My learning Journey through the Master of Education, Teacher Librarianship
Part A: Statement of Personal Philosophy
An effective teacher librarian (TL) needs to lead from the middle and demonstrate how they can support teaching and learning in a school. A TL needs to be an information specialist who ensures the library is a dynamic learning environment that is not confined to the walls of a library. They need to inspire, develop and foster a passion for reading and develop in students, and teachers, the information and digital literacy skills for lifelong learning and global citizenship. A TL needs to ensure that students will graduate as ethical, critical users of print and digital media who are able navigate the changing information landscape.
Part B: Three Learning Themes
Theme 1 : The Teacher Librarian as a Leader
The ALIA and ASLA standards for professional excellence for TLs (2004) highlight the importance of demonstrating leadership within school and professional communities.I started my Master of Teacher Librarianship a few weeks before I moved from a teaching role to be a TL. ETL401 was an insightful introduction to the multifaceted role of a TL and the potential to be a leader. I write about this in an early blog post, The Role of the Teacher Librarian in Schools (Mounsey, 2016a). As I progressed through this degree, undertook additional professional learning, and learned ‘on the job’, I have been inspired to work as a TL who is also a leader. On reflecting on my learning, some key themes emerged of how TLs can be leaders.
Leading from the middle
When I earned the role of head of year 1 and 2 at a school in London, I was encouraged to enrol in a course, Leading from the Middle, which was a useful step on my learning journey. Years down the track I started the subject ETL504, Teacher Librarian as Leader, which was possibly the most useful subject in my degree. I wrote a number of reflections which included important topics including leadership styles, advocacy and dealing with conflict (Mounsey, 2019b, 2019d, 2019c). Most importantly this subject helped me to advocate for the need for our school to have a Director of Libraries. My two TL colleagues and I had mentioned this to leadership previously, but it had not been met with interest. Studying ETL504 inspired me to create a mind map to show all the contributions the TLs were making in our school (figure 1). I used this to demonstrate much of the ‘invisible’ work the TLs do and to advocate for this role. The school leadership team then agreed to create a new role. I applied for it and to my delight, was offered this position.
Figure 1
For the past two years I have been the Director of Libraries for Dulwich College, Singapore. I am now part of the Educational Leadership Team in a school that has 2800 students and three libraries. I collaborate with 2 other TLs, 8 library assistants and parent and student volunteers.Without the learning from this degree, I would not have had the skills or knowledge for this role. The qualification has ensured I develop the library and school curriculum with regards to recent research, information literacy, literature learning and technology.
Lifelong learning
Professional learning in addition to the CSU course has also been of great benefit, as have connections in TL communities. In my reflection post for ETL504 (Mounsey, 2019e), I mention that The AITSL standards for teacher library practice include “to engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities” (Australian School Library Association, 2014). In Singapore I have been an active member of The International School Library Network (ISLN) and I have attended and presented at international conferences. Additionally, the library staff from the nine Dulwich College International (DCI) network of schools regularly connect, and in Singapore we hosted a conference for all Dulwich library staff.
I value the importance of reading research which is related to current pedagogy and literacy. Although I have taken time to complete this degree, it has allowed me to delve deeply into the readings and I often share relevant literature with colleagues. I found the subject INF447, Research in Practice, the most challenging of all subjects. At the time I did not appreciate the importance of understanding research paradigms, methods, and methodologies so deeply. However, I am so pleased I completed this subject because earlier this year I was asked by a professor at a Singapore University to collaborate on mixed methods research into the reading preferences and habits of our students. I have blogged about this in the post, What books are ‘hot’ (Mounsey, 2021a) and we are currently finishing the report to deliver to the school (figure 2) and submitting a research paper to be published in an academic journal.
Figure 2
I spoke about this research when I was asked to present for the National Library Board of Singapore (2021) in their Education in the City series.
An Advocate
The report ‘Future learning in school libraries’ discusses how a TL needs to be an instructional leader who leads the library into the future by planning and thinking strategically and using advocacy and marketing (ASLA, 2013). One of the biggest takeaways from this degree has been about the importance of NON STOP advocacy. A TL can easily be an invisible role in a school and advocacy can be done in many ways. Some of the ideas that I have learnt that have been effective are:
Promoting the print and digital resources through social media channels, staff meetings and school newsletters.
Creating library annual reports including infographics which are displayed around the school and included in newsletters (figures 3, 4 and 5).
Figures 3, 4 and 5.
