Rationale

Highly effective schools are expected to educate students in a way that is conducive to how new generations learn and how society function in the present and future. In the twenty- first century, citizenship requires level of information and technological literacy that go far beyond the basic knowledge that was sufficient in the past (National Education Association, 2012). A school library is integral to the education process. This paper outlines how the school library can develop as a learning space and resource centre to accommodate and respond to twenty- first century learning expectations.

Education at school filled with meaningful, applied learning environment, has the capacity to enrich students learning and better prepare them for life and work in the twenty- first century. The skills needed to seek and comprehend information, as well as the tools we have available for information sharing, “are rapidly changing and developing” (O’Connell, 2008, p. 51). Recent education reforms call for a shift in pedagogy to provide students with the skills necessary to be competitive in a global society. The new Australian Curriculum pays serious attention to what are referred to as 21st century skills. The General Capabilities are Australian version of 21st century skills. The Melbourne Declaration (2008) emphasises the importance of knowledge, understanding and skills from each learning area, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities as the basis for a curriculum designed to support twenty- first century learning. By nature, twenty- first century learning activities are often open-ended, involve unbounded sets of information, and there may be ongoing redefinition of the goal of the task (Scoular & Heard, 2018).

The 21st century skills cannot be learned in isolation. It includes critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, collaboration and teamwork, personal and social skills, and information and communication technologies (ICT) skills. These are supported by associated skills that elaborate on the 21st century skills (Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, September 2017).  As educators, it is our role to develop these skills through inquiry learning, guided inquiry and information literacy models. In particular, there is a large movement around teaching general capabilities using problem-based or inquiry-based learning – most likely because problem solving is one of the most frequently mentioned ‘in demand’ skills and features consistently across frameworks (Scoular & Heard, 2018). The combination of General Capabilities combined with the explicit emphasis of the Australian Curriculum on inquiry skills increases students ‘engagement, prepares students for 21^st century skills making them lifelong learners (Fitzgerald, 2015). Inquiry learning involves the process of asking questions, investigating, creating, discussing and reflecting. Herring (2007) also points out that constructivist theories of learning have become more accepted in schools.

Our students need libraries that are dynamic learning hub of general capabilities that blends books and technology. With public libraries closing at a worrying rate, school libraries are becoming even more important (National Literacy Trust, 2017). School library professionals play a vital role in helping students and faculty focus their research in a growing digital landscape. They teach students how to locate the best resources and, more importantly, how to assess and analyse the information they find (Softlink, 2017). School libraries ensure that students and staff in the school have equitable access to resources that are appropriate and relevant to the curriculum and enrich and support different abilities, learning styles and maturity levels of the students. The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) supports the position that an effective school library program has a certified school librarian at the helm, provides personalized learning environments, and offers equitable access to resources to ensure a well-rounded education for every student (AASL, 2016). Both Kuhlthau and Herring (2007) also refer to the need for the library to become not just an essential part of schools but a key driver in the development of the school vision.

Vision Statement

• To promote a culture of inquiry learning in a dynamic environment to enhance achievement and foster self-directed learners and to learn future ready skills incorporating collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and citizenships to adapt and thrive in a changing global environment.

Strategic Focus

To achieve the above vision and to cater the needs of 21^st century learner, teaching and learning practises need to be altered. This kind of vision provides both space and resources for the development of future ready citizens, who embody a lifelong love of reading, innovative thinking, competent research skills, and collaborative work relationships. The three directions that will be discussed in this paper to transform library into interactive learning environment are technology that focus on inquiry learning, flexible learning space and use of library as maker space.

Technology: Digital Citizenship

As Child (2019) suggests, technology is a powerful tool to enhance learning and using a constructionist pedagogy, it gives students opportunities to collaborate, create, communicate and think critically, skills for 21^st century. Teacher Librarians as experts supports the pedagogies and curriculum by collaborating with teachers and developing a collection and preparing library programs and personalising the library services to meet the needs of the school community. Teacher librarians are the information who enhance classroom teachers ‘capacity to teach age- appropriate website evaluation, teach smart searching strategies, find resources from search engines other than google, determine usage rights for images found online and differentiate online resources according to reading level (School libraries: The heart of 21^st century learning, 2019). This will teach students digital literacy and make them good digital citizens. A digital citizen is a person with the skills and knowledge to effectively use digital technologies to participate in society, communicate with others and
create and consume digital content (Office of safety commissioner, 2019). The skills needed to be a digital citizen are skills school librarians, or media specialists, possess and are often called upon to teach (Hays, 2019).

