kropekk_pl / Pixabay

Case Study 5 saw a change in the way our group collaborated and also a change to the co-vid task. It revealing rainbow that delived into some deep thinking and soared to collaborative heights. In terms of collaboration, I enjoyed that our brainstorming elicited new and different ideas. Holly Pirie (2020, May 13) shed new light from a Children and Youth Librarian’s perspective with some amazing ideas cloaked in various leadership styles, such as public library poetry slams (via Zoom), writing workshops (transformational leadership) and year 10 research workshops (instructional leadership).

Our task involved a reflection on unrealized opportunities and actions taken during co-vid. I felt that key factors underlying the unrealized opportunities have been: isolation and overwhelming workload of teachers, pre-co-vid presence; timing and making yourself ‘indispensable’; and the combination of change and technology (2020, May 14 [emailed]). My context has also had an impact on eventualities due to the limited time I have been a teacher librarian (TL) (2020, May 12). My launching of bookclub proved to be a missed opportunity. It was ill-timed due to the newly established remote learning when students and teachers were being overwhelmed with workload and technology. My reflection revolved around the fact that the teacher librarian needs to link themselves with an indispensable activity. That is, an activity that is key to the essential workings of the school such as the technology. In this instance, the transformational leadership led to a missed opportunity as it was not the right opportunity for the time (2020, 14 May).

Another issue in case study 5 was that arose was the provision of resources to combat the isolating nature of teaching and change in the learning environment. In collaboration with the other school TL, we devised a resources bank for teaching resources. Therefore, we were able to avoid overwhelming teachers further by emailing. These included provision of innovative resources which links to transformational and servant leadership (2020, May 14 [emailed]).

It was established that this too would have been an in excellent time to promote digital literacy and digital citizenship issues and content. Promotion to teachers occur by: email; meetings, saved to  Canvas and/or professional development. This activity could be used to promote scope of the library functions for the future. In addition, teachers should be made aware that these can be tailored to particular units of work. This could be considered servant, instructional and transformational leadership (2020, May 14 [emailed]).

Professional relationships, the pre-covid presence of the TL and teachers unaware of what it is that the TL does can also be an adversity. TLs must be part of the essential everyday running of the school. Non-essential tasks contribute to the school but are not viewed as imperative or valuable in a time of crises. Additionally, I reflected that communication with the principal and executives is essential. Being proactive assists teachers to combat change fatigue (2020, May 14 [emailed]). Many different types of leadership styles were demonstrated. A TL cannot rely on just one strategy.

This activity was very informative. This reflection drew the curtain on my actions and activities as TL and it will inform my practice and provide future direction. It required deep thinking about issues that have arisen recently. Additionally, it revealed a different way of collaborating as a group. It was still effective in raising many ideas (better than the individual alone) and, as I had some time restraints, proved more suitable for me.

Reference:

Pirie, H. (2020, May 13). Case study 5: Discussion [discussion forum]. Charles Sturt University.

Polski, A. (2020, May 14). Pixabay image used in accordance with Creative Commons – Pixabay Licence.