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ETL512: Assessment 6: Professional Reflective Portfolio

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Part A: What makes an effective Teacher Librarian?

Effective teacher librarians are curious, interested and interesting. They wonder, wander and guide students and colleagues through their own wonder/wanderings. Effective teacher librarians blend their understanding of the nature of learning and the structure of the curriculum to maximise learning for each student both in the moment and in the future. Effective teacher librarians maintain current knowledge of available resources suitable for their communities and facilitate access for the right learner at the right time. Teacher librarians aim to provide both a physical and intellectual space for the exploration of all kinds of literacies, rigorous academic exploration, community engagement and mindful recreation. The activities undertaken and promoted there should support that aim. Effective teacher librarians are leaders as well as managers, innovators as well as guides and mentors as well as students. It is in the balance and interaction between all these attributes that the magic may be found.

The Daring Librarian Mission

Jones, G. (2018). The daring librarian mission. https://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2018/01/how-to-be-teacher-librarian-rock-star.html

The graphic to the right, by Gwyneth Jones from her blog, The Daring Librarian, resonates with me because it puts into simple language the aims to which teacher librarians should aspire.

Part B: Critical Evaluation of Learning

Introduction

I am glad to have undertaken my studies slowly and steadily over the last three years because it has allowed me plenty of time to consider, reflect on my learning, put theories into practice and change, evaluate and refine ideas along the way. I wrote the first post on my ThinkSpace blog, Embarkation (Hahn, 2019, July 8), immediately before beginning my first semester of study so that I might look back from this end and reflect on my thoughts and impressions and how they have changed. In that post, I identified the “vital role a good teacher librarian has in developing the students’ love of learning, appreciation of literature and ability to really think about the information they are gathering” and that “it is also vitally important for TLs to make their available services and skills known and visible to their colleagues, especially their newer colleagues who might benefit most from the leadership and guidance a really good TL can provide”. I had, at that early stage, identified two key elements of the role of TL: developing lifelong love of learning and literature, and advocacy through leadership. I still believe these to be important, but I missed possibly the most vital: forming relationships: relationships with and between colleagues, students and leadership, relationships between people and information and relationships between people and lifelong learning.

Theme 1: Lifelong love of learning and literature

From the outset of my studies I was surprised by the need, expressed multiple times over several subjects, to defend the use of fiction in the curriculum. This surprised me because the place of fiction just seemed so obvious to me – it was like needing to justify the place of oxygen in the air. I have learned since, however, that it is not so obvious to everyone. Reading fiction helps students to develop empathy, explore unknown activities, places and situations safely, and to experience the world through someone else’s eyes. Rita Carter, in the Tedx Talk embeded below, explains succinctly and in everyday language this very concept in a very accessible way.

Journalist Rita Carter on why reading fiction is good not only for individuals but for society as a whole. 28 June, 2018

Lesesne (2003) and Schneider (2016) both write eloquently about strategies teacher librarians, among others, can use to help students become lifelong readers and therefore lifelong learners, citing three main skills needed: knowledge of the student, knowledge of the books and motivational skills to bring the two together. These topics were addressed in ETL503 Resourcing the Curriculum and ETL402 Literature across the Curriculum – two subjects I found to be especially useful in my work as a teacher librarian. The creation of annotated bibliographies is something I have done many times over the last three years and expect to continue.

Link to reading list in Oliver for Geography resources for Stage 2. Scan or click to view.

Recently, I have discovered the Reading Lists tool within our Library Management System, Oliver, that can be used for this purpose, keeping the information accessible to staff at all times. Using this tool, I have been able to create topic based recommended reading lists for both students and staff to use, linking the resource records directly and allowing users the benefit of tools such, reserve, request and review options as well as the ability to link items directly into their Google Classroom. I have included an example of this, created for a Stage 2 Geography unit of work, Places are Similar and Different. Use of these tools relies on the ability of staff to access it. This has involved offering staff training and refreshers at planning days and staff admin meetings as well as personal tutorials at a point of genuine need when staff come to the library seeking such information, and teaching students how to use the tools during their library lessons each week.

ETL501 The Dynamic Information Environment offered the opportunity to learn not just about creating physical spaces for learning, but also creating digital spaces for learning. I found the development of Library Research Guides to be particularly valuable. I have been creating such guides for a while, but this subject taught me a new way to go about it, making the resources so much more useful and valuable to students and staff alike.

