ETL504 Teacher Librarian as Leader – Page 2

Reflecting on Module 3.1: Change in Organisations

ETL504 Module 3.1-Change in Organisations (2019): Improving the impact of change conflict with a shared vision and strategies for improving the work culture or climate

Change can be put into effect by various ‘change agents’ (managers, team members or consultants) and can be planned or unplanned and is either required based on internal or or external demands. Change from external demands is from sources such as: the marketplace / SES of the LGA; governing bodies / laws / regulations such as those required by ACARA or NESA; technological advances; the labour market such as the availability or oversupply of teachers; and economics / funding / the economy / budgets (Module 3.1, 2019).

Change required based on internal demands is from things such as: the school structure / eg. the school’s strategic plan, the library’s strategic plan, the school vision, the library vision, the school mission statement or the library mission statement; the workforce–from the principal to the GA; equipment, eg. buildings / pencils and; attitudes–the various backgrounds, experiences, religions, ethnicities and cultural groups of the stakeholders of the school (Module 3.1, 2019).

Some blockers to change might be caused by uncertainty, personal loss for ‘the way we’ve always done it,’ or genuine concern that change isn’t in the schools best interest (Module 3.1, 2019).

Change Management Strategies: “Planned, incremental change is always best” because work, workflow, attitudes & behaviours are all impacted by change (Module 3.1, 2019).

Change is initially confusing and challenging, but leaders can reduce change conflict or change-induced fatigue or stress by: linking the benefits of the change to the school vision or long term goals, anticipating where conflicts might arise and having a plan ready for how to ease them, education, communication, participation at all levels of the organisation and leadership facilitation, support & negotiation (rather than manipulation or coercion) (Module 3, 2019).

Bitmoji - Climate — Bitmoji – Climate Work climate or culture:

In schools it is key that we create a ‘learning organisation’ within 7 dimensions classified by Kools and Stoll (2016): “1) developing and sharing a vision centred on the learning of all students; 2) creating and supporting continuous learning opportunities for all staff; 3) promoting team learning and collaboration among staff; 4) establishing a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration; 5) establishing embedded systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning; 6) learning with and from the external environment and larger learning system; and 7) modelling and growing learning leadership” (Kools & Stoll, 2016, p.3). This can also be understood by points listed in this infographic by elearning infographics.com (2013):

eLearning Infographics. (2013). (Image provided for uploading and embedding into blogs for free by eLearning Infographics).

Teams should also meet regularly for ‘wellness checks,’ including all stakeholders (leaders, staff, students and families) and change agents must remember that people learn best through: interdependence, change and the social constructs of reflective practise, conversing, inquiring and acting (Fleet, et al., 2016).

Fleet, et al., (2016) point out that positive change initiatives require: effective leadership, a positive school culture or climate, effective employment procedures, support, participation at all levels of the school (promoting a sense of respect for leaders who are able to perform the tasks that they expect others to be able to perform, individual ownership, consensual involvement & team-wide willingness to participate in changes or innovation) and creating a shared vision and mission statement.

‘Transformational’ or ‘distributional’ leaders need to develop a shared school vision in order to develop trusting relationships, solve complex problems, have a clear focus on teaching and learning, and a willingness to engage with the community (Fleet, et al., 2016; & Holmes et al., 2013). When creating a shared vision, Holmes, et al. (2013) reminds us that it takes a lot of time (sometimes frustratingly), as well as effective communication skills and patience in order to ensure inclusivity. Furthermore, sharing and communicating the school’s journey of change initiatives with the community promotes a shared understanding (Fleet, et al., 2016).

If every change or proposal (organisational, financial, teaching & learning) links to the school vision and strategic management plan then the changes are ‘well justified’ can receive whole school and organisational support and funding and this, in turn, further contributes to a positive school learning culture or climate and creates a ‘bottom up’ (rather than ‘top down’) influence (Fleet, et al., 2016; & Holmes, et al., 2013).

