Category Archives: ETL401

Assessment 3 – Part C Reflective Practice

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As a classroom teacher, I have had limited experience working with a teacher librarian in the past.  As I mentioned in my own post (Sha, 2023, July 11), I typically plan lessons and spend most of my teaching hours in my classroom.  However, this course has broadened my perspective and highlighted the role of a teacher librarian.  In this reflective journal, I will focus on three key areas: Information Literacy, Inquiry Learning and Role of Teacher Librarian to briefly discuss my understanding in this course.

Information Literacy

Information literacy is the key learning areas in 21st century education.  Gleeson (2023) commented in the online forums that ‘the information society is both exciting and daunting’ (para.1).  I fully agree with her perspective.  Students use a variety of digital devices every day to send texts, watch videos or play games, which makes them somewhat technology savvy.  However, in school, we often find students have difficulties to search information online or don’t know where to begin their quest for the necessary information. Wang and her fellow scholars (Wang etal., 2013) pointed out that students are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reliable information, misinformation, and disinformation.  My classmate, Kristin, also expressed a similar opinion in her post that the digital information is persistence and replicable.  They will build up over time.  Students will need to go through enormous amount of content in search of the information they really need (Upton, 2023).  For the challenges we face, we must understand, new technologies will continually influence our life in the future.  As teacher librarians, it is our responsibility to show students how to choose and use new technology to enhance their learning.  Additionally, we should support and collaborate with our fellow teachers and other non-teaching staff in school to cultivate a positive attitude towards information literacy.

The Inquiry Learning Model

The Inquiry learning connects learning with real-world and personal experiences, enhances critical thinking skills, encourages creativity, and improves social and communication skills.  It needs to be well planned and follow each step to achieve learning outcomes.  I am in particularly interested in the structure of Guided Inquiry Learning model in this course.  I feel it provides flexibility for teacher and teacher librarian to provide guided supports to students who have different learning needs.  As Schultz-Jones and Oberg (2022) pointed out it provides a roadmap to success.

The Role of Teacher Librarian

Teacher librarian has multiple roles. It is not just to provides support but also work with teaching staff to create a holistic learning environment to meet the demands of 21st century education.  It is essential for the teacher librarian to collaborate with teachers throughout the planning and teaching cycle using one of the inquiry learning models.  Whittle (2023) mentioned in her post, ‘I believe collaborative planning is always beneficial as it brings two or more peoples’ perspectives, expertise and experiences’ (para. 2).  Dawkins (2023) gave a different view in her post, commenting that some teachers are not enthusiastic about working in collaboration as they do not see the benefits or too busy and time-poor (para. 1).  However, I share the same view as Whittle on this topic.  The teacher is the content expert, and the teacher librarian is the information expert.  Through collaboration, students will not only enhance their content knowledge but also improve their skills in using digital tools, searching for information, and critical thinking.

Looking forward, I believe teacher librarians should continually embrace all the changes in modern society with the development of new technologies.  Engage with local communities to promote the value and importance of teacher librarian and school libraries.  Collaboratively work with all school staff to create an ongoing positive teaching and learning environment to improve students’ learning attitudes and outcomes.

 

References

Branch-Mueller, J. L., Donham, J., Edwards, B., FitzGerald, L., Garrison, K. L., Glass, V., Guillet, M., Harada, V. H., Hoggatt, L., Ito, S., Iwasaki, R., Jones, C., Kasai, Y., Lang Froggatt, D., Limberg, L., Manck, K., Maybee, C., Nemec-Loise, J., Noborimoto, Y., … Schultz-Jones, B. (2022). Global action for school libraries : models of inquiry (D. Oberg & B. Schultz-Jones, Eds.). De Gruyter Saur. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110772586

Dawkins, B (2023, August 25). Genuine, enriching collaboration is often a challenge in my teaching context – for many different reasons. [Comment on ‘Forum 4.2 Advocating for collaboration]. Forum; Module 4: The Teacher Librarian and Curriculum. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_68461_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_140362_1&forum_id=_316474_1&message_id=_4454054_1