Link to Invasive Species LRG

Visit Invasive Species LRG, created before ETL501

Link to Earth's Environments LRG

Visit Earth’s Environments LRG, created following ETL501

I have included below two examples: the first from before I undertook ETL501 and the second from after.  The linear, guided manner in which the later one is designed, along with the inclusion of items such as a glossary, recommended search engines and a feedback form for users to supply their suggestions and thoughts are things I had never considered prior to undertaking this subject. The later of these LRGs along with several others created since to support Stage 2 and 3 units of work have been received to much acclaim by staff that use them and have received thoughtful and constructive feedback allowing me to continually improve the quality of resources I can offer through the library. Staff have commented particularly about the integration of information literacy skills and how they include resources that teachers would not have considered on their own.

The idea of ensuring resource guides included resources that teachers and students would have been unlikely to find on their own was first introduced in ETL402 Resourcing the Curriculum, and reiterated in many other subjects I have taken throughout my studies and I recently had the opportunity to see this idea in action at a public library while on professional placement. The outreach librarian was selecting resources for patrons who had opted for the home delivery service available to less mobile members of the library. She too was keen to include in the selection a resource that the patron would hopefully like, but may not have chosen themselves. She used tools such as the Tourist Map of Literature

Screeb grab from the Tourist Map of Literature

Click to visit the Tourist Map of Literature

website (pictured to the right) to find authors similar to those the patron had read and enjoyed previously. This is a tool I am now using in my practice as a teacher librarian.

In order to ensure there are resources available to suit the needs of the school community, it is necessary to have in place a strong collection development policy, including a procedure around selection and deselection. This concept was first introduced in ETL503 Resourcing the Curriculum and has been developed during other subjects along the way. When I first began work as a teacher librarian in my school, I came to see that the collection was out-dated, old and in poor condition. As a result, usage of the library resources was limited. I have taken the ideas learned especially in ETL402, ETL501 and ETL503, to begin updating the collection. During my study, I was introduced to the idea of using analytical reporting to judge the health of the collection. I decided to implement this in my library, discovering quickly that the average age of the collection was over 20 years – this did not surprise me, unfortunately. I knew that the first task was to undertake a weed of the worst offenders. I established a ‘shelf of shame’ in my office consisting of items removed from the collection far too late to remind me of the need to weed and I have found it a useful tool to share with others when they question why I am “getting rid of so many books”.

A witty mnemonic explaining the criteria used for deselection of materials in a school library: F -Does it foster a love of reading? R - DOes it reflect your diverse population> E - Does it reflect an equitable world view? S - Does it support the curriculum? and H - Is it a high quality text?

Image by Jennifer LaGarde
www.librarygirl.net
Shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

I have included to the left a graphic from the blog of Jennifer LaGuarde (2020, April 30) explaining her approach to weeding. It resonates with me as it puts into positive language the desirable features of school library collection against which candidates for weeding may be compared.

Theme 2: Advocacy through leadership

ETL 504 Teacher Librarian as Leader introduced terms that can be used to describe phenomena previously observed – developing a deeper understanding of the styles of leadership available and the effect of each. Having the language to discuss and describe these concepts helps to nuance my understandings. In this way, I can be more deliberate in my choices around which strategies I employ in different circumstances and also to recognise and support the choices made by other leaders in my workplace.

Just as it is important for teacher librarians to provide a safe “third space” (Korodaj, 2019) for students, it is important to also provide this for staff. Change leadership (and I deliberately choose the word leadership rather than management) has been a feature of the work of schools in recent times – through the pandemic and the resulting pedagogical changes, as well as with the introduction of new syllabus documents in NSW schools and the challenges faced by many schools with staffing and casual relief. Many colleagues have expressed to me that, while they understand the features of the new syllabus documents, and appreciate the changes they are to make, they need more professional development in what it all looks like in reality. These conversations have taken place in the “cone of silence” – When the library office door is closed, information shared and discussed does not leave the room. By creating this safe space for staff, I aimed initially to give them a place to vent. It also allowed me to learn about what they need and how I can support them for the betterment of student learning. In my blog post, Module 3.1: Stress (Hahn, 2021, March 20), drawing on the work of Cross (2015) and Clement (2014), I explored how servant leadership such as described above and by Burkus (2010), might help to alleviate some of the stress teachers encounter. A secondary objective of this work is to help colleagues recognise, value and support contributions of the library to the life of the school, thereby activating third-party advocacy in the manner described by Kachel et al (2021).