Bitmoji: ‘Bottom Up!’ influence Top down influence:

‘Top down’ influences often sidetrack school innovations, change or reforms and super-cede relationship building because trust takes more time than what is allowed by governing bodies (Holmes, et al., 2013). ‘Top down’ mandated changes have very little uptake by teachers, because they react with a range of negative emotions, believe they aren’t given neither time nor education to understand changes nor support prior to or at implementation, and that changes from the top are transitory and will soon be obsolete (Clement, 2014, p. 42).

A whole school approach to change is more likely to have teachers driving the change based on the school goals and agendas and within their own time parameters, leading to more understanding and less stress or conflict (Clement, 2014, p. 43). ‘Change fatigue’ or ‘innovation fatigue’ or ‘reform fatigue’ can result in teachers as we are in a constant cycle of mandated education reform (such as continual curriculum change) which presents as dissatisfaction, exhaustion and perceptions of increased workload, lack of support, training and resources and unrealistic mandated implementation timelines (Dilkes, et al., 2014).

“Cynical, realistic and even enthusiastic teachers suffer change fatigue after years of rapid and continual curriculum change” (Dilkes, et al., 2014 p.45).

Bitmoji: Following the leader Leadership:

“Principals must be managers as well as leaders, dealing with the pragmatics of managing a complex system, being the human face of relationships amongst school personnel, learners & the community, as well as offering constructive visionary leadership to carry the school through the mundane, through the complexities of diversity, politics & bureaucratic infrastructures to the desired future” (Fleet, et al., 2016, p. 73). Humour, patience, flexibility, accountability, commitment and thoughtfulness are the skills of “visionary” leaders, as well as the ability to understand that knowledge and genuine learning communities and pedagogies are socially constructed (Fleet, et al., 2016 p 74).

Teachers can often express that they feel stress, physically, mentally and behaviourally (Module 3, 2019) and some ideas to help alleviate stress are: develop a whole school approach to growth mindset, flow and/or mindfulness; encourage a work-life balance (eg. stick to a work timetable then stop working at that agreed time-including emails, and think about something other than work every day, etc); do a ‘what I can control versus what I can’t control’ mind-map in order to identify stress triggers; ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ by prioritising or focusing on what really matters to you or what is a top goal; do a ‘stress’ survey and discuss the stresses identified openly as a team; find someone to talk to or to collaborate with; set S.M.A.R.T. goals; accept and give recognition to and from colleagues; seek and offer appropriate training and supports; and say ‘no’ and encourage others to say ‘no’ sometimes (Bailey, 2013; Cross, 2015).

Reflection on change conflict, fatigue and stress:

Is change conflict, fatigue and stress in my school representative of: individual and whole school stress management or coping mechanisms not being in place; a lack of a true growth mindset in teachers or leadership, a lack of a ‘invested interest’ from all stakeholders because of ‘top down’ mandated change, a lack of understanding of the benefits of the particular change and how it relates to the school vision and student outcomes, poor communication about the change(s), a lack of understanding about how to implement a change, insufficient time given to implement the change, a history of consistent change creating a ‘why bother’ mentality, backlash from the community who’ve been left out of the decision making process or who haven’t had adequate communication about the change, or a reaction to the change itself due to consistent change creating ‘change fatigue?’

Reflection on downsizing:

Bitmoji You're fired — Bitmoji – You’re Fired

I have worked for a clothing company who when into administration and closed down.
I was also retrenched once from a marketing position.
Later, as a temporary teacher, I did not have my contract renewed at one school and
I did not have my contract renewed at another school the following year.

In the first and second and third instances, I felt that my employer looked after me to some degree, two found me work elsewhere (to some degree), one gave me access to external counselling and an external c.v. creation training service at no cost, but one (the last and most recent) did hardly anything to ensure my mental and financial health was in any way looked after as recommended by Wolfe (2019). I put this down to inexperience and arrogance of the leader(s) who thought downsizing by not renewing my contract was in the best interest of their school…although, it would have been better to have asked the staff for alternatives to laying off a teacher (Wolfe, 2019).

