Archive of ‘ETL504’ category
Participation throughout ETL504 has led me to discover how complex leadership can be and that there is not just a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Different styles of leadership will be displayed by teacher librarians at different times, in different situations and in a range of contexts (Haycock, 2010, p. 2) which has been evident throughout the case studies and module readings.
The group work for the case studies provided an interesting insight into the dynamics of groups and how they can successfully work, or not. Group 2’s, case study 4 discussion board displays what was involved for us to become established and have clear understandings about how to achieve our goals. My personal aim was to implement a feeling of collaboration from the beginning (Catherall, 2020, August 30) and ensure everyone knew that their opinion and thoughts were important and could be heard which is important for team building. Transformational leadership which includes a team-building and collaborative approach usually results in positive change (Ingram, 2019). This was somewhat successful however as the result of a team member having a stronger desire to ‘get things moving’, the collaboration did not go as planned and it turned into more of a transactional approach which assists with getting work done in a time frame however does not allow for people to feel valued.
Throughout these case studies I found that some members were possibly not being adequately involved enough as a result of not feeling valued (Catherall, 2020, July 28) and possible lack of transformational leadership throughout activities. I did attempt again in case study four (Catherall, 2020, September 19) to be collaborative but there was no response. In a scenario like this again, it would be worthwhile to try and develop stronger relationships before becoming task oriented as outlined by Tracey Ezard in this post (2018, October 17) about developing relationships with those around you to gain results.
Infrequent communication was problematic, particularly in the final case study (Catherall, 2020, September 28) when no one had volunteered to put the concluding piece together. I had learnt from what I could see developing that I would need to take the lead and ask if someone who had not done this yet would be willing. I reflected upon case study one (Catherall, 2020, July 16) and I recognised through this that it was important for others to take the lead also. I was hoping as a result of particular members modelling behaviours and taking the lead as a transformational leader that others would then do this voluntarily; this was not the case. Expectations from the beginning were not made clear about everyone’s involvement which obviously became a problem.
For future directions, it is important to note that teacher librarians need all staff to know exactly what is required of them and how this benefits the ‘team’ which would have been useful in the beginning of our group case study discussion. Overall, our group was friendly and everyone did contribute. If expectations were clearer from the beginning though, it may have been more collaborative and had higher levels of communication.
References
Ezard, T. (2018, October 17). Do you love you people as much as your purpose? Tracey Ezard: Ferocious warmth leadership, high performance teams. https://www.traceyezard.com
Haycock, K. (2010). Leadership from the middle: Building influence for change. In S. Coatney (Ed.), The many faces of school library leadership (pp. 1-11). Libraries Unlimited.
Ingram, D. (2019, February 4). Transformational leadership vs transactional leadership definition. Hearst Newspapers: Small Business. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/transformational-leadership-vs-transactional-leadership-definition-13834.html
The responses for this case study came through a little slower this time but everyone once again contributed which was just fantastic! There seemed to be an understanding amongst our group that we all contributed and this made it easier for everyone in the end. The only problem we had with this case study was no one had volunteered to put together the final piece for the discussion forum. I ended up asking if anyone who had not yet done this would be interested in doing it and one of the group members volunteered which was great.
Overall, I believe our group worked well together as a result of open communication and honesty. Everyone played their part and this contributed to being able to produce a final document with strategies for each case study. I believe the key to our success was being able to clearly understand at the start where we needed to post and what we needed to do and from there it was very simple.
It was great starting the case study this time as we all knew what we were doing with the technology side of things within the forum. It felt as though we were much more efficient in getting started and most group members contributed quickly.
I volunteered to do the final summary to post onto the discussion forum and also asked if everyone was happy with that which they were. Our group was quite efficient this time in getting our thoughts and strategies onto the discussion board and into the wiki which made it easier for me to collate them in order to place into one document.
I did notice though when reading through them that a couple of strategies were quite similar. As a result I had to try and join them together and one of them was more of a summary rather than a strategy.
For the next case study, it would be beneficial at the beginning to suggest on the discussion board that when it comes to strategies we should try to have different ones. This would benefit our learnings and obviously create a variation of strategies to present.
Unfortunately, when I put the final piece together I tried to be collaborative by asking for feedback before posting (particularly in relation to leadership strategies in the case study), I did not receive a response. This is possibly as group members had not checked the discussion board and also because they felt time poor. Going forward, it may be beneficial to post a reminder on the discussion board at the beginning of the next case study for members to check this each day for any questions or clarification.
It was extremely interesting reading this section as it clearly outlined the best possible way to achieve positive and effective outcomes in school libraries.
