure that staff are competent in developing and delivering their own GI units in future.

However, the article noted some challenges that can impede the implementation of such instruction. These challenges largely deal with the need for time to effectively collaborate, implement, assess and evaluate these types of programmes. The article revealed that it is important for staff collaborating on GI programmes to understand the philosophy behind Guided Inquiry as well as its processes and scaffolding. Time is also needed for staff to read and apply GI to their own learning and to consider how to best implement it for the students in their class; it is indeed true that what works for one class doesn’t necessarily work for another, and thus teachers are constantly required to rework existing units and resources. Time is a core requirement of collaborative practice and matching conflicting schedules can be a Herculean task. We haven’t even discussed the time it takes to plan and assess student learning and already I’m exhausted! The lack of time coupled with high workloads might also make people reluctant to take risks or leave them feeling uninspired to plan something new.

Another element that was not referenced in the article is the fact that it also takes time to change the public perception around the role of the teacher librarian and to promote our role as information specialists. In my school I have tried to start small by getting staff to share their assessment tasks with me so that I can help support our students and provide relevant resources to help them complete these tasks. Despite my fortnightly reminders, I often end up getting only one or two tasks each term. This is not because my colleagues do not see the value in what I do or the assistance that I can provide, but simply because this task (simple as it might be) is one of hundreds that might populate their weekly to-do lists and often doesn’t register as a priority. It often merits an “I meant to send something!” response. It is an uphill battle to break through the “survival” mode teaching that seems to have taken hold in recent years. However, just like Sisyphus, I’ll keep rolling that boulder up that hill and hope that one day I’ll reach the top. Maybe one day someone will find the energy and meet me there.

 

ETL401 5.3a Information Literacy Models

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Discuss either of these two analyses and their potential impact on the need for an IL model in your school.

I chose to examine Bonanno, K. (2014) F-10   inquiry skills scope and sequence, and F-10 core skills and tools. I thought that this was a really useful document. Not only did it concisely sum up the different stages of Guided Inquiry, but it gave great suggestions for different activities and resources for each of the stages across different KLAs. I can see this being very useful in my school context. It would make it easier for staff from different faculties to work with me on a GI unit since the suggested activities mean that half the work has already been done for us. I also liked that it allows for cross-curricular unit design and easy integration of the general capabilities.

For instance, if I was working with an English teacher to plan a Year 9 GI unit on the Holocaust to support their study of Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night, I could refer to this document’s suggested activities for History, Civics and Citizenship, Design and Technologies, Digital Technologies, ICT, as well as Critical and Creative Thinking. In the Open stage we could ask students to engage with the Ask 6 Ws (what, when, where, which, who, why) and get students to put their existing knowledge on this topic into a collaborative workspace such as Stormboard (suggested on the document) or Jamboard (available to DoE teachers via their Google Suite link). This could function as a sort of pre-test activity and allow students and staff to:

– look for aspects of the topic that engage

– identify key words, concepts, ideas

– pose leading questions for discussion and exploration

– use democratic processes to reach consensus on a course of action and plan for that action (i.e. it could help determine which students will work together for the remainder of the unit)

However, in my school context we have a number of students who are working well below their stage level in a number of subject areas. I suspect that the competencies described in each column might be a bit too much for some of our students. This wide variation in abilities could be a barrier or make it difficult to implement GI in my school. Therefore I would likely have to utilise suggested activities from the prior stage column to ensure that students are achieving within their zone of proximal development.

ETL401 4.3 The TL and the Curriculum

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What is an appropriate role for the teacher librarian in curriculum development?

What benefits can a school obtain from the active involvement of the teacher librarian in curriculum development?

Should a principal expect that teachers would plan units of work with the teacher librarian?

How are students disadvantaged in schools that exclude the teacher librarian from curriculum development?

A key element of the teacher librarian’s position is as curriculum expert and this role provides TLs with the opportunity to be collaborative practitioners and leaders who see the “big picture” across the school. Particularly in the secondary setting, faculties often tend to be separated into distinct academic tribes and the TL can break through this division to unify programmes and allow the development of cross-curricular activities which allow students to achieve a variety of different outcomes more easily. Teacher librarians can also provide their colleagues with curriculum support and help develop resources that are relevant, current and differentiated according to the interests and abilities of their students. Since TLs are a constant presence in the school experience for many students, they can also provide a common link across year groups and subject areas for students as well as staff.