Gleeson, L. (2023, July 23). The information society is both exciting and daunting. [Comment on ‘Forum 2.2 Information Society]. Forum: Module 2: The information environment. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_68461_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_140362_1&forum_id=_316470_1&message_id=_4453965_1

Upton, K. (2023, July 18).  Influence of digital information on the role of the TL. A Teacher Librarian is more than just an avid reader of books. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/booklover/

Wang, Q. (Emily), Sundaram, D., & Myers, M. D. (2013, November 8).  Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Towards a model of digital fluency. Business & Information Systems Engineering, Vol. 5 (6)  https://aisel.aisnet.org/bise/vol5/iss6/5/

Whittle, R (2023, August 27). I find these questions both interesting and challenging to address. [Comment on ‘Forum 4.3 The TL and curriculum]. Forum; Module 4: The Teacher Librarian and Curriculum. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_68461_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_140362_1&forum_id=_316474_1&message_id=_4454055_1

Assessment 1 – My reflective Journal

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To reflect on my own teaching journey, I have been a teacher and taught various teaching subjects in public schools for more than 5 years. I think being a teacher provides me an opportunity to deliver specific subject content and regularly meet with the same groups of students who attend my classes.

As a teacher, I plan lessons to suit different learning levels and abilities from individual students. I spend the majority of my working hours in my classroom to teach. At school, I cooperatively work with the Aboriginal Education Officer (AEO), wellbeing officer, and learning support staff to maximize some students’ learning and engagement in my class based on their culture, social, and economic backgrounds. Over the years of teaching, it has given me a great achievement and satisfaction to see the learning improvement from some of my students. Their enjoyment and positive feedback have encouraged me to be a better teacher and continue my journey in my teaching career.

Built on my teaching experience, becoming a future teacher librarian could be a very exciting challenge and opportunity in my professional development. After attending the first online meeting, watching the YouTube videos, and listening to the Podcasts, my understanding of the teacher librarian role has significantly changed. Module 1 has given me a broader picture of what a teacher librarian is and what they do at school. I think one of the significant aspects of being a teacher librarian is being able to oversee the development of teaching and learning from a whole-school scale rather than from a faculty or a specific teaching subject area.

The following areas are some of my key reflections on teacher librarianship:

The origin of school libraries in Australia can be traced back to the beginning of European-style educational provision in the country, in the early nineteenth century (Clyde, 1983). The role of a teacher librarian promotes the value of education and goes beyond the limitations of a single teaching subject.  According to the Statement of Teacher Librarians in Australia (ALIA & ASLA, 2016), a teacher librarian should be a leader of curriculum and learning at school and actively work with school leaders, faculties, teachers, and non-teaching staff.

In the Podcast interview which hosted by Dr. Kay Oddone, Natalie, who is the ASLA President of 2023, thinks that as a teacher librarian, it is critical to work alongside classroom teachers to build students’ learning skills, information literacy, as well as helping students select books based on their needs. She believes the primary role of a teacher librarian is to support teachers, learners, and families to extend students’ learning from the classroom to communities (Otten, 2022).

A teacher librarian should also be equipped with the knowledge and skills in digital information and communication in this rapidly developing society and support staff and students in how to choose and use information in their teaching and learning.

Collaboratively working with relevant school staff to create students’ interest clubs or groups and enhance cultural understanding by organizing school and community-invited events are other important areas in the role of a teacher librarian.

There are many more aspects in teacher librarianship could be explored. By following this course, I believe I will have a clearer understanding of teacher librarianship. This reflection will serve as a starting point and guide me in my study in this course.

 

References

Australian Library and Information Association, & Australian School Library Association. (2016, July). Statement on teacher librarians in Australia. Australian Library and Information Association. https://read.alia.org.au/alia-asla-statement-teacher-librarians-australia

Clyde, W. A. (1983). Australian School Libraries in the Nineteenth Century.  The Australian Library Journal, 32(2),11-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049670.1983.10755464

Otten, N. (Presenter). (2022, September 15). Episode 1 – Module 1: Introducing Teacher Librarianship [Audio podcast episode]. In ETL 401 Introduction to Librarianship. Charlies Sturt University. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/teachlibpodcastproject/episode-1/