Libraries extend and enhance the classroom experience: a place where students, teachers, and librarians can explore, learn, create, and collaborate. Teachers cannot do this alone (Kuhlthau 2010). Teacher librarians support teachers in delivering the subjects through supporting the curriculum through inquiry learning. Librarians foster a love of reading and learning in addition to modelling and utilizing current technologies to assist students in becoming proficient and responsible users of information. As information specialist, teacher librarians can best support the teachers by collaborating and designing tasks and by also team teach the skills that are most relevant to students.

Pedagogy: Flexible Seating Arrangement

A future focused, 21st century for teaching & learning had a great impact on the decision to select the furniture chosen. Research confirms that the learning environment has a huge impact on student engagement (Saunders & Kardia, 2019). One of the ways that educators are making their classrooms more conducive to 21st century learning is by rethinking their seating arrangements. The idea of flexible seating settings maximises student engagement and facilitates different types of learning. Delzer (2016) firmly believes that this simply cannot be done when kids are sitting in rows of desks all day. According to Markle (2018), the forefront of job descriptors are collaboration and problem solving and therefore the classroom environment should mirror what students will encounter in their future careers, and should be meaning making. Flexible seating allows students to experience all these skills. It will provide students with choice in how and where they learn and encourage open space that can be changed to accommodate style of learning and technology. Flexible seating is about more than simply having a variety of different, fun seats in the classroom. It is about utilizing student voice, creating buy-in, heightening collaborative learning, and prioritizing students’ needs concerning the environment in which they learn (Markle, 2018).

Curriculum: Collaboration through Makerspace

School libraries offer more than just books and technology. School libraries are continuing to evolve from the outdated notion that they are simply repositories of knowledge stored within the bound pages of books (Harte, 2016). In this 21st Century, where a paradigm shift in communicating library services to users is evident, a modern and contemporary tool would be needed to promote library and information resources service. Makerspaces are the next in evolution of resources that we provide our students. School libraries: The heart of 21^st century (2019) states that makerspace foster collaboration, creativity, problem solving and exploration through a STEAM.

Makerspaces provide students with the opportunity to learn a range of skills and meet a number of curriculum objectives, including digital technologies and computational thinking, coding, mathematics, humanities, the arts, prototyping, and engineering — just to name a few. The library is the perfect environment to expose and integrate many innovative technologies to enhance students’ learning and engagement by providing students’ exposure to makerspace in a flexible learning environment. Library as a place for makerspace is the need in a future-focussed education setting. All of the core skills, knowledge, understanding, and mindsets that we consider key to our children’s success can also be found and learnt in a makerspace; students can learn resilience, as well as gain skills in problem solving, teamwork, and communication (Harte, 2016). This freedom to choose is one of the things that distinguish makerspaces from traditional curriculum-driven classrooms.

Learning in the makerspace has no formal assessment and is simply full of joy’. Harte (2016) suggests that the outcomes for makerspaces are driven not by standards, curriculum, and in-case learning, but by curiosity, authentic problem solving, and in-time learning. All of the core skills, knowledge, understanding, and mindsets that we consider key to our children’s success can also be found and learnt in a makerspace; students can learn resilience, as well as gain skills in problem solving, teamwork, and communication.

The following section will discuss the implementation requirements to bring these changes and to achieve the vision.

Implementation requirements

The above strategic focus in the library will create and sustain a student centred learning environment and will provide opportunities to work towards shared vision.

Implementing change can be a challenging and imposing changes may not bring the desired results. Lancaster (2019) advises that change leaders must consider and respect individual notions of what school should look like, while at the same time convincing people that what they’re proposing will be better.

Planned changes will meet the educational goals and vision of the school.  Developing positive and productive lines of communication with staff will help to implement the changes. Starting with small and visible changes can bring positive outcomes. To bring this change in place, an effective change management plan needs to be in place. Trust and respect needs to be established.