Similarly, as suggested by Wolfe (2019), my extreme level of poor mental health was not assisted by the lack of communication as to why I was selected to be ‘downsized’ but the other 8 temporary teachers were not, many of whom were not communicated with regarding my situation, creating a terribly insecure work culture (without any communication from the top, most asked me what happened, resulting in further distress).

References

Bailey, A. (2013, November 6). 10 ideas to help teachers beat stress. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/nov/06/teachers-beat-stress-10-ideas

Change in Organisations: 3.1 [Study notes]. (2019). In ETL504: Teacher librarian as leader. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University Faculty of Education and the Art’s Interact 2 website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_42385_1&content_id=_2928579_1

Clement, J. (2014). Managing mandated educational change. School Leadership & Management, 34(1), 39-51. doi:10.1080/13632434.2013.813460

Cross, D. (2015). Teacher well being and its impact on student learning [Slide presentation]. Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia. Retrieved from http://www.research.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2633590/teacher-wellbeing-and-student.pdf

Dilkes, J., Cunningham, C., & Gray, J. (2014). The new Australian Curriculum, teachers and change fatigue. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(11). doi: 10.14221/ajte.2014v39n11.4

elearning infographics.com. (2013). How is a learning organisation differentiated. Retrieved from https://elearninginfographics.com/how-is-a-learning-organisation-differentiated-infographic/

Fleet, A., De Gioia, K. & Patterson C. (2016). Engaging with educational change. Retrieved from ProQuest Ebook Central.

Kools, M. & Stoll, L. (2016). What Makes a School a Learning Organisation?, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 137, OECD Publishing, Paris, Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlwm62b3bvh-en.

Holmes K., Clement, J. & Albright, J. (2013). The complex task of leading educational change in schools, School Leadership & Management, 33:3, 270283, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2013.800477

Wolfe, L. (2019, April 7). Here are some alternatives to laying off employees when downsizing. In The balance careeres, Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/alternatives-to-laying-off-employees-when-downsizing-3515483

Case Study 2 & 3 Reflections of Group Work

Case Study 2 – online meeting discussion / chat

I found the format for the chat a little disconcerting. When it was time to have my ‘say’ about the issues in the case study, I felt intense anxiety at how fast everyone’s comments were flashing up. I wanted to read them, not only to learn but also to make sure I wasn’t doubling up or saying something totally off the wall compared to what everyone else was saying but it was just too fast. So, I had to just look quickly at my notes and put up a short comment.

Where to from here:

If given the chance in the future, I will try to have something ready that I can just cut and paste quickly.

Case Study 3 – group post

I tried to utilise the strategies for leadership that I felt were important, not in terms of me being the leader, but in terms of what it would take for us to work well together as a group. I wanted to take the time at the beginning to get to know each person in the group.

However, the resulting responses (and almost entire lack thereof) showed that the other members of the group (bar one and myself) did not want to or were not able to take the time to offer any information about themselves. They seemed to simply want to either 1. make it known that they expected us to pick a leader off the cuff (supposably them?) or 2. appropriate time and responsibilities based on their external commitments.

I suppose I went wrong by oversharing or putting nearly everyone off in the way my ‘about me’ was worded in the link to my blog page. Perhaps getting to know each other is seen as a waste of time when everyone else simply wanted to ‘get down to business.’

Overall, I was left feeling out of sorts. As if I’ve missed some social cue, or misread the situation and am now outside the group. I feel as though I’ve set myself apart, rather than made sure I led from the middle, as I had hoped.

Where to from here:

For now, I will let it go and hope for a better result next time. Maybe I will just start smaller with simply a few sentences about myself and hope that others feel comfortable sharing more as we go along…

Protected: My Flowcharts of Organisational Structures and Leadership Theories

Reflecting on Organisational, Managerial and Leadership Theory 2.2-2.3

REFLECTIVE: “Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.” Henri Matisse
(Matisse n.d.)

Free image provided by Simon Matzinger on Unsplash.com

It is amazing to me how we all grow up getting used to the amazing structures of the past without acknowledging their significance in our present. Much like the ancient buildings showing through the fog in the image from Simon Matzinger (above) so are the structures of organisational, managerial and leadership theory from past and present all around us.

