The reflection prompt invites consideration of the following three questions:
- How might the teacher librarian help the school move towards integrated information literacy instruction?
- What challenges lie in the way of such instruction?
- How might teacher librarians and teachers encourage students to transfer information literacy skills and practices from one subject to another?
Firstly, it is important to get the principal on-side in support of the process of incorporating an information literacy model that can be integrated across the school. This can be enhanced by whole staff professional development sessions that explores best practice in guided inquiry, with current and relevant examples of programs utilised by other NSW Department of Education schools. The running of these professional development sessions would be the perfect leadership opportunity for the teacher librarian.
Collaboration between the ‘information literacy expert’ teacher librarian and the classroom teacher(s) in programming, helps to bring the strengths of all practitioners involved to the table. The teacher librarian can also be utilised for leading and/or supporting lessons as appropriate, in both the classroom and library space. This benefits the students in the receiving of specialised expertise and also the reduced student to teacher ratio. Obviously, timetable flexibility is required to sustain this (in that there would need to be time made available for collaborative planning and also flexible teaching time for the teacher librarian in the whole school timetabling schedule).
There needs to be a willingness by classroom teachers to be involved in the collaborative practice, which must also be supported by the principal. For those in schools whose established culture does not support this model, it is best to approach the integration of such collaboration with one or two willing participants initially and then share the successes in order to get other colleagues on board.
It is important that classroom teachers can see how collaborating with the teacher librarian in embedding integrated information literacy instruction is of benefit. Primarily, it is for the advantage of the students, where they are not taught information literacy skills in a ‘vacuum’, but rather, receive authentic, contextually relevant and targeted instruction and support.
It is important to break down the process and explicitly teach students the various components of the inquiry model, emphasising its relevance for life-long learning. This will help them internalise the process and help them to be able to transfer information literacy skills and practices from one subject to another. Also, relevant scaffolding should be used in order to support students to learn within their zone of proximal development.