Month: May 2019
Protected: ETL503 Assessment 2 Reflective Practice
Information Literacy and Inquiry Based Teaching
I enjoyed the CRAAP test video , CRAAP rubric and Get REAL rubric, and I was searching for information seeking processes and look what I found! A BS-O-Meter! I can’t remember what forum discussion I was in that mentioned we needed one of these, but voila! Here it is! (I will put it into the forum discussions later):
These devices help us teach the digital literacy aspect of information literacy. What is information literacy? I have grown to understand it better and better and particularly found this quote to be important:
“Understanding information literacy as a catalyst for learning necessitates a move away from exploring textual practices towards incorporating an understanding of the sociocultural and corporeal practices that are involved in coming to know an information environment” (Loyd 2007, pp. Abstract).
Information Literacy is but one form of the the vast aspects of literacy, sometimes referred to as multi-literacies, multi-modal pedagogy or trans-literacy. And basically what it boils down to is that, because of the multiplicity of literacy, educators (including TLs!) need a “pedagogical repertoire” in order to teach all aspects and forms of literacy (Kalantzis & Cope 2015).
I am heartened by the American Library Association (2016): “Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning. … …Information literacy, while showing significant overlap with information technology (digital literacy) skills, is a distinct and broader area of competence.”
According to the ALA, (2016) we must help our students become information literate individuals who can:
-
- “determine the extent of information needed;
- access the needed information effectively and efficiently;
- evaluate information and its sources critically;
- incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base;
- use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose; and
- understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally” (ALA 2016).
In the Teacher Librarian field, inquiry teaching models have been identified as the best means for enabling information literacy in students.
Maniotes and Kahlthau (2014) explain that inquiry teaching models support the information literacy (and research) for all ages because it is learning centred and focuses on emotionally stimulating questioning and deep understanding rather than product-driven answering and fact finding.
The inquiry teaching model is not presently taught very often or with rigour in most educational settings and this is where, according to Maniotes and Kahlthau (2014), the TL is vital!
In the upper years (age 9 and above) the use of Guided Inquiry Design (GID) is one of the models that is popular. Maniotes and Kahlthau describe it as a framework of inquiry learning design, as represented in 8 sequential phases “Open, Immerse, Explore, Identify, Gather, Create, Share, and Evaluate” (Maniotes & Kahlthau 2014, pp.Abstract).
As I teach the younger years predominantly, I have chosen to work with the Super3 and Big6 Inquiry teaching models and I am hopeful that I can do the pedagogy justice. I am certainly going to give it my best shot!
References
ALA (2016). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher education. Retrieved from: https://alair.ala.org/handle/11213/7668
Lloyd, A. (2007). Recasting information literacy as sociocultural practice: Implications for library and information science researchers. Information Research, 12(4).
Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2015). Multiliteracies: Expanding the scope of literacy pedagogy. New Learning.
Lloyd, A. (2007). Recasting information literacy as sociocultural practice: Implications for library and information science researchers. Information Research, 12(4).
Maniotes, L. K., & Kuhlthau, C. C. (2014). MAKING THE SHIFT. Knowledge Quest, 43(2), 8-17. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1620878836?accountid=10344
Young, L. (2019). BS-O-Meter. [Image]. Retrieved from: https://libguides.furman.edu/medialiteracy/framework
Comparing and Contrasting: Herring (2007), Lamb (2011), Purcell (2010) & Valenza (2010)
The role of the teacher librarian thinking prompts from the ETL401 Module 3.2 discussion forum:
“Prioritising the TL roles:.. TL roles that might ‘fly under the radar’… Lamb vs Herring vs Purcell vs Valenza… What to give up, according to Lamb and Valenza, in order to be a proactive TL… Purcell’s ideas of the prioritisation of the TL roles vs my ideas…” These things I found difficult to grasp in the form of these questions but I found Karen Balmer’s forum post on ‘Module 3.2 The role of the teacher librarian’ posted on the 21st March 2019, provoked the most thought.