Delivering parent workshops and staff training. The video below is one example we created because parents have not been allowed on site during the pandemic (Dulwich College Singapore, 2021).
Collaboration
TLs have the capacity to work with all school staff, students, and parents, and together they can generate change (Herring, 2007). They are in a unique position to see the big picture across a school and can work as a leader to manage a library and support teachers to plan and deliver a curriculum that is future focused. In the blog post Leaders Who Lead(Mounsey, 2019b), I share the learning about different leadership styles and assert that instructional leadership is the style that I aim to use (Ferguson and Hamm, 2013; McKewan, 2003). Other important collaborations have included working with:
the IT team to introduce new resources and technologies;
the marketing team to promote the library and resources;
ETL504 was a crucial step in my learning about the importance of maintaining policies, procedures and strategic planning for libraries. It also helped me to reflect on the importance of library vision and mission statements and how they should be closely aligned with the school vision, culture and values. After this subject ended, I put much of this new learning into practice. I collaborated with the other TLs in the school to create a 5-year libraries strategic plan and updated our policy documents.
Theme 2: Information Literacy
Until I started this degree I did not know what a significant role a TL should play in ensuring information literacy (IL) skills are embedded into the curriculum. ETL401 was my first introduction to this, and I blogged about my steep learning curve in the post, A Shift in Thinking (Mounsey, 2016b) . Then during assignment two of ETL504, I discussed how “information seeking is a primary activity of life” (Kuhlthau, 2004, pp. 13-27), and how it is essential that schools support students to develop IL skills. The American Association of School Libraries (2014) reports that finding information online for academic purposes is overwhelming to most students and that digital technology makes it harder for them to find a range of credible sources.
Effective teaching and learning should move away from heavy curriculum instruction and involve deep learning which involves personalised learning and opportunities for students to develop problem solving skills and the four Cs, collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking (Martinez and McGrath, 2014;William, 2018; Wolf, Jones and Gilbert, 2014). This new knowledge has helped guide me to deliver IL learning in different ways and I wrote an article about this in the Alleynian review (Mounsey, 2020).
Figure 6: Resources on Library pages
The ASLA document Future Learning and School Libraries (2013) refers to the challenge of dealing with information overload and how students must be taught to be more sceptical when approaching content. In my blog Beyond the tip of the digital iceberg (Mounsey, 2019i) I wrote about this and how this learning has influenced my thinking and teaching. I dedicate lessons to directing students to reliable websites on our school portal and we have these all on our library pages(figure 6).
Figure 7 (Schrock, 2009)
Despite many lessons on this, the teachers and I observe that most students will still go to Google first when they research. For this reason, we ensure we plan lessons where students are taught to use website evaluation tools. In ETL501, The Dynamic Information Environment, I was introduced to Kathy Shrock’s5Ws of website evaluation (figure 7). I also enjoy sharing the book ‘But I read it on the Internet’ (Buzzeo, 2013) as a provocation to these lessons.
I blogged about this in more detail in the post, To Wiki or to not Wiki? (Mounsey, 2019h) and referenced Harris who states, “Educators need to understand that students will go to Google and will use Wikipedia outside of school if not inside, no matter what alternatives we provide” (2011, p.31). In this blog I also discussed how my perception of how to use Wikipedia had changed. I used to tell my students not to use Wikipedia when researching because it could include a lot of inappropriate and incorrect content. I now tell my students that it can be a possible place to start research as it will not only provide lots of information, but it can provide links to lots of credible, reliable and useful websites on a given topic. They know they must fact check it and they know that it is not a source I would expect to see in a reference list.
The importance of teaching and valuing academic integrity is a huge part of the TL role. In my first year as a TL, I collaborated with teachers to plan lessons with the year 3-6 students to understand academic integrity and referencing sources. I would not have known to do this without the learning from ETL401. One of my favourite lessons is when I trick the year 3s into putting their name on someone else’s drawing and then giving the wrong child credit for it. The students are outraged and it is always a lesson the students remember and then learn that they should not take the credit for someone else’s content.
With the year 5s, I do a lesson where they learn about the copyright case between Vanilla Ice and a Queen and David Bowie collaboration. We listen to their two songs and the students debate if they are the same or different and the ethical dilemma of using someone else’s content without permission and without giving credit. These lessons then lead into lessons on creating bibliographies, from very simple ones in year 3 and developing each year until they use the SLA online reference generator which was been seen in figure 6. I think I introduced this so well that teachers were over-focussed on telling me and showing me the bibliographies the students had made, but not focussing on the other important research skills, such as skim and scanning, note taking and using web evaluation tools. Oddone (2020), addresses this and discusses the importance of not only delivering all these lessons but of linking them together into an information search process to ensure that the students think about all of the skills that are required for research. The staff I collaborate with have also recognised this and this has helped me to introduce an IL framework. In collaboration with staff across the school we agreed on The Big 6 and Super 3 (Eisenburg and Berkowitz, 2003), which has been embedded and is being increasingly used by students and staff.