I particularly enjoyed completing the ‘personal strategic plan.’ What a fabulous idea! Being on maternity leave, this was the perfect opportunity to do this and establish clear goals and objectives for myself. Following on from this was an example of a strategic plan for a library. I have not seen a document like this before and it was extremely interesting and intriguing to look at and consider how I would use this document in a library.
I really liked how it began with the vision and mission statement as these outline what an institution wants to achieve and from here the strategies implemented should be in line with these. This document is broken up into three sections of: Teaching and learning, environment and policy and procedures which makes it very clear, explicit and easy to read. I also liked the way it was divided into year levels because it is impossible to cover the above topics for the whole school. If it is broken up into levels the strategic planning is much more accurate as it actually addresses the needs for those year levels quite specifically.
I will definitely suggest implementing a document like this into a school library when I get back into the workforce if there is not one that already exists. A document like this enables everyone working there to have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities and from here they would hopefully be on the ‘same page’ and work together collaboratively.
This subject has definitely been one of the most interesting that I have completed throughout this course so far. The clear focus on what teacher librarians should be doing within schools and what they should be aware of as being instrumental to their role has provided me with such great insight. Some of these aspects I was already aware of, some of these were new to me and some were a strong reminder of what I need to be focused on.
The need for different areas within the library for students to work at without feeling they have to be quiet is very important. The need for teacher librarians to be skilled in technology and also seek further professional development if they feel this is required is important. It is vital that teacher librarians add value to the entire school particularly throughout inquiry and can show the staff how beneficial their role is to the development of the students. Teacher librarians show students how to collaborate, communicate and find meaningful resources. Teacher librarians are preparing students for their own future.
I found this such an interesting and insightful task for many reasons.
Firstly, I was quite nervous about the workload and being involved in this task and I was wondering how it was all going to work. However, it has been such a great task to be involved in as it really helped me with my learnings and to actually be ‘in a group’ and thinking about the dynamics and leadership styles particularly as I am currently on maternity leave was extremely worthwhile.
From the beginning, I was very conscious about trying to be collaborative as this is important to me and I think it is a great way of involving everyone and ensuring everyone is on the same page. I started the group off in this way and posed a few questions about how everyone would like to go about roles and the actual organisation of the discussion group. Two group members replied to this, one with a similar idea to myself and the other who wanted to launch straight into it and set everything up before hearing back from the other members.
I found this really interesting. In some ways it was absolutely fantastic as I found it great that there was someone in the group who was very assertive and confident in her own thoughts and felt her way was the best way to go about it and literally just set it up. This approach made it very easy for the entire group as we just followed along and added our thoughts where appropriate. However, on the other hand, this approach doesn’t allow for members to get to know each other through a friendly and cooperative way. It could also be sending a message that others’ ideas aren’t important and we just need to get this done.
It was such an insightful activity as I hadn’t thought about it like this before. So many positives and negatives for both approaches. If the collaboration could have happened and then a quick decision/vote on the approach decided to take, this may have been a positive way to do this. Time was definitely an issue though and there was the concern that not all group members would reply so I can also see why one group member made a quick decision for everyone that would enable the task to begin. It also highlights the importance of everyone being involved ‘quickly’ from the beginning otherwise it makes it very difficult to finish the task in plenty of time.
Draw.io has been a fantastic program to use in order to produce a concept map. I have really enjoyed finding about draw.io as it is very easy to use and the end result is clear and easy to read. I found the usability of this program to be very straightforward with a range of options to use in order to present my work which then provides more scope to present more complex ideas. This would be a great resource to share with other staff members and I also believe it would be fantastic for students to use. I will definitely be using this program in my future and work and sharing it with others so they can benefit from it also.
It was really interesting reading about the different styles of leadership throughout this module. I found myself reflecting on different school environments and thinking about what worked, what didn’t work and why or why not. I hope I can take this knowledge, observations and reflections with me when I go back into schools.
Behavioural theories of effective leaders was an interesting place to begin my reading. The core leadership theories article outlined leaders’ behaviours and three ways they tended to make decisions. These included autocratic (making decisions independent of a team), democratic (involving the team for their opinions and input before decision making) and laissez-faire (allows a highly motivated team to make their decisions without input from the leader) (MindTools, 2016). I found myself reflecting on the type of leadership style I have enjoyed working under and that is definitely democratic. However, the time I was working for a leader who had this style, I wasn’t working in a huge school but it definitely was not small and the problem with this style was that meetings would go round and round in circles at times. I believe that if this approach is to be used, needs to ensure they don’t let discussions lose track of where they should be going and ensure that there is a time frame as some people could discuss certain issues for a very long time.