I particularly liked Karen’s statement that “the role has evolved significantly… 21st century skills that TLs should be helping to develop in their students. There also seems to be general agreement with what Herring’s (2007) asse(r)tion that ‘school libraries do not exist in a vacuum…'”
I was concerned by Herring’s statement that unnecessary emphasis is placed on reading for pleasure – as I think Herring has missed the mark, in a pursuit to support teaching information literacy when the aspects of literacy (learning to read, and reading to learn – or reading for pleasure) should in fact be taught together (one purpose, not outweighing the others) and should not be seen as in any way separate. (More on that in this blog post.)
Like Karen Balmer, I agree with Purcell that our role should be that of a team or school (curriculum) leader, (curriculum) partner, information (literacy) specialist, teacher and administrator (of the library and strong teaching and learning) programs.
Finally, Karen and I prefer how Lamb puts being at media specialist of 21st century teaching and learning in the fore-front of the list of roles, including information technologist, administrator and (last but not least) a teacher, with the additional roles of ‘curriculum consultant, community collaborator and digital detective’ as varying in priority on any particular day, depending on the needs of the stakeholders. In this, Lamb identifies how the social aspects of the role, or collaborating with educators as colleagues is vital.
References:
Balmer, K. (2019, March 21) Module 3.2 The Role of the Teacher Librarian [Online Forum comment]. Message posted to: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_42380_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_78883_1&forum_id=_147404_1&message_id=_2093678_1
Herring, J. (2007). Teacher librarians and the school library. Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/science/article/pii/B9781876938437500028
Lamb, A. (2011). Bursting with potential: Mixing a media specialist’s palette. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=60840783&site=ehost-live
Purcell, M. (2010). All librarians do is check out books, right? A look at the roles of a school library media specialist. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ907292&site=ehost-live
Valenza, J. (2010). A revised manifesto. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2010/12/03/a-revised-manifesto/
Protected: And so our story ends as it began…with a blog post
Collection Development and My Future
[Reflection on ETL503 Modules 5, 6 & 7]
My two top thoughts following these modules is that there are a lot of issues that could arise from hoarding, weeding and censorship and thus clear policies and procedures are imperative.
As it is very likely that, should I be fortunate enough to get employed as a TL, I will have to write a collection development policy, I am worried I might struggle with it. I will certainly be the first to put up my hand and ask my colleagues and library network for assistance!
What I know about myself is that I struggle looking at an example of someone else’s work as a means to produce my own. I struggled to look at colleague’s work when preparing my accreditation, I struggle modifying other people’s teaching and learning units of work to suit my class or context…and critical analysis of the St Bede’s CDP, a school context in which I have very little understanding, has been very challenging. So it is unlikely that I will take much stock in using a different school’s CDP as a guide…
Alternatively, I prefer to look at professional industry recommended templates, which I’ve found more helpful personally.
As to the future of school libraries and trained school librarians, being an information literacy specialist, curriculum expert and keen marketing amateur is going to play a big part in our success. I am hopeful that I can make a difference.
Information Literacy, Learning to Read and Reading to Learn
[Reflection of ETL401 Module 5]
Hold your horses cowboy! I’ve just been triggered!
Let’s begin with learning to read and reading to learn. The (ETL401) 5th module jumps straight to reading to learn and doesn’t really mention learning to read, but it is my belief that the two are intrinsically combined and that the education system currently fails students in separating the two (Robb 2011).
Learning to read: This separation of ‘learning to read’ (for some purposes, abbreviated to ‘decoding’-although it is sometimes not referred to as this, the focus has shifted to phonics and decoding) and ‘reading to learn’ (for some purposes, abbreviated to ‘critical thought'(CILIP 2016)) has been directly witnessed and practised by me and my colleagues for at least 5 years (I started in 2014), as part of the Early Action for Success (EAfS) funding program.
This program, in phase 1, poured money into (and continues to do so to some degree) several things like ‘Instructional Leader’ Deputy Principal level positions and ‘mentoring’ time off class, and a large portion of the money has gone towards training teachers in Targeted Early Numeracy (TEN) the ‘Language Learning & Literacy in the Early Years‘ (L3) narrow pedagogies for teaching kindergarten to year 2 students foundational literacy and numeracy skills.