With all of this new knowledge and information I have managed to make many changes in our school. The final change with regards to IL has included the creation of a whole school information and digital literacy framework tracking the skills development from early years to year 13. This has been a huge project and I am in the final stages of completing this. The next step will be to ensure these skills are embedded and edit and adjust the framework so it remains a working document.
Theme 3: Dynamic library collections and spaces
I now understand how important it is that the library is seen as the physical and virtual learning hub of the entire school. In reflecting on my five year journey, there are so many ways I have learned how to improve both the physical and virtual library space. This has included learning about curation and collection development of print and digital resources.
Arguably, more important than the physical space is the collection that is included in that space. I learned about this in ETL503, Resourcing the Curriculum. When developing a collection, TLs need to ensure that they are not relying solely on intuition or opinion, but using their experience and knowledge of selection aids and selection criteria to ensure that the collection is developed to meet the needs of the school (Hughes-Hassell and Mancall , 2005). I work hard to develop a library collection that supports reading for pleasure, changes in the curriculum and reflects diversity, equality and inclusion.
In the post Developing a Library Collection (Mounsey, 2017a) I discuss this in more detail and how The NSW Handbook for School Libraries (2015) mentions the importance of collaboration. Collection decisions should not be the sole decision of a TL, but occur in collaboration with teachers, students, parents and school management. I recently attended an ASLA webinar about successful student-led collection development and we are now adapting this into collection development.
In addition to following collection development policies and guidelines, I use a lot of data to inform decisions. I analyse in detail what the students are borrowing. In addition to this quantitative data, I use qualitative data in the form of surveys, incidental conversations and focus group interviews. Figures 8 and 9 demonstrate some examples of the kinds of analysis I do.
Figure 8
Figure 9
The post What should I read next?(Mounsey, 2021c) shares data from a survey question ‘what was your favourite book this year?’ I then created recommended reading lists that include these titles.
A strong ‘reading for pleasure’ culture will take place in schools where the library collections reflect the reading taste of the students. I work hard to advocate the importance of reading for pleasure with students and the importance of parents and teachers not judging children’s reading choices. I was asked to speak about this with regards to graphic novels in an episode of the How we Read podcast (Loh, 2021) about the importance of comics as a valid reading choice. I also shared some key findings in an article I had published titled, Reading in the Digital Age: what is our role as parents and educators? (Mounsey, 2021a). All of this learning has been as a result of this degree.
When talking about collection development it is essential to discuss deselection or weeding. I first learnt about this term in the subject ETL503, Resourcing the Curriculum and I wrote the blog post, Getting my weeding gloves dirty(Mounsey, 2017b).Farmer (2014, p.70) talks about the reference section life cycle which includes acquisition, processing, organisation, circulation, maintenance and deselection. This refers to both physical and digital formats and I wrote about this in the post, Physical and Digital Formats for reference material (Mounsey, 2019g).
For a library to be dynamic, the physical space is also very important. The subject, ETL501, was an opportunity for me to learn, plan and reflect on how to improve the library spaces in my school. In the post Dynamic Library Spaces (Mounsey, 2019f) I shared many improvements I have made to the physical library space including new furniture, signage and flexible layouts (Images 1, 2 and 3).
Image 1: More front facing books
Image 2: Dual language signs hanging from the ceiling
Image 3: New shelf markers
I also wrote about my learning about genrefication from ETL505, Describing and Analysing Education Resources. In the post ,To genrify or not? (Mounsey, 2019a), I discussed in detail the pros and cons behind using Dewey and generifying. As a result of this learning, I decided not to generify our fiction collections but have added genre stickers to the entire collection. We asked students to get involved in this process and it has led to students discovering titles they may not have otherwise.
Part C: Reflection on professional development
A lifelong learner should be reflective and one tool I have used for this is the DCI Librarian Standards. These were created by a group of TLs across the Dulwich network of schools (Appendix A). This evidence demonstrates my development and growth as I have improved my practice. With my planned move to Australia in December, I am thinking seriously about what new learning I need to undertake to fill in any gaps in my knowledge. In the next section, I have evaluated my learning over the course of the Master of Education in Teacher Librarianship in the context of ALIA and ASLA’s standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians (2004). I can see a huge amount of growth and learning and I have identified areas for development.