Principal and teacher librarian work together as transformational leaders would help teachers to bring these positive changes and support the school’s vision. Educating all the stake holders about the need for the change is essential. As Kotters (2016) explains, the first step in change management is to create urgency. Involving staff and using distributed leadership style in decision making and the change process will build trust in staff. This will ensure that staff are committed to working towards the vision. There will be shift in thinking and acceptance that change in pedagogy will improve teacher and student engagement and outcomes.

For libraries to have an effective hub of learning in twenty- first century, a teacher librarian can lead, teach, and support the General Capabilities and vision of their school through their professional practices, programs, and spaces. Librarians lead from the middle using instructional leadership by providing resources, strategies, and connections. Gottlieb (2012) has defined leadership from middle as a function of showing someone his or her best self, and creating a favourable environment in which they can be that self. It is the power of all those “best selves” working together that makes Leading from the Middle a quiet force for change.  Teacher librarians has a broad overview of the curriculum and therefore they lead from middle. This enables them to provide targeted differentiation and resourcing support to staff, students and parents. This allows them to facilitate innovative learning opportunities.

In the ACT Government Education report on School libraries: The heart of 21^st century (2019, p. 8), clearly states that the support and counsel of teacher librarians greatly enhances classroom teachers’ capacity to skilfully embed the Australian Curriculum ICT and Creative Thinking General Capabilities into their lessons. As Godfree (2018) clearly states that school library services provide tailored resources and skills-based lessons for each particular community, saving time, filling ‘gaps’ and reducing workload for classroom teachers who are then able to spend that extra time and energy planning better lessons.

Librarians using the servant leadership styles plan along with teachers and can create curriculum integrated programs and actively contribute to students’ learning process through inquiry learning. Inquiry learning provides teachers and teacher librarians with a designing tool to create Guided Inquiry units of work, as well as developing twenty- first century skills for students. Teacher Librarians also specialise in differentiated, inquiry learning, which is a strong focus in the Australian Curriculum (Lupton, 2013; Nayler, 2014; ACARA, 2018) and the Early Years Learning Framework (Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009).

As an instruction leader, teacher librarian assist teachers in resourcing the curriculum, providing Professional Development on topics like use of Library Management System, ICT skills, Coding and Maker space. Librarians can lead from the middle by providing professional development. The ability to use the right information and the right resources are learnt by using information literacy models. The role of teacher and teacher librarians is to teach these skills to students. Librarians should be promoters of information literacy programs. Teacher librarians works from the library but leads within and beyond the library. Teacher librarians provide opportunities for innovation to occur.

Makerspace program can be started in library with low- tech projects and can be integrated into core subjects such as maths, history or geography by challenging students to build their own games. This will provide students with the opportunity to learn a range of skills and meet a number of curriculum objectives, including digital technologies and computational thinking, coding, mathematics, humanities, the arts, prototyping, and engineering — just to name a few. These activities will not only bring collaboration in students but also among teachers. Collaboration among teachers can be done through observation, constructive feedback, mentoring and team teaching.

To conclude with, twenty- first century skills are vital to students’ learning and the school library and the teacher librarians are the best resource to lead and help teachers and students embrace twenty- first century learning. This is also the most effective way of advocating school library to all the stakeholders.

Final recommendations

 

• Inform and encourage all stakeholders about the change and to collectively achieve shared vision.
• Strategic planning to ensure staff are working towards common goal.
• Communicate and convince the staff of necessity of change and allow them the influence to ensure that it will be worth their effort.
• Regular professional development to support staff.
• Plan budgeting and funding.
• Distribute leadership by involving staff and collaborate effectively to encourage innovation.
• Inform the staff about short term wins and review them in timely manner.
• Assess and evaluate new directions in response to changes in library.

 

References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2015). Leading improvement, innovation and change. In AITSL: Interactive leadership profiles. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/leadership-profiles/interactive-profiles/leading-improvement-innovation-and-change

Child, J. (2019, March 2).  Ideas for using technology in the library [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://tinkeringchild.com/ideas-for-using-technology-in-the-library/

Chris, H. (2019). Library makerspaces: revolution or evolution? – SCIS. [Online] Scisdata.com. Available at: https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-97/library-makerspaces-revolution-or-evolution [Accessed 1 Nov. 2019].