- [Sidebar 1: Originally, the TEN program was, in my opinion, almost completely a spin off of the Count Me in Too (CMIT) program (in which I am trained) and Developing Efficient Numeracy Strategies (DENS), using the Schedule for Early Numeracy Assessment (SENA) 1 or 2. Once trained in TEN, teachers, including myself, utilised CMIT, DENS and SENA to effectively teach the TEN math group games and lessons. Similarly, the L3 program is a spin off of Reading Recovery, linked to Best Start and focussed on kindergarten children (Howell & Neilson 2015).
- Later, L3 teacher training was revised to suite ‘stage 1’ or year 1 & 2 students (which is where I joined the training). Currently, the EAfS program is in ‘Phase 2’ and has embraced micro-level data collection and the new National Learning Progressions …I am being critical here about L3 but not without foundation (Howell & Neilson 2015 p.8).
- And don’t even get me started on the fact that the (now defunct) NSW Literacy Continuum provided for EAfS schools meant that we didn’t even crack open the NSW English Syllabus all year-much less the National Curriculum–we simply taught to and reported on the NSW Literacy and Numeracy continuums! Roar! Outrage! Sirens! Remind anyone of the teaching to the test arguments against NAPLAN? Well hello new Learning Progressions, which have replaced the previous continuums…but I digress…]
What all of this means to me at the moment, in terms of teaching Information Literacy / ‘Reading to learn’, is that, in my current context, half of any given school is focussed on ‘Learning to read’/decoding using L3 guided reading groups, using decodable/phonics/guided readers, teaching students ‘how to read’/decoding without any thought into teaching students ‘reading to learn’/critical thought.
In fact, until a student reaches a particular level of knowing ‘how to read’ (measured in our schools as reading a PM Reader level of 15, based on a 95% success benchmark or ‘running record’ of their reading of a PM Reader that they’ve read at least once before) they may then begin learning skills of ‘reading to learn’/critical thought. For some students, particularly in schools in low Socio Economic Status areas (who, coincidentally, have low NAPLAN results that qualify them for EAfS funding) they don’t reach the PM Reader level of 15 until they are 8 or 9 years old (year 3 or 4) and thus, by that point, reading (so purely focussed on ‘how’ rather ‘why’) has lost all value.
Teach Information Literacy From the Start: What I propose is to teach students, regardless of their age or decoding ability to think critically about texts, using quality texts. It is very difficult to think critically about a (commonly fiction) text that is lacking depth like the little decoding readers that are all the rage at the moment (Adoniou, Cambourne & Ewing 2018). And there is an aspect of L3 that I thought did this particularly well, called ‘Initial, Modelled and Shared readings (IMS),’ However, I was the only teacher at one school who was making time for it amongst the time-heavy requirements of ‘guided reading groups’/how to read lessons. Let’s let that sink in for a moment: nobody had time for information literacy because teaching students how to decode boring levelled readers was taking up all of their time.
Information Literacy is teaching how to think critically and this is a key part of comprehension and reading for enjoyment. In L3 IMS for stage 1 students (the kindergarten version do something similar but not to the same degree and they call it ‘Reading to’ or similar), is not exclusively the rights of L3 (see this link for further reading) and so I will go into how to run the IMS lessons and how they relate to Information Literacy and a year one (age 6-7) classroom:
- Quality texts: First, the teacher first picks a quality book like The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore (2012) by W.E. Joyce. (This was also adapted as an award winning short film (Joyce 2011)- which I just watched for the 20th time and was reduced to tears AGAIN, because I just realised the importance of Information literacy and Teacher Librarians! If you watch it, try to think of the grey people are ‘learning to read’ and the colourful ones are ‘reading to learn’).
- In the world of the story: The teacher reads the book and nobody (including the teacher is allowed to comment).
- Quality Talk Question Prompts: The teacher critically analyses the book and creates a list of possible ‘critical thought’ questions that will be expected from the students in the third reading of the book and has those ready as a reference for the second reading of the text to the students. (For an example of this, see one of my teacher prompt sheets.)
- Modelled reading(s):The teacher reads the book aloud again, possibly even a third time to the students (who are not allowed to comment) but this time the teacher can either explain the meta-language or ‘difficult’ words in the text and then model thinking critically about the book with thoughts based on the prepared list of questions (without actually saying those questions out loud).