There are many titles for the different styles of leadership being: Situational, transactional, transformational, servant, distributed and instructional. These can work effectively in different environments and for different people depending on their personalities and behaviours as mentioned above. I personally love the idea of working for a transformational leader as I like the idea of collaboration, ‘looking forward’ and inspiring employees.
MindTools. (2016). Core leadership theories. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/leadership-theories.htm
Reading module two (2020) has been interesting for me. As a teacher who is wanting to enter the school library and become a Teacher Librarian this module has spoken very clearly to me as it has outlined the importance of ensuring small details do not get in the way of the bigger picture which is providing services to its users (organisation theory, 2020). This is something that I will ensure I take with me and remember as it can be so easy at times to become overwhelmed and deal with the smaller issues first, it is so important to remember what a Teacher Librarian’s goal and focus should be. Obviously different schools have different objectives for their Teacher Librarians so it would be important to initially find out what these are, I am sure that in most circumstances the number one objective school libraries would be to provide a service to its users.
Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, ‘changing education paradigms’ (RSA Animate, 2010) is a great example outlining education systems and how they function, their faults and their impact upon student learning and creativity. This brought me to thinking about the different schools I have worked in and schools that colleagues have worked in and how the leadership models can be quite different. Some schools enable Teacher Librarians to engage with their students in a more creative way to meet learning outcomes in the Australian Curriculum and some simply want to reach outcomes disregarding children’s different learning needs or different styles of learning.
Teacher Librarians as leaders therefore have this opportunity in many ways to ‘help’ students, staff and school communities to create an environment to collaboratively work together to inspire their students to not only learn but also work and engage in a variety of ways. Jane Viner the recipient of the 2017 Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year stated “’C’ is key: create, connect, collaborate, communicate, care and change with your community’ (Hill, 2017, p. 29). I just love this quote, as a Teacher Librarian as leader can take these words and these steps to create an energetic, exciting and informative environment to engage students, teachers and leaders of the school to improve learning outcomes whilst providing an outstanding service at the same time.
(2020). Organisation Theory [Study notes]. ETL504 Teacher Librarian as Leader. Interact 2.
https://interact2.csu.edu.au
Hill, A. (2017). Australian teacher librarian of the year 2017: Reaffirming and celebrating the pivotal role of teacher librarians in our schools. Access, 31(3), 198-214.
http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=7dd9ba89-1858-48ef-91e7-e43ec4c09d92%40sdc-v-sessmgr03
Robinson, K. [RSA Animate]. (2010, October 14). Changing education paradigms [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
I began this subject feeling quite tentative about my ability to participate as I am not currently teaching and I am on maternity leave. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by my ability to positively participate as the modules are extremely informative and the case studies and forums are presented in such a great way which enables one to not only contribute one’s own knowledge but to learn also. I have really enjoyed reading through the case study responses as I feel I have learnt so much already and I really love reading different approaches to situations from different participants.
Case study one outlined the week of an extremely busy Director of Information Services and the task was to determine how to make her week less stressful yet still remain productive. Immediately, I believed the best way to do this was to consider her external and internal demands and collaborate with others to determine what should stay and go. I also believed that delegation would have been an effective tool but I did not go into detail about this in this forum.
It was really interesting looking at others’ responses. I particularly enjoyed reading the comments on power and control, they were quite similar as most contributors wrote that it seemed strange to have such a large team yet not utilise all of them adequately. Obviously, delegation is key to overcoming this and trusting others. Within the comments on ‘control’ it was really interesting to read about peoples’ knowledge of using Google Docs to share information, Katrina Dawson (July 17, 2020) also spoke about One Note which I have not used before but this sounded like a fantastic tool also which would be very useful throughout this scenario.
Through reading a significant amount on delegation in these posts I decided to look into a journal article about this topic myself. I found one about distributed leadership theory which was quite interesting. One point that stood out to me significantly was that an individual’s ability to achieve something is far outweighed when a group brings together their ideas and strengths in order to work achieve the same outcome (Johnston, 2015, p. 39). This is exactly what many participants in the case study one forum were outlining also.
References
Dawson, K. (2020, July 17). Case study 1, module 1, thread: Control. [Online discussion comment]. Interact 2. https://interact2.csu.edu.au
Johnston, M.P. Distributed leadership theory for investigating teacher librarian leadership. School Libraries Worldwide, 21(2), 39-58.
http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=a750c93a-9292-4112-a82a-1fa48e0aa45d%40sdc-v-sessmgr01