Since this is an element of our role, it is not unexpected if a principal does expect that teacher librarians should work collaboratively with their colleagues in this way. In fact, it was one of the selection criteria that I had to meet in order to gain permanency in my current role. Our role in collaborate planning and curriculum development allows us to increase our visibility and demonstrate our value to the school community while giving us the opportunity to demonstrate ongoing proficiency for accreditation purposes. However, if principals expect this of their staff then they should be allowed the resources and time to do the job effectively. Schools where this is not an expectation or not supported effectively will likely continue to assess students according to their separate faculty tribes. They will lack a holistic, cross-curricular approach to teaching and learning and have a narrow understanding of the different resources that can support student achievement. There will also likely be limited understanding and teaching of information literacy and fluency which disadvantages our students in the current economic and political environment. Students may also not feel as supported, experience higher levels of frustration and as a result disengage from the assessment and research process, and be less likely to attain the information fluency that is vital to their continuing capacity as lifelong learners. Teacher librarians, when properly supported, can function as the figurative glue which holds everything together; it stands to reason that schools which don’t utilise their skills effectively would therefore be disadvantaged.

ETL401 4.1 Inquiry Learning: Some Thoughts

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Are the acquisition of 21st century skills and the focus on accountability mutually exclusive?

What issues might stand in the way of inquiry learning in the school?

What issues might stand in the way of collaboration between teachers and teacher librarians to carry out inquiry learning?

I don’t believe that accountability and the acquisition of 21st century skills are necessarily mutually exclusive. Accountability can help us to focus our practice and become more effective teachers through its emphasis on evidence and reflection. However, the increasing complexity of this task is not given any extra time but expected to be completed on top of everything else and thus seems to be an additional afterthought for teachers’ workloads. Accountability procedures such as the development of PDPs, observation and submission of accreditation often feel like tick-the-box activities that are not necessarily effectively aligned with our actual practice. Perhaps more meaningful integration and more time is needed.

Increasing workloads and minimal free time are massive issues that I can foresee hampering my efforts to implement inquiry learning at school. Even though I work with some teachers who would be interested in this type of collaboration, finding time in our already busy schedules would be a huge ask. The increased workload resulting from the demands of online learning (not to mention the logistics) make collaboration in this current climate almost impossible. Even when we return to face-to-face learning, there’s no guarantee that the time we set aside to work on a collaborative project like this would be uninterrupted, and considering the difficulty we were experiencing in finding casuals to cover absent colleagues there is a high chance that these planning sessions would be instead taken up by one or more involved staff members being required to supervise these extra classes. It would be very hard to implement something on this scale when it feels like most of our staff are in ‘survival’ mode.

ETL401 4.1a Constructivism and Outcomes Based Learning: A Research Article

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Sorensen, A. (2019). Guided inquiry in Stage 4 history: Collaboration between teacher-librarians and classroom teachers. Journal of the History Teachers’ Association of NSW (Dec) p.30-32.

I found this article as part of this module’s activities. It fits nicely with my own experiences as a history teacher and is relevant to my early plans for the third ETL401 assessment task.

I found it interesting that this article opened by considering the etymology of history – ‘historia’ – in order to the emphasise the potential of inquiry based learning in this subject area. This article broke down the key aspects of Guided Inquiry in an easy to understand format:

  • Authentic task/audience
  • Student choice
  • Curiosity
  • Questioning
  • Reflection

It also referenced the 7 stages of a full Guided Inquiry unit – open, immerse, explore, identify, gather, share, create, evaluate – which helped me to get my head around the GI process.

The references to actual practice, with consideration of what worked and what didn’t, were particularly useful for me as I try to understand Guided Inquiry and plan my own unit for the assessment task. Strategies that worked included:

  • hosting curated online research resources (pathfinders) and worksheets on the school’s LMS so that students can access them easily
  • providing outlines of each lesson with directions for students
  • collaboration between a) TLs and classroom teachers; b) students in each group; and c) high school and primary school students

Open/Immerse

  • explicit teaching of the skills required to successfully complete each stage of the Guided Inquiry
  • use of visuals to pique student interest (e.g. laminated images, snippets of text)

Explore/Identify/Gather

  • students writing down a list of topics/ideas/people that the were interested in pursuing; staff collated these and used them to form groups based on student interest
  • use of the Cornell notetaking method to record relevant information
  • synthesis of notes using a Lotus Chart

Share/Create/Evaluate

  • creation of a final product that was meaningful for students and displayed to create a sense of pride, belonging e.g. a picture book to read to a feeder primary class (creates authentic audience), paintings, models, posters
  • evaluation of individual and group progress

Overall this article has given me an interesting account of how practitioners have implemented Guided Inquiry in their school context, and some of these strategies would no doubt work in my own school also. Interestingly, the notetaking worksheets would provide excellent evidence for accreditation, and these skills would be extremely useful to develop for a variety of student subject areas and serve our students well if they were confident in this area by the time they reached Stage 6.