- Shared reading: The teacher reads the book a final time and then releases the students to comment freely about the text in a round table / dinner scenario. For younger students, I use a behaviour management / talking technique of a smiley ball that gets passed to those who want to speak and if you have a turn speaking you put a popsicle stick in front of you. If you don’t have a turn speaking about the text, I can see clearly and offer prompts based on my prepared question sheet to help reluctant students.
- Writing: I like to link this to writing lessons, sometimes filming the students
My AL Sentence Board for the Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore and typing their discussions (or using my Accelerated Literacy sentence board to work on writing conventions), so that they can use what they said about the text in their writing but this is just something that I do and not really related to IMS reading/L3.
So what this all means for me in practice as a TL, is that I need to continue to read to my students and continue to utilise information literacy / critical thought strategies (CILIP 2016) that are proven to improve literacy outcomes for students (regardless of their reading ‘levels’), including aspects of L3 and aspects of Accelerated Literacy because student access to quality (fiction and non-fiction) texts and the ability to practice Information Literacy skills is a key component to learning how to read AND reading to learn.
Next post: Information Literacy for reading to learn and inquiry teaching models…I promise…
References
Adoniou, M, Cambourne, B. & Ewing R. (2018). What are decodable readers and do they work? Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/what-are-decodable-readers-and-do-they-work-106067
CILIP Information Literacy Group. (2016). Information literacy definitions.
Howell & Neilson (2015). A critique of the L3 early years literacy program. Learning Difficulties Australia, Volume 47(2). pp.7-pp.12. Retrieved from https://www.ldaustralia.org/client/documents/Bulletin%20Winter%202015.pdf
Joyce, W. E. (2012). The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore. London: Simon & Schuster.
Joyce, W. E. [Screen name] (2011, January 30). The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/Ad3CMri3hOs
Robb, L. (2011). The myth of learn to read/read to learn. Scholastic Instructor. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/myth-learn-readread-learn
The New Paradigm Part 2 of 2
[ETL401 Module 4]
The New Paradigm: Let’s do both inquiry based learning and outcomes
In the previous post, I discussed collaboration and the steps that I think might be needed to get to a point where I can collaborate with the majority of teachers.
I’ve looked at the research and looked at the *information literacy inquiry models (particularly those more suited to primary and infants classes, such as Big6 and Super3) and okay, I’m in. Where do I sign?
*References in support of Inquiry based teaching and learning:
Bonanno, K. (2015). F-10 Inquiry skills scope and sequence and F-10 core skills and tools. Eduwebinar Pty Ltd, Zillmere, Queensland. Retrieved from: https://s2.amazonaws.com/scope-sequence/Bonanno-curriculum_mapping_v1.pdf
FitzGerald, L (2015) Guided Inquiry in practice, Scan 34/4,16-27
Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L. & Caspari, A. (2015) GI: Learning in the 21st century, 2nd edition. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited.
Global Education Leadership Programme (GELP, 2011). We wanted to talk about 21st Century education. Retrieved from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA1Aqp0sPQo
O’Connell, J. (2012). So you think they can learn? Scan, 31, May, 5-11
The New Paradigm Part 1 of 2
(Reflection ETL401 Module 4 – The Teacher Librarian and the Curriculum)
(RSA Animate 2008) This is a very powerful video that offers a dichotomous view of an ‘education paradigm’.
Throwing the baby out with the bath water: While I agree that there has been (or in some cases, needs to be) a shift in the Australian education system, I am hesitant to throw out the baby with the bath water and dispose of outcomes. I have had great success with my students by utilising the NSW syllabus document outcomes and indicators. These have been regularly updated and rearranged over the years and each update, in my opinion, has improved the approach.
Similarly, so have approaches such as ‘play based learning’ or the ‘Reggio Emilia Approach’ / the environment as the ‘third teacher’ (Wein 2015), integrated units such as COGS and inquiry based learning (IBL) such as The Big6 or the Super3 / project based learning (PBL) models evolved over time and have been accepted and used by teachers to varying degrees and with varying degrees of success.
A Breath of Fresh Air: Anyone in the education system for more than 5 years will have seen enough new ideas blow in to the educational sphere to know that they generally blow straight back out to make room for the next big breeze, and leave very little in their wake in terms of real change.