This reflection has highlighted many areas where I have developed professional knowledge in understanding principles of teaching and learning and how I have a specialist knowledge of information, resources, technology and library management. I have identified two key areas to develop to ensure I could be seen as an excellent TL in Australia. They are both from the professional knowledge part of the standards:
“1.3 to have a rich understanding of the school community and curriculum.
1.4 to have a specialist knowledge of library and information management.”
In particular, I will need to deepen my knowledge of Australian literature. Although I follow Australian literature awards, blogs and podcasts, I have not widely read Australian literature. This is an area I will enjoy developing because one of my strengths as a TL is how widely I read and promote books to all patrons. I will also need to ensure I have a deeper understanding of the Australian curriculum and in particular content relating to the three cross- curriculum priorities (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2010) to ensure that I am aware of resources to support the curriculum.
I believe I have an excellent understanding of how professionally managed and resourced school libraries are crucial to the achievements of the school community. However, the areas for my development include understanding the Australian context more deeply. Two particular areas of growth will need to be:
have a rich professional knowledge of national standards for library and information management
have a comprehensive understanding of national standards for information retrieval
Next year I will be completing the last part of this subject when I do my workplace placement. I will ensure that these are both targets during this placement.
Using the standards for self-reflection I had many strengths in the professional practice and professional commitments sections, but am aware that these standards will be a useful tool to constantly refer back to. I also believe 3.1, excellent teacher librarians model and promote lifelong learning (ASLA, 2004) could be my philosophy as I continue this never-ending journey of learning. If I keep this as part of my practice, I hope that I can continue to be an effective TL who inspires, educates and supports others to be lifelong learners.
Harris, F. J. (2011). The School Librarian as Information Specialist: A Vibrant Species. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 28–32.
Herring, J. (2007). Teacher librarians and the school library. In S.Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twenty-first century : Charting new directions in information (pp. 27-42): Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Learning as a process. In Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach toLibrary and Information Services 2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.
Martinez, M. R., & McGrath, D. (2014). Deeper learning How eight innovative public schools are transforming education in the twenty-first century. The New Press.
McKewan, E.K. (2003). 7 Steps to effective Instructional Leadership. Corwin Press, Inc.
Harris discusses how we live in an era of “information saturation” and that “the proliferation of low-quality content is the latest, possibly greatest threat to student researchers” (2011, p.31). This has implications for teachers and teacher librarians (TLs) when guiding students through the research process. Lederman (2016 ) discusses the importance of educating students about the three layers of the web and teaching them how to access the second layer, the deep web, which includes databases and subscriptions to online encyclopedias and reliable research information. I have seen many versions of this image below and like using it with staff and students.
Lederman (2016)
My practice has focussed on directing students to the deep web, with our school subscriptions, and I blogged about this in Physical and digital formats for reference material. I work with staff to try and embed the use of our online encyclopaedias Britannica and Pebble Go and we are currently trialling BrainPop.
Despite this direction, most students (and teachers!) will continue to default to Google when searching and therefore it is very important to teach them how to use google well. This includes teaching them how to use tools to modify the date content was published and to use advanced settings. They need to be taught how to use keywords, how to do advanced searches, how to skim and scan and how to identify bias. This will ensure they are not just using the web superficially. Many will also continue to use Wikipedia as a reference source. I wrote about my shift in thinking regarding this in To Wiki or to not Wiki?
It is also important to introduce staff and students to a web evaluation tool such as the ones I included in the blog, Reading V’s Understanding. Through this subject I also learnt that there is no such thing as the wrong search engine, it just may be that one search engine is better for a particular search.
In ETL501 I have found some interesting tools that I wanted to share here as a record of places to come back to.
Goog A Who is useful to compare results from two different search engines.
Duck Duck Go is a safer search engine without advertising.
Sweet Search is a search engine for students created by librarians.
Finding Dulcinea is a search which only searches and finds high quality and trustworthy websites.
How much information do our students understand when they read online? I am often speaking to the students about not using google as their first place to go when researching. All students should be taught a web evaluation tool and Kathy Shrock’s 5W’s of website evaluation is suitable for primary aged students and the CRAP test is great for older students.