Delzer, K. (2016, April 22). Flexible Seating and Student-Centered Classroom Redesign [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/flexible-seating-student-centered-classroom-kayla-delzer

Digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au. (2019). Digital Citizenship – About. [online] Available at: https://www.digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au/about [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Fitzgerald, L. (2015). Guided Inquiry in Practice. Retrieved on November 1, 2019, from file:///E:/Scan%20Lee%20Fitzgerald.pdf

Futureready.org. (2019). Future Ready Librarians. [Online] Available at: https://futureready.org/thenetwork/strands/future-ready-librarians/ [Accessed 8 Nov. 2019].

Gottlieb, H. (2012, October 30). Leading from the middle: Bringing out the best in everyone [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://creatingthefuture.org/leading-from-the-middle-bringing-out-the-bestin-everyone/

Godfree, H. (2019). School libraries matter! | Professional learning. [Online] Education.nsw.gov.au. Available at: https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-37/school-libraries-matter! [Accessed  1 Nov. 2019].

 

Green, G. (2011). Learning leadership through the school library. Access, 25(4), 22-26. Retrieved from https://asla.org.au/publications

Hays, L. (2019, September 27). How to Promote Digital Citizenship in the School Library [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://ideas.demco.com/blog/how-to-promote-digital-citizenship-in-the-school-library/

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). Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University

Kuhlthau, C. (January 2010). Guided Inquiry: School Libraries in the 21st Century, School Libraries Worldwide, Volume 16, Number 1, 17-28. Retrieved from http://wp.comminfo.rutgers.edu/ckuhlthau/information-search-process/

Lancaster, I. (2019, January 26). 5 strategies for managing change in schools. TeachThought. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/5-strategies-for-managing-change-in-schools/

Lupton, M. (2013). Inquiry pedagogy and the Australian Curriculum. Primary and Middle Years Educator, 11(2), 23-29.

Madsen, S. (2016). Kotter’s 8 step change management model [Video file]. Retrieved Mar. 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qlJ_Y8w5Yk

Markle, B. (2018, August 20). Reflections on Shifting to a Flexible Classroom [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/reflections-shifting-flexible-classroom

McNamara, C. (2017). Problem solving and decision-making. In Free Management Library, Retrieved October 26, 2019, from http://managementhelp.org/personalproductivity/problem-solving.htm#guide

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (Australia). (2008). Melbourne Declaration on the National Library of Australia. Retrieved October 30, 2019, from https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4560588

National Education Association (NEA). (2012). Preparing 21st century students for a global society. An educator’s guide to the four Cs. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/A-Guide-to-Four-Cs.pdf

National Literacy Trust, 2017, School Libraries: A literature review of current provision and evidence of impact http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0004/1275/School_Libraries_2017_-_Final.pdf

Oxley, C. (2018). Strength in numbers: Encouraging every staff member to work to capacity. International Information & Library Review, 50:1, 69-75. doi:10.1080/10572317.2018.1422907

Pennsylvania School Library Project (Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, Health Sciences Library Consortium and Education Law Center of Pennsylvania). (2012).Creating 21st-century learners: A report on Pennsylvania’s public school libraries.

Richard Milner, H. (2019). The Ultimate Guide To Future Focused Learning – BFX Furniture. [online] BFX Furniture. Available at: https://www.bfx.com.au/ultimate-guide-future-focused-learning/ [Accessed 8 Nov. 2019].

Scoular, C. and Heard, J. (2019). Teaching and assessing general capabilities. [online] Australian Council for Educational Research – ACER. Available at: https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/teaching-and-assessing-general-capabilities [Accessed 4 Nov. 2019].

Softlinkint.com. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.softlinkint.com/downloads/The_Ongoing_Importance_of_School_Libraries.pdf [Accessed 1 Nov. 2019].

The College of St. Scholastica (2016, May 2). What is 21st Century learning? How a master’s degree can enhance the effectiveness of your classroom [Blog post]. Retrieved from    http://www.css.edu/the-sentinel-blog/what-is-21st-century-learning.html