I don’t think this ‘New Paradigm’ is a situation of ‘outcomes based learning’ vs ‘inquiry based 
learning.’ I don’t think the two need to be pitted against each other in an argument reminiscent of the recent arguments about how to teach literacy as seen in media and other outlets, for example as per this 2017 blog post by Eleanor Heaton about phonics versus the whole language approach.
I see no reason why we can’t have both and simply be more flexible in the application of outcomes to meet real individual student needs.
The real issues with outcome based teaching are based in 1. a lack of authentic growth mindset (Dweck 2006) in adults and students – an inability to see mistakes as part of learning, 2. the social debate regarding reporting to parents and telling the students themselves or their parents that their child has or has not met stage outcomes based on a ‘letter’ mark or tick in a box. Far better, according to Hattie & Peddie (2003), for the system to simply say, ‘this is what sorts of things you/your child can do well, these are things that they are still learning or here are the learning goals for the future.’ It isn’t the outcomes at fault, it is how we’ve applied them to our practice as educators.
[Sidebar 1: To this end, I am extremely interested in the Quality Teaching Framework to improve the structure of lesson delivery (if this is done through inquiry based teaching then so be it) and reading more about ability/interest/friendship grouping of students as opposed to age/year/stage grouping of students.]
[Sidebar 2: If you think Outcome based teaching is holding students back, don’t even get me started on the ‘Learning Progressions,’ ‘NAPLAN’ and the ‘Our Schools’ Website / league tables which have resulted in ‘teaching to the test’ and ‘school shopping.’ Gah.]
[Sidebar 3: If outcome models are so flawed and inquiry models are so perfect, why aren’t universities scrapping outcome based marking criteria and using inquiry models?]
Making assumptions about students: How students find information and their level of ability, particularly when it comes to electronic resources varies widely – much more so than adults realise and according to Coombes, “The basic premise of the Net Generation theory, that familiarity with technology equates with efficient and effective use and these achievements are only applicable to a specific group because they have grown up with technology, is flawed” (Coombes 2009, pp.32).
Technology is a tool, rather than a solution (Coombes 2009). Society has a new ‘digital age’ environment in which we live and we are expecting students to learn how to navigate it simply by being born amongst it. We have a new set of digital expectations in our society but have neglected to update our education system of our students to enable them to meet those expectations.
Information Search Process (ISP) skills / information literacy: Being able to recognise functions of a digital device does not automatically mean that students are able to access, process and absorb information on that they come across on said device (Coombes 2009). Students are overly reliant on the internet, have limited ability to search effectively, and are rarely able to critically evaluate information that they find (Coombes 2009).
The Role of Teacher Librarians (et al.): Educators have responsibility to lift their game when it comes to teaching students information literacy / searching skills such as collecting, managing and evaluating information (particularly when they believe the first thing that appears in their search is the most relevant or most accurate when in fact the first thing that comes up is based on their prior searches and the search engine’s popularity algorithms), finding the information again at a later date, and storing information for future use (Combes, 2007b in Coombes 2009).
Evidence and Assessment within the library: I like the list of ideas in ETL401 Module 3 (based on Valenza 2015) for evidence that the library program is of benefit to the school teaching and learning programs and curriculum. However, I am wary of introducing something that is trivial or that will not stand the test of time or that might sit in a filing cabinet – lost and forgotten.
For that reason, I will use the Quality Teaching Framework and the subsequent evaluation sheet (that I modified on GoogleDocs) to evaluate my lessons or units of work professionally, and will also use the (yet to be created) school library website or more private/access restricted photo/video-based programs (where accepted by the school) for evidence of student engagement or achievement such as ClassDojo, Seesaw or ClassCraft. The benefit of these applications is that they are also able to be used by students themselves, with any device (at home or at school).
I’m looking at you, teachers who profess to be techno-phobes! As Coombes’ 2009 work was written 10 years ago, and research within her article is based on the 10 to ‘teen’ age range, most of the students in her focus are now adults and quite possibly, teachers themselves. Those who are from current and previous generations, as educators, need to be aware of our own gaps in information literacy so that we can stop the cycle of poor information seeking skills!
