Just in Time – A Hundred Ways to Learn

Selecting Resources through a Reggio Lens

Laura Beaumont ETL503 March 12, 2023March 12, 2023coconstruction, collection development, demand driven acquisition, Just in Time, purchase by request, Reggio Principles 0 Comment

“To make a lovable school, industrious, inventive, liveable, documentable and communicable, a place of research, learning, re-cognition and reflection, where children, teachers and families feel well – is our point of arrival.”
Loris Malaguzzi

In reflecting on the Reggio Children (2022) twelve principles of the Reggio Emilia Educational Project:

Children are active protagonists
Progettazione
The hundred languages
Organisation
Environment and spaces
Participation
Environment and spaces
Co-construction
Professional growth
Educational Research
Documentation
Evaluation

You can see that resource collection must be a collaboration between the Teacher Librarian, Classroom Teachers, learners and the wider community.

As a Teacher Librarian (TL), guided by the principles above, the relationship that exists between TL and teacher, TL and learner, learner and teacher and each with the wider school community must be reciprocal and collaborative. Observing children in their learning and play, being an active part of teacher research and planning and being the conduit between the school and greater community will ensure that resource selections are relevant and authentic to the learning that is taking place.

It is also important for the TL to know what is available in order to introduce teachers and learners to new provocations and ideas.

Child agency is extremely important. Children must be consulted as to the types of resources that would best support their learning and interests. They may even use this provocation as a basis for a project inquiry surrounding how resources are selected.

Just in time purchasing is a considerable proportion of the development of the collection with the TL making contributions based on the values and direction of the curriculum for the learners.

So how would this look in my setting:

Conversing with borrowers about their interests, inquiries and preferences.
Working with teaching teams to create bibliographical resources to support their student/class inquiry projects.
Planning collaboratively with all teaching teams.
Promoting the purchase by request service to teachers and students.
Including a ‘Suggest a book’ service in our space.
Ensuring that my knowledge is up to date, regarding new publications in order to suggest these to the community.
Observing the learners engaging with texts and researching how we can optimise their learning experience.
Constantly observing, questioning, reflecting and collaborating.
Ensuring the environment is organised in a way that the teachers and learners can easily see what resources we have, in order to uncover the possibilities of what we can acquire.

Reference:

Reggio Children. (2022) Values: Principles of the educational project. Reggio Emilia Approach. https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/valori-en/

Examining past experiences and perceptions: My reflections and understandings of the Teacher Librarian role in schools.

Laura Beaumont ETL401 March 9, 2023Inquiry, Just in Time, Malaguzzi, Murdoch, Teacher Librarian 2 Comments

My teaching story began back in 2007 when I commenced teaching in a Catholic School with 29 four-year-old students. We visited our school library at a scheduled time each week. In this amazingly picturesque library space with panoramic views over the city, was a tidy collection of books and the hard-working Library Assistant who returned and scan out books. I had an extremely limited understanding of this role as a newly graduated teacher!

After two years, I moved to work full-time in a four-year-old class in a large independent school which is where I still work today. This school is greatly influenced by Inquiry-Based Learning (Murdoch, 2021) and the Early Childhood year levels were inspired by the Reggio Emilia Educational Project (Malaguzzi, 1998). We visited the library at a scheduled time each week where the inspiring and passionate Teacher Librarian would warmly welcome us with the most amazing picture book read-aloud. She would then guide the children in their book selections, teach them how to make informed choices and converse with them about their interests to match them with their ideal book. She made the job seem effortless (even though I’m certain it wasn’t!), and she was always full of excitement for the next story she would share. This was her way of encouraging the children to become lovers of books.

Just after her retirement, we had a HUGE redevelopment. The new space was enormous and full of potential. A space for robotics, self-checkout stations, large interactive screens, flexible furniture and a range of seating options, but one key ingredient was missing. This space did not have a Teacher Librarian. There were teachers working in this space, and also a Library Assistant but it didn’t seem to fill the void. Another change was the switch to a flexible timetable. The idea behind this was ‘just in time learning’: the accessibility of information and the opportunity to access these whenever needed, or ‘just in time’.

This approach to our Learning Hub (no longer called a library) continues today but has dimmed a little without a Teacher Librarian. My understanding of the TL role was that of management and organisation of the physical library space working predominately with books. I recognised that the TL worked alongside teachers to resource the library with materials to support planned learning. I understood that an important part of the role is to promote a love of reading and literature through read-alouds, displays and engagement with learners. Whilst I’ve only worked with a TL for a brief time in my career, I see the role as being so much greater that what I thought and see it as a vital piece to the puzzle for developing a culture and love of inquiry and reading in any school community. The Teacher Librarian is our missing link between teachers, students and information as well as playing the pivotal role of being the passionate champion of reading and literature. I look forward to cultivating this culture of literature rich learning and inquiry in this space as I step into this role.

______________________________

Malaguzzi, L. 1998, ‘History, ideas and philosophy’, in Edwards, C. Gandini, L. and Forman, G. 1998, The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach, Ablex Publishing, Greenwich

Murdoch, K. 2021, ‘The art of inquiry’, ACCESS, Vol. 35 (No. 4), 39-43, Australian School Library Association, The+Art+of+Inquiry+article+ACCESS_Vol35_No4_Dec_2022.pdf (squarespace.com)