If we don’t take the time to reflect on and recognise the structures that exist and influence our actions, we are but living in a fog. Thus, I’ve spent a lot of time and brain energy this week on the subject…and as I peer into the fog of the history and research, I fear I have but scratched the surface.

I’m not alone in my experiences of poor leadership/management/organisational structure. I’m sure many of us in our mid 30’s and beyond have some war stories to tell…in my very first officially paid position in a grocery store, the front end manager and his assistant stole nearly $40 000 from the company (which became evident in the scandal that erupted when I accidentally took home a pack of $1 bills in my apron and nobody noticed until I turned it in the next day). Was this because they lacked the necessary leadership ‘trait‘ of integrity but it was assumed that they had that trait when they were hired? Was this because of the organisational structure being ‘divisional’ (Kokemuller, 2017) without actually any vision or sharing of vision?

I had quite a few retail positions in my youth. In one position, I worked in a bookstore and the manager was passive aggressive and controlling, possibly anal retentive…he would put dusting skills into our performance appraisals as a critique and used a texta to draw outlines of where he wanted the office supplies to go. Everyone on staff was very friendly and hard working and we all just managed ourselves and the store with very little need for input from him. Was this because of his leadership skill or ‘traits’ and lack thereof? Was he in an environment that called for a ‘transformational’ leader but he was stuck in the ‘autocratic’ leadership mindset? Did he have a lack of control over us that made him feel irrelevant?

POWER: “Part of the task of the leader is to make others participate in his leadership. The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power” … “Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders” Mary Parker Follet (in Janse 2019).

In my office worker years, I learnt that I am good at being an office worker, in that I can do the work to a very high standard. I can type and shuffle papers and find quick and cost effective solutions to most any problem. I watched as many of my white, male colleagues received promotions despite the fact that I was doing the same job much better than they had been. And, oh boy, do I hate the lack of humour, the dearth of beauty, the monotony and, most of all, the sense that I was not doing anything that improved the world. Why are offices so often designed in the ‘divisional’ (Kokemuller, 2017) way? Why do people who socialise really well receive promotions when people who do their jobs really well remain in those positions – is it because some people are perceived to have more ‘statesmen’ ‘traits’ and that makes them more suited to leadership positions? How actually important is it to be able to do the job of the subordinate well prior to or while being a leader of that subordinate? Is it part of being more efficient within the ‘scientific‘ management theory?

When I became a teacher (in the Australian education system), my first impression still rings true: schools try to mimic what they believe business structures to be like. A parody of sorts. A reproduction. However, there is one key difference in the business structure of education: our shared goal to improve outcomes for the children at our schools, and indeed, thus improve the world. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to the machine or divisional organisation structures. We have it in our capacities to aim for the ‘professional’ and ‘innovative’ structures (Kokemuller, 2017). Let’s lead the way for business, not the other way around!

VISION: “The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualised. (They see) the things which are not yet there… Above all, (they) should make (their) co-workers see that it is not (the leader’s) purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group” Mary Parker Follet (in Janse 2019).

I’ve been told, at various times in my teaching career, that I got my degree the ‘easy’ way or ‘through the back door’ by doing an early childhood degree. I sometimes hear little snippets about where I should be placed within a school because of this also…as if I am not capable of working with older students because my university training 12 years ago, despite the fact that as a casual teacher I’ve worked with ages 3 to 14. Even in the first case study for ETL504, I was curious why one of the ’employees’ needed her degree specialisation to be pointed out. Was it because we have to treat early childhood trained educators differently because they aren’t as clever as the rest? Is this part of the bureaucratic and ‘divisional,’ ‘machine’ organisational structures, or are we identifying the early childhood specialisation as a means to create a ‘professional’ structure (Kokemuller, 2017)?

APPRECIATION: “Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed” Mary Parker Follet (in Janse 2019).