The Blame Game: What I’ve also seen in education, in varying degrees based on context, is a lack of personal and professional reflection. A lack of ‘mindfulness’ and being in the moment. A wish for the utopian environment and an unrealistic desire for perfect students who fit into a mould and live up to unrealistic expectations and students who are compliant rather than collaborative (Goss & Sonnemann 2017).
This results in a filtering down of ‘blame’ for the poor foundational (primarily literacy and numeracy) skills that students have when they arrive into high school. The high school teachers blame the stage 3 teachers. The stage 3 
teachers blame the stage 2 teachers. The stage 2 teachers blame the stage 1 teachers. The stage 1 teachers blame the kindergarten/prep teachers. The kindy/prep teachers blame the preschools. (And everybody blames the RFF teachers and the parents and finally, the students themselves).
What I’d like to see is every person involved in education taking a look in the mirror and reflecting daily on their pedagogical practice. What I’d like to see is everyone practising mindfulness–thoughtfully doing what they can with the students and contexts that they have in the moment in time in which they are living, and authentic growth mindset–appreciating that mistakes are part of learning.
References:
Combes, B. (2009). Generation Y: Are they really digital natives or more like digital refugees? Synergy, 7(1), 31-40
Dweck, C. (2016). What having a “growth mindset” actually means. Harvard Business Review, 13, 213-226.
Goss, P. & Sonnemann, J. (2017). Engaging Students – Creating classrooms that improve learning. Retrieved from: https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Engaging-students-creating-classrooms-that-improve-learning.pdf
Hattie, J., & Peddie, R. (2003). School reports: “Praising with faint damns.” Journal issue, 3.
RSA Animate – Robinson, K. (2008). Changing educational paradigms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U#aid=P8wNMEma2ng
Valenza, J. (2015). Evolving with evidence: Leveraging new tools for EBP. Knowledge Quest. 43/3, 36-43
Wien, C. A. (2015). Emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia approach in schools. Teachers College Press.
Creating a Collaborative Climate – The Triple C’s
[Reflection of ETL401 & ETL503 (The TL Role in Collaboration)] (*addendum 16 September 2019 for ETL504)
I think I’ve been pretty clear in my stance on the impact of temporary and casual work environments to the collaborative climate. If not, then I suppose I should mention here how much it wears away at collaboration to have individuals fighting for the renewals of their contracts: completely and utterly.
The casualisation of the teaching workforce, particularly in my personal working context, is not something I am able to change as an individual. Helping create a collaborative climate (despite the political climate) however, I can try to change.
Before we jump head first into collaborating with classroom teachers on an inquiry unit of work, let’s take a step back. I mean, yes we want to design and implement inquiry learning and literature programs and we certainly want to help embed digital formats. But we need to confront the elephant in the room in stead of simply shrugging our shoulders and saying ‘some teachers just don’t want to collaborate.’
I would argue that some teachers haven’t had positive collaborative experiences in the past (experiencing – much like a lot of students must experience – forced compliance rather than collaboration) or some teachers expect judgement in disguise rather than collaboration.
We ran into this in a school where we were trying to roll out Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR). We surveyed the staff to identify their concerns and these were the results:
Q. Why do we have to? (Comfort Zones: Not comfortable being watched / observed / critiqued; Doubt ‘teamwork’ capabilities; Criteria for involvement unclear; Feel pressured to do it).
A. (summarised) Be the change you wish to see in the world. Also, the NSW DET require a colleague observe you once a year so it might as well have a clear structure and limits and offer real improvement to your teaching.
Q. What’s the benefit? (Is there follow up; What do ‘we’ get out of it; Evidence of benefits; How does it improve the school; How valuable is it versus mentoring which we do already).
A. (shown QTR training slides proving benefits based on research)
Q. How could we possibly do it? (Logistics / Resources: What types of lessons have to be observed, eg 1:1, whole class, small group; Time off class; Casuals; Time required for prep work outside school hours).
A. (Thankfully, the principal had budgeted for the resources and did not have a set idea of what sort of lessons were required for observation).
The QTR team did our best with the resources and research provided by the QT Framework training to answer these concerns in a specially allocated staff meeting. We then surveyed the staff to determine their level of interest, which was about 70% in favour, and a few other teachers joined the second ‘Quality Teaching Round.’