Another important element of evaluation websites is to assess the readability of websites. There was an activity in ETL501 module two where we were required to use readability software to test the reading level of different content. I had never used a tool like this before and think they are really useful and am quite excited by this new tool in my learning kit. In fact, I am writing about it in this post so that I can share this with the staff. Four such tools are:
With all of them, you can cut and paste part of a text and it will scan the text and provide scores using readability indicators. These include the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level which tells you the American school grade you would need to be in to comprehend the text and the Gunning Fog Score which estimates the years of formal education needed to comprehend a text. I have explored these tools with lots of different texts and find them a useful guide for finding age appropriate content. I found it very surprising how high some of the results came back with paragraphs from Wikipedia (often a student’s first search result) scoring reading comprehension results suitable for 24 year olds. I even used them with some articles from Britannica in the different levels and some text in the easiest level was coming back as being suitable for year 7s! It has made me think again and how challenging reading online can be for some of our students. It also made me reflect again on the importance of sharing tools with students that have audio support and ones with videos.
It is worth raising that the results were not all consistent with each other. I found WebFX the easiest to use and it is also completely free. It allows you to cut and paste part of a text or to add in a URL and it will test the whole site. The fact that the same piece of text in the different tools would come back with different reading ages really highlights the importance of teacher librarians and teachers curating resources to guide students when researching. This is one tool that can be used to help, but teacher support is clearly something that really needs to take place to support students in developing information literacy skills.
Wikipedia has undoubtedly changed the information landscape in a dramatic way. Just four years ago when I became a teacher-librarian many people, myself included, were telling the students to NEVER use Wikipedia when researching. The students were able to rote tell us that it included a lot of inappropriate and incorrect content. However, the reality continued that it was the first place they looked and they saw their parents (and many teachers) look when doing a simple google search. Plus there is the reality that as soon as you tell students not to do something, there will be some that become immediately interested! As Harris states, “Educators need to understand that students will go to Coogle and will use Wikipedia outside of school if not inside, no matter what alternatives we provide. It is in their best interests and ours to provide students with the intellectual tools for assessing what they find in those places “(2011, p.31).
Fast forward four years and I tell my students that it can be a useful place to start research as it will not only provide lots of information, but it can provide links to lots of credible, reliable and useful websites on a given topic. However, they still know that it is not a source I would expect to see in a reference list. Also, because I teach primary school students we often talk about how the content is not written in language that is always easy to comprehend for their age. Then I launch into the wonders of our online resources including Encyclopedia Britannica which has different reading levels to choose from, as well as an audio tool. We also subscribe to PebbleGo, which is a great resource for the younger students and in the senior school we have both Ebsco Host and JSTOR. However, often students can’t find the information they need on these online databases. This is why it is so important that teacher librarians and teachers work with students to help them to be discerning when they search for information online.
My readings this week included some articles on the Wiki debate which provide different perspectives and some really interesting information. I want to share the links here because I know that I will direct teachers and some of our older students to these articles. Cronon (2012) writes an interesting perspective in Scholarly authority in a Wikified world. He discusses the virtues of the largest, most comprehensive encyclopedia in all of human history that is in “270 languages and is written or edited by 82,000 active contributors”. Polson-Brown (2014) writes a blog The Wikipedia revolution: Whatever happened to Britannica? and compares the almost 6 million Wikipedia articles to the 40 000 in Britannica. He also argues the very interesting point, “Wikipedia has been shown to be more accurate than common belief would hold, and more accurate than traditional encyclopaedias. Wikipedia itself even has an article that lists studies into the reliability of Wikipedia (and yes they have a page on Criticism of Wikipedia for balance). There is also a page on Wikipedia FAQ’s for schools. ” Proffitt (2012) has some valid arguments in the article, Why Wikipedia doesn’t belong in the classroom.
If you decide not to use wikipedia here are some great alternatives: refseek; and Top 7 alternatives to Wikipedia. But if you decide to use it, these articles have some ideas on how to use it with students:
Does my library need more physical or digital reference sources? I think that this is an important question that many librarians ponder when managing their reference collections. Alderman (2014, p.1)) states that the reference collection is limited to just the resources that are for in-library use only. We have very few reference materials that are for ‘in-library use only’ because I believe the students should have access to take most titles home. The only exceptions are some very heavy Atlases and the current year of Guinness Book of World Records, because it is so widely used by all of the students and it tends to get damaged quickly when taken home in school bags. My personal experience is from a Primary School library and I do believe the needs are different for secondary and university libraries. In my library, we are intentionally not growing the reference and non-fiction collection for sustainability reasons and to ensure our collection remains current, relevant and accurate. We are spending more time encouraging the use of our online Enclopaedias Brittanica and PebbleGo and using these and other digital resources as tools when researching and teaching information and digital literacy. As Farmer (2014) argues, maintaining these subscriptions do have budget implications because they are expensive, however, after doing a costing analysis, I believe it is the best use of our budget. I am also aware that I am in the fortunate potion of having a good budget and this will not always necessarily be the case.