As written in my previous post on this blog (see below) entitled “Creating a Collaborative Climate – The Triple C’s” on the 21st of May 2019, we are expected to collaborate when so much of the stuff behind the scenes or ‘beneath the fog’ isn’t set up effectively. The amount of control we have over the organisational set up is limited, those old buildings have been around for too long and are stronger than one person. However, we can work on building a collaborative climate within those organisational structures. In addition to the items listed in my Triple C blog post, I would add team building to the list.

INVENTION “Conflict is resolved not through compromise, but through invention” Mary Follet Parker (in Janse 2019).

Team building is something in which office human resources managers are proficient and schools would do well to take note of their advice. Trust, communication, conflict resolution and productivity are increased when team building occurs (Al-Bakri 2017). In my Triple C blog post, I recommended and I still recommend that instead of ‘meetings’ where information is disseminated, we could host ‘yarning circles’ as recommended by The Salvation Army (Worthing, 2018). While I am not promoting and am not religious, I respect the ideas recommended and would love to host a staff yarning circle in my library with my team. I’d also like to investigate team building activities such as those provided by beyond the boardroom or other companies in Australia.

Until then, here is my previous blog post on workplace climate change:

Creating a Collaborative Climate – The Triple C’s

References

Al-Bakri, S. (2017). Why every organisation should embrace team activities. Retrieved from https://www.hrmonline.com.au/social-media/organisation-embrace-team-activities/

Janse, B. (2019). Mary Parker Follett. Retrieved from toolshero: https://www.toolshero.com/toolsheroes/mary-parker-folett/

Kokemuller, N. (2017). Mintzberg’s five types of organizational structure. In Hearst Newspapers: Small business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/mintzbergs-five-types-organizational-structure-60119.html

Matisse, H. (n.d.) Henri Matisse Quotes, BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henri_matisse_140869

Worthing, S. (2018). The Yarning Circle. Retrieved from https://others.org.au/features/the-yarning-circle/

Reflecting on Organisational Theory 2.1

(ETL504 Module 2.1)

A good leader must ‘know thyself’ and ‘model best practice’:

We need to be prepared to take on the traits of a leader: to practice and engage in identifying problems, correctly analyse problems, develop solutions using tested theory, tools or techniques, and apply these when needed.

We need to be able to strategically plan for our own practice as well as for the library by knowing ourselves and our staff, effectively organising and managing time, assessing strengths, weaknesses and job roles.

We need to be able to make the library an information resource, not just a source, by enabling continual ‘physical and intellectual access’ for our patrons.

We are part of something much bigger than ourselves:

Remember that the library is part of the greater school context, the greater community, the greater educational context and the greater context of the state and federal government curriculum and funding bodies.

We must understand the nature of information services and information management:

Information services: are contextually designed, satisfy need(s) of specific stakeholders and a range of users, offer support facilities, turn sources into resources, and promote both visible and invisible benefits. Information services are exactly that: services.

Information management: manages information that could be human, intellectual and technical.

(Colvin 2000) Competitive and effective managers / leaders reject the administrative, economic or scientific models of leadership and mechanical organisations and instead embrace and encourage: shared values, recognition, appreciation of judgement, innovation or creativity, and building relationships as the most important aspects of a living and breathing, humanistic organisation’s success.

The big issues are “how to attract and motivate the best knowledge workers, the value of teams, organising by projects, using infotech wisely and the flattening of hierarchies.” (Colvin 2000) … Management versus administration: “Iron authority has its uses but it has serious problems as a way to manage a fast-moving, adaptable, creative enterprise.” (Colvin 2000).

Administration is aligned with the mechanistic model: “functionally organised, many tiered hierarchies”(Colvin 2000). It could also be the economic model / scientific management: “…millions of free agents zoom(ing) around in cyber-space selling their knowledge-worker services hyper efficiently to such organisations as may require them from moment to moment…and in which buyers and sellers of everything connect for near anonymous transactions at that instant’s mutually optimal price” (Colvin 2000).

Organisations are “more like organisms than machines” (Colvin 2000).

People are “complex creatures…most likely (to be) ‘knowledge’ workers rather than physical labourers.” (Colvin 2000).