Furthermore, in this process and in the readings for ETL401 Module 4, it occurred to me that an aspect of (primary) teaching that impacts collaboration is an ingrained and embedded culture of isolation. A teacher, predominantly alone in a room of students (or a Teacher Librarian on their own in the library) cannot effectively collaborate with other teachers as well as someone working in an office filled with cubicles or a group of engineers on a building site.
Another aspect of collaboration are the social norms of either Australian culture, or the culture of a town or city, or the culture of a school context. An immigrant and possible ASD person myself, I struggle with social norms on a daily basis.
I am also struck by the massive gap in the expectations of our TL role as collaborators, where we are expected to just jump in there and collaborate with teaching and learning programs with people who don’t know anything about us and of whom we also know very little…it is a bit ‘chicken before the egg’!
The OECD-UNICEF (2016) Education Working paper’s ‘dimensions of learning’ for organisation transformation touches on this (developing and sharing a student centred vision, having a culture of support for staff learning opportunities, promoting team collaborative professional development and embedding systems that support it, establishing daily expectations or ‘culture’ of inquiry, innovation and exploration–including staff in leadership roles, and learning with and from larger learning systems outside of the school context or direct governing body).
Logistically though, what does this look like? I love the idea of the ATSI community’s ‘yarning circle’. But how do I help create a ‘yarning circle’ or gathering spot where we can get to know each other and our contexts and socialise professionally? How do I help draw people out of their shells and into the safe environment of a collaborative climate?
Creating a Collaborative Climate (The triple C’s):
I can’t do it alone. There are things the executive must do to help improve the collaborative climate and things that they will need from me as well. However, once I’ve developed a rapport with the principal by helping them achieve their ideas, I will liaise with the principal to allow for time and budget amounts to be determined and allocated to enable some or all of the following of MY (8) ideas for creating a collaborative environment each year as follows:
- In an allocated staff meeting or staff development day, we sit in a ‘yarning circle’ and discuss ourselves, our school and any concerns openly and freely, using the ideas from this link as a guide: ATSI community’s ‘yarning circle’.
- Everyone completes the School Context Survey (draft version also in links on the right side of this blog) either collaboratively or on their own in time provided.
- Everyone takes the VIA Character Survey and shares their top 5 / 10 character traits for the year (they can change slightly each year).
- Everyone completes the Philosophy of Teaching Survey (draft version in links also on the right side of this blog). My own philosophy of Teaching has been updated for 2019 using the survey questions and can be used as a guide.
- A photo of the teacher is either created or supplied with their permission (see #7 below for format ideas) using the Photo Permission Form Template created by the American Library Association (or similar).
- The results of the school context, VIA, and philosophy surveys can then be sent electronically to the TL to be added to a electronic photo of the teacher(s) (with their permission), &/or collated and presented on an intranet or school website (which, unfortunately I do not have at present as I am not attached to a particular school).
- I even have ideas (I have a marketing background, don’t forget!) on what the end result would look like and have pinned these ideas onto my Teacher Spotlight Pinterest board. (This board could also, theoretically, be made available for all of the school staff to edit).
- And finally, (and this is where it gets a bit heavy), introduce Quality Teaching Rounds (in which I am an advocate and trained to deliver) to the school at least once a year if not twice, depending on budget and time allowances.
From here, collaborating on programming and teaching collaborative inquiry units are a walk in the park.
*16 September 2019 ETL504 addendum: See the template link on the left of the blog for initiating a collaborative inquiry unit with a classroom teacher Created by Christy Roe, based on suggestions from Carr, J. (Ed.), (2008) p.13-14; 28; 39; and Bishop, (2011) p.7.
WHEW! Its a big task. I hope I’m up to the challenge!
References:
Bishop, K. (2011). Connecting libraries with classrooms. Retrieved from ProQuest Ebook Central.
Carr, J. (Ed.). (2008). Leadership for excellence: Insights of the national school library media program of the year award winners. Retrieved from iG Library.
OECD-UNICEF. (2016). What makes a school a learning organisation? A guide for policy makers, school leaders and teachers. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/education/school/school-learning-organisation.pdf