Farmer (2014, p.70) talks about the reference section life cycle which includes acquisition, processing, organisation, circulation, maintenance and deselection. I related to working through all of these stages and have spent a lot of time both organising and deselecting or ‘weeding’ titles. My library staff and I have undertaken a massive reorganisation of the non-fiction collection. We still use an abridged form of Dewey but have re-catalogued many books with different Dewey numbers to avoid having titles on their own and perhaps where they are less likely to be discovered. For example, a biography about a sportsperson could be placed in the 620 section with sports or it could be in the 920 section with biographies. We always ask the question “where is this most likely to be discovered by a patron?’ when we decided where to place it. We have also been undertaking a fairly significant weed and only replacing those titles that are high interest or those that are linked to curriculum topics. Therefore I agree with Farmers point that all 5 stages of the life cycle are important.
The first few weeks of ETL504 have provided me with more food for thought on how the libraries are viewed in our school and in other schools I have worked in or observed. One aspect that I really want to reflect on is the importance of a library being an information service and not just an information source. Many schools have barriers to ensuring that this happens. These barriers include budgets and lack of trained staff, including not having a teacher librarian (TL) working in the library.
An information source includes a collection of data including books, ebooks and weblinks, all of which should be, and usually are, housed in a library. This can certainly be useful to some patrons, however, if service is added to these resources, then there are huge benefits to patrons. 21st century libraries should provide information services that add value by creating access, packaging and interpreting information sources and provide twenty-four hour access to all of their services (“Organisation Theory,” 2019).
There is a danger in all libraries that the library staff are so focused on doing the day to day work of cataloguing new books and managing the circulation of resources but they are not adding service. As soon as a patron has a request that should be the number one priority, regardless of how many other tasks need to be done. Excellent libraries also have staff that manage and maintain information, not just the information on the shelves but also the electronic information they are providing with Ebooks and links to websites and databases. This includes preserving and ensuring the accuracy and currency of all resources and educating patrons on how to find information and use it effectively. It would usually include creating and maintaining libguides, blogs and/or pathfinders so that patrons can access information 24/7. Library services also need to be innovative and responsive to new developments in IT and curriculum. TLs need to model, lead and support 21st century teaching and learning (“Organisation Theory,” 2019). After discussing this article with my colleague she shared with me a great blog, Library Grits, by Dianne McKenzie, who I know after attending a workshop she ran a few years ago. In her post, Airlines V’s 5 Star hotels (in Asia) she uses an analogy of comparing service in a library to the service provided in a hotel or by an airline.
In my library, I have also discovered the importance of advocacy. If there is not a TL leading training for staff on how to use the resources then they will not be effectively used in a school. In my school, many of our subscriptions, like our online Encyclopaedias or subscription to Press Reader, as a news source, are forgotten by teachers and students unless I highlight them and plan lessons involving them. A TL should also be very involved in teaching and planning lessons that involve 21st century and information literacy skills. In schools parent sessions by the library staff are hugely beneficial and in my experience a great tool for sharing knowledge with parents. Communication with all patrons is also a service that needs to occur regularly, including newsletters to highlight library services are important.
This subject is looking at the teacher librarian (TL) as a leader and it also made me reflect, if a TL is not working as a leader in a school then there is the danger that the library will be treated as just a resource and that service is not being provided. It also made me consider schools that do not have libraries, like some I worked at in London, and also those schools who have libraries but no TLs. In Australia, when budgets are tight libraries are often the first to lose staff or money for resources (“Organisation Theory,” 2019). With regards to my local context here in Singapore, the government has excellent public libraries and all schools have libraries on premises. However, different use of funding allocated by the Ministry of Education in Singapore means that libraries are designed and managed differently in each school. School libraries are not staffed by teacher librarians and only some school libraries are well designed, well-resourced and well used (Loh, 2019). In most cases, they are just operating as a resource, merely because there is not enough money put towards staffing. A teacher who usually has a very full workload is put in charge of overseeing the library but they are too time stretched to be able to do this effectively. Alternatively, a library assistant is the only person who works in the library and they just manage circulations, without having the time or expertise to provide added services. Colvin (2000) argues that many employees in organisations are treated like robots by management and they are unmotivated or lack opportunities to become knowledge workers who can use infotech effectively and have the capability to organise and deliver projects. When schools don’t employ library staff with the time to dedicate to the library and the required knowledge and skills then the library is unable to become an information source.