Managing is the ability to “create, judge, imagine and build relationships” (Colvin 2000). The human centred model views “values as the basis of managing the 21st century corporation…lots of people with aligned values constitute an awesome power…creating, articulating and sustaining the organisations values, thus become(s) one of management’s most important jobs…(Q)uirky humans…still very much need interaction, recognition and relationships…(M)anagement is a human art and getting more so as infotech takes over the inhuman donkey work – the ox work – of the world…Most managers now seem to understand that they will find competitive advantage by (quickly and effectively) tapping employees’ most essential humanity, their ability to create, judge, imagine and build relationships” (Colvin 2000).

Henry Mintzberg (Kokemuller, 2017) classifications for organisations:

Entrepreneurial: non-elaborated, flexible structures closely controlled by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Machine: bureaucratic set-in-their-ways corporations or government departments
Professional: similar bureaucracy to machine, but with largely professional, competent, specialised, autonomous and knowledgable workers pushing the ‘economic engine.’
Divisional: large corporations with centralised control with divisions supervised by vice presidents.
Innovative: cutting-edge leadership in new industries with innovative leaders using de-centralised decision making which allows talented leaders to make judgments efficiently.

Look out for more reflection on these classifications in my next post!

References

Colvin, G. (2000). Managing in the information era. Fortune, 141(5). Retrieved from http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/03/06/275231/index.htm?iid=sr-link1.

Case Study 1 – Reflection and Ideas

The background of case study 1 from CSU Interact2 ETL504 Module 1 (Downloaded on 17/7/19)

Case study 1 from CSU Interact2 ETL504 Module 1 (Downloaded on 17/7/19)

Firstly, it must be said that I am vastly under-qualified for the leadership position at the facility in this case study.

Luckily, it is a hypothetical situation or I might have to have a nervous breakdown as the first thing I would do on Monday morning’s diary entry. Thus, my first reaction is that I need to use something like the graph from Skills You Need to start managing my time more analytically and prioritising tasks more effectively. For example, am I trying to chair too many committees when my staff are falling apart? Am I too busy trying to make myself look good to bond with employees who are running the library, possibly inefficiently?
Perhaps delegating the sorting of my correspondence, reports, memos and emails into ‘now, soon, later’ by a secretary, who could then create my schedule for the week, would be a good idea. If this isn’t in the budget then I will need to allocate time specifically in each day to organise myself.
After reading the background of the case study, I am similarly overwhelmed. In my work experience in marketing, I was at a corporation of similar size to this school and it required a Human Resources (HR) team to support the smooth running of the management and staff. We had a vibrant HR manager who, following a corporate restructure, ran a series of ‘meetings’ where we worked together to improve the workplace culture, and I believe this workplace is in serious need of these HR intervention ideas.
The video from the Bastow Institute’s Tracey Ezard on ‘Building Trust and Collaboration’ (2015) supports this view, offering helpful tips on how to improve the quality of relationships and build trust and risk taking through: discovering each person’s potential and capabilities, admitting my own failings as a leader, appreciating each other and being authentic in what we say and do.
Some ideas on how to achieve an improved workplace culture specifically would be to: do the VIA character traits survey and discuss the results; Build individual and communal philosophies via the GoogleDocs survey that I created; Then collate the results of these into the school library website or intranet to encourage pride and unity.
I would also seek to enhance the external support for those staff members who have challenges at home with childcare and children with disability, possibly through a crèche or respite care. (Not sure what to do about the bloke sleeping at his computer in sight of students. Maybe a having a friendly, helpful and private chat about his health and some options for improving his engagement at work would solve the issue?)
It is clear that some training is necessary and I would look to provide opportunities for the Berry Street Educational Model (BSEM) training for the whole team, but particularly for Liam, Peta, Dani, Victoria, Shelley and Bobbi, who (for various reasons) are not connecting appropriately with students and/or teachers and library staff. While the BSEM training was created to help educators support students with trauma backgrounds, it has the simultaneous effect of building skills in educators like empathy and understanding and the ability to form connections, as well as opening us up to changing our environments, responses and attitudes to better suit the students.
Similarly, the whole team would benefit from a visit from Keynote Speaker: Rachel Robertson, who explains her ‘No Triangles’ strategy as well as many other useful ideas for improving workplace culture.
Further training in relevant technology used by the library and possible ideas for additional technology is also needed, particularly for Shelley, Allison, Bobbi & Melissa. This could be achieved in house by training sessions by Lydia, Liam, Derek & Malia. In support of the staff, I should also have an understanding of the relevant technology and use it daily.
Marlia & Liam could also be trained in the ‘LANS & Networking configurations’ by Derek, who is likely to leave and take his knowledge with him. (And what’s up with that Derek? Do you need to feel more valued or has that ship already sailed?)
The issue of lack of student and teacher engagement in the library needs a whole team approach. Data needs to be collected, possibly through surveys or programs like Oliver to determine the severity or areas of disengagement. Once the data has been collected and collated, it will need to be analysed by the whole staff and ideas for improving engagement need to be shared with everyone based on and supported by recent information science and educational practise research. One aspect of this would be the whole staff having more input and contributions during the actual teaching of student lessons.
Finally, due to the constant staff turnover, a lack of clear direction or goals, and a lack of unity, everyone has ambiguous roles and responsibilities-including me. While I see from the diary that I am meeting with them one-on-one, this needs to be formalised into a performance and review schedule where I first meet with everyone around the same time to determine the specific roles and detailed responsibilities of the respective jobs within the sub-groups of the library, e.g. my roles, the TL’s roles, the tech’s roles, the assistant’s roles and the IT department’s roles. Atlassian has a great structure for a team meeting activity to help achieve this. Some 6-12 months afterwards, I could meet with individuals to review their performance and determine their success or needs relating to their roles and responsibilities.