In comparison, many of the international schools in Singapore have multiple libraries that are well resourced and are almost always staffed by a qualified TL. However, Singapore seems to be at a tipping point when looking at its education system and there has been a recent study (Loh, 2019) and conversations are starting about the importance of school libraries with TLs. In a culture and education system that is very academically focused, people are interested to hear that students who read for pleasure get better grades in school. There is starting to be an understanding that there is a correlation between high academic results and schools that have a well-staffed and well-resourced library. Part of Loh’s study created the following framework for a 21st century library.
(Loh, 2019, p. 4)
This figure resonates well with me and I think it is a good summary of some of the multitude of roles a library has if it is to be an information source and not just a service.
Loh, C. E. (2019). Envisioning the school library of the future: A 21st century framework. National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.32524.36489
After four months of learning in ETL401, and three months in the role of a TL, I feel like my brain is full to capacity! It does not look exactly like Jennifer La Garde’s (2013) image at the end of this post, but it is certainly very similar. It is an image that really spoke to me about the multifaceted role of a TL and one that I had to share. My view of the role of the TL has changed through this subject and there has been a huge shift in my thinking.
I had not given a great deal of thought to the word ‘teacher’ when I had informed people that I would become the junior school librarian. This is not to say that I did not think I would be teaching much; I knew that I was walking into a very busy teaching timetable. However, I had not thought about how important it was to explain my new role as a TL, not just a librarian. Arguably, being a teacher is the most important part of being a TL. I referred to the misconceptions about the role of a TL in my first blog post and I realise that it is partly up to me to demonstrate and educate what a TL can do in a school. O’berg (2006) discusses the importance of principal support and reminds TLs what they should be doing to gain it. Remaining visible to the whole school community, promoting the library and collaborating with all staff are all important aspects of the role.
In my blog post about the multifaceted role of the TL I reflected on many of the roles in La Garde’s image and backed them up with lots of readings. There are two roles that I want to highlight, which are student learning and professional learning. So much learning has taken place for me in this subject, and I blogged about this in Teacher librarians are lifelong learners and Feelings of uncertainty in my personal information search process. The biggest learning curve for me in this subject has been about guided inquiry and Information Literacy (IL) models. My school does not have an IL policy, nor a model that is used, and guided inquiry is not embedded into the curriculum. The school is new and therefore many things need to be ‘rolled out’, which brings with it both enormous challenges and huge opportunities. It has been so useful for me to learn about the different models and think about how I would like to lead the introduction of purposeful information literacy practice. In order to do this, I will need to collaborate with the teaching staff and having been a class teacher so recently gives me credibility to achieve this.
In the coming months, and before I commence the next subject, I will have time to reflect and implement many of the ideas that have stemmed from the learning in ETL401. This blog has barely scratched the surface on some of these ideas, but this image certainly demonstrates many of them well.
I have been meaning to blog about this for weeks as I keep looking at Kuhlthau’s model of the Information Search Process (ISP) and how it is aligned with the Guided Inquiry Design Process (GIDP). I first came across it in an article by Lee Fitzgerald, one the subject coordinators for ETL401, Introduction to Teacher Librarianship. (Fitgerald, 2015; Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012).
It really hit me how important this process is when undertaking new learning and how this model is unique because it incorporates the feelings, thoughts and actions that learners experience when acquiring new information. The last three months have been an explosion of new learning for me as I have commenced this university study and started a role as a teacher librarian (TL) at my school. Every single day I have moved through the feelings, thoughts and actions described in this model. The first few weeks in my new role were full of uncertainty, optimism, frustration and doubt. But I have had an incredibly supportive staff team to work with and I have found so much clarity in working out what kind of TL I want to be in my school and have created departmental goals for the year that I have the confidence to achieve. I feel like all of the children are learning a lot and I am learning with them. The library continues to be a very important part of our school where students come to read, learn, inquire, socialise and importantly, borrow so many books.
Writing my first assignment was a steep learning curve and I moved through the guided inquiry process shown in the diagram above. I was open and I immersed myself in new information as I explored the readings for the topic. I identified what my stance was going to be when I wrote a journal article on the role of a TL. I continued to gather information from a variety of sources and I created the article, moving back and forwards between the steps of explore, identify and gather. After a lot of angst, I was finally ready to share it as I hit submit to the university website, with one whole minute to spare for the deadline! And then I waited, with a lot of trepidation for my feedback. I was delighted with my result and the notes I received were very useful for me to evaluate my learning and apply to the next assignment.
I am busy writing away at present and the topic is to choose an Information Literacy (IL) model to recommend to my school. This has been a very useful topic to research because this is part of our library development plan at school and everything I am learning is going to help me make some recommendations to our school. I have discussed this at length with our infant and senior school librarians, who are familiar with a number of different IL models. I have also networked with other librarians from the International Schools Librarians Network (ISLN) and analysed what they are using in their schools. So much learning is taking place and it is all so relevant to my job and will help the students and teachers in our school to undertake research and inquiry in meaningful ways.
I know that I will continue to experience these feelings of uncertainty as I continue on this learning journey. But using the ISP model, I am reassured that this is a part of new learning and it hopefully means that I will be moving closer towards feelings of satisfaction as I document and process all of the pertinent information that I need.
Kuhlthau, C, Maniotes, L & Caspari, A 2012, Guided Inquiry design: A framework for inquiry in your school, Libraries Unlimited, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
I have been writing my first assignment for this subject and whilst reading one phrase keeps appearing: life long learning! My first month working as a TL has certainly involved A LOT of learning. I have had to learn many of the basics first before I leap into even deeper learning. So far I have learned how to use Destiny, our library management system, about our collection, how the Junior School operates, who all the relevant people are to ask questions of, how the library budget works, how to place orders, how to timetable 31 classes to use our fabulous library space, how to plan induction lessons for students to use the library… and the list could go on and on and on! I feel like my learning so far has been covering the library management essentials and that there is a lot of deep learning that I have to undertake to move forward. A lot of my future learning will involve the curriculum and how I can support teachers and students to create deeper learning opportunities for our students, so this blog is going to reflect on the concept of the TL being a lifelong learner.
Excellent TLs must be committed to lifelong learning so that they can embrace change in education, curriculum and technology and be ready to empower other people in the school community. The ALIA and ASLA standards for professional excellence for TLs (2004) highlight the importance of understanding the principles of lifelong learning and modelling and promoting this in practice. TLs should be working collaboratively with school staff to improve teaching and learning, ensuring that the curriculum is appropriate and relevant and to be integrating relevant technology. They should be creating and fostering professional development for staff and also seeking it out for themselves (ASLA, 2013, p7; (Combes, 2006).
The learning that occurs in a school library will influence how students learn in the whole school, and TLs should work with teachers to develop learning opportunities that are challenging for students. It is true that “Schools are now moving away from behaviourist theories, which tended to view school students as children who would learn best through passively listening to a teacher and repeating tasks to ensure reinforcement of learning, to more cognitive and constructivist theories.” (Herring, 2007, p2) Therefore, TLs should be well informed about information literacy and be demonstrating best practice and constructivist learning. Two examples of constructivist learning are inquiry learning and project based learning. TLs should be guiding students to undertake research, which involves information literacy skills being integrated into the curriculum, and not taught as a separate subject. In a library and school that promotes inquiry, librarians should be guiding students to be collaborators, researchers, communicators, critical and creative thinkers and self-managers (Herring, 2007; Murdoch, 2015; Purcell, 2010).
Boss and Krauss in Reinventing Project Based Learning (2008) discuss the importance of recognising that digital tools are an essential part of students’ lives and how some teachers have reinvented a project approach to meet the needs of digital-age learners. There is a danger of not keeping up with these opportunities because students are ready to take advantage of technology and will become disengaged if it is not incorporated into their learning. Projects that use technology to immerse students in real-world learning will motive and engage them and make learning more personalised.
The day a TL stops learning is that day they cease to remain relevant. Part of this lifelong learning involves seeking out opportunities for themselves to develop professionally. Undertaking action research in the library is important, as is networking with other TLs, reading blogs, journals and other relevant literature and attending conferences and other professional development. I am looking forward to my first International Schools Librarian Network (ISLN) meeting in September and also a librarian conference in October as I know these experiences will provide many learning opportunities for me.
References
Australian School Library Association (2013), Future learning and school libraries. ASLA, Canberra, ACT.
Australian Schools Library Association (ASLA) and Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) 2004, Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians, Retrieved July 25, 2016 from http://www.asla.org.au/policy/standards.aspx
Herring, J. (2007). Teacher librarians and the school library. In S.Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twenty-first century : charting new directions in information (pp. 27-42): Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.