The task at hand is large. I’m glad it is just hypothetical and am looking forward to hearing input from others in this subject on how they would handle it on Monday…

References

BastowInstitute. (2015, July 27). Building Trust and Collaboration – Tracey Ezard [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/kUkseAdKyek

Teacher Librarians as Leaders?

Here is what I know so far about Teacher Librarians (TLs) as leaders:

It would be such a shame to do all of this work for a Masters of Education and not be viewed as a leader (if only in name only and not recognised in a formal employment title and matching AP salary). I have written about this aspect of the degree and profession in my blog. (See the posts with ‘Leadership’ and ‘Roles and Responsibilities’ tags.)
The library is the heart of the school (Roche, 2018) and this places the TL as in a prime centre position to demonstrate leadership…but what sort of leadership style would I have?
Librarians, stereo-typically, are lovers of books and as such, can sometimes find social situations challenging. Leading, as opposed to autonomy or autocratic behaviour, does not always come naturally. Speaking for myself, I have always found the biggest challenge in adulthood to be working with other adults.
Is it cruel to say that a teacher librarian could become a leader in a DET primary school when the trend has become to have an untrained teacher as a school librarian (or a temporary staff member) and as such, the opportunity to be a leader is nearly impossible and as valuable as it would be, it is in fact an unrealistic expectation?

I am looking forward to revisiting this post at the end of the ETL504 subject to compare what I’ve learnt to these observations.

References

Roche, C. (2018). Making the library the true heart of the school. SCIS. Issue 105. Retrieved from: https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-105/making-the-library-the-true-heart-of-the-school/

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

Welcome to the Teachers Who Know Me Blog

Hi, I’m Christy Roe and this is my first blog post. I chose this name for the blog because I’ve operated a closed Facebook Group with the same name since 2013 for teachers or lecturers who’ve worked with me all the way back to when I started Primary teaching in 2007.

The Teacher’s Who Know Me blog is a reflective device for my thoughts and learning relating to education. It was created as part of my Masters of Education in Teacher Librarianship to keep track of the things I learn, reflect on them and to share them with teachers or lecturers who know me or who have worked with me over the years.

All images and opinions are my own or used with permission, and will be referenced and supported by research or evidence wherever possible.

Thank you for interacting with me, now and into the future,

Christy