The school library and teacher librarians are in the privileged position of having a big-picture view of the curriculum, activities and events of the school as a whole and can place them in the context of the school’s strategic plan thereby identifying areas of common interest to different groups within the school and invite them to collaborate. This relies, however, on teacher librarians actively seeking to be involved in the teaching and learning cycle of the various teams across the school, the danger lying in the alternative, described by Sturge (2019) as “a revolving door of classes” (p.26) wherein teacher librarians become isolated, and miss opportunities to address issues of information literacy at a point of genuine need – that is, finding authentic moments to address skills and knowledge contained within the Information Fluency Framework when they are actively needed by students to complete tasks required for other subjects. It is in this real-world use of skills that true life-long learning can occur. Because of this, it is vital that teacher librarians employ their instructional leadership skills and teacher leadership skills in order to mobilise and activate colleagues and others in advocating for the library, much in the manner described by Bonanno and Moore (2009). An excellent example of this is found in the Students Need School Libraries campaign started and headed by Holly Godfree. This group provides, among many resources, flyers and promotional materials that are made available for teacher librarians to share with their communities, assisting teacher librarians to harness the advocacy power of school communities in support of their library program.

Instructional leadership has been a feature of my work in recent times, especially around the use of technologies to support educational access by students with learning difficulties and additional needs. By adjusting my fixed timetable in collaboration with interested class teachers, I have been able to provide team-taught lessons introducing and utilising assistive technologies such as Immersive Reader with all the students in a class, demonstrating for students how and when such technologies may be useful to them, at the same time demonstrating to teachers how employ universal design in conjunction with the available tools to allow all students to engage with curricula on an equal basis. By working specifically with targeted, interested teachers, I have been able to harness their connections and relationships to further advocate for the services and skills a strong library program can provide.

Theme 3: Relationships

A colourful rug defines the space while brightening it up

Brighten and define the purpose of areas with rugs

The Third Space is also vital for students. In ETL 501 The Dynamic Information Environment, I explored the development of effective spaces both physically and digitally. One of the main take-aways from this subject was the need to consider how the designed spaces impact and are impacted by the people who use them. I had not previously considered that, by providing group vignettes, hidden individual reading areas, large open whole class spaces and interactive displays could encourage students to behave and interact differently with the information they are using. To this end, I have added to the library I work in, rugs that define the purpose and use of different areas, a variety of types and groupings of seating, flexible work table orientations,student work examples and wall displays that teach. I am still working on rearranging shelf configurations and technology storage to maximise use and availability.

I approach interactions with students with humour where appropriate to encourage them to see me as approachable; high expectations of behaviour so that I avoid unnecessary unpleasantness; openness and patience to encourage students to talk to me about their needs and thoughts. I provide interesting activities at lunchtime in a climate controlled environment to encourage students to come into the library voluntarily and view it as a pleasant and desirable place of interest. In this way, I hope to engender a belief that the library is a welcoming, interesting place in which ideas and information can be explored and discussed in a rigorous but non-threatening way. The lego building vignette pictured to the right is used at lunchtimes.

A collaborative puzzle area with a wall that teaches

The collaborative puzzle

Students are invited to build on to constructions made by other students in previous sessions. Once firm boundaries were established around the protocols for use of the space, students have been engaging positively and enthusiastically at lunchtimes. They are (mostly) able to leave it alone during class time and a helpful side effect has been drawing student’s attention to the sometimes neglected early chapter book collection housed around the lego area. This has seen circulation of this collection rise by 23% in the 6 months since establishment of the lego area.

A group of students can work collaboratively on lego projects

Community building activity: collaborative lego construction

Jigsaw puzzles (pictured to the right) have also been used for collaboration and community building among students. It is my intention that these collaborative activities will encourage disparate groups of students to engage in shared activities, getting to know each other better and learning to engage positively with students from other backgrounds and interest groups, contributing to the development of a cohesive school community that forms part of the school’s medium to long term goals. An additional advantage has been providing activities and environments that promote wellbeing for our students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (Saggers & Ashburner, 2019). Puzzles are selected based on the special interests of these students and well-ordered, usually quiet and minimally stimulating areas are used to provide these students with an environment they can use to calm and re-regulate themselves as needed. This encourages all students to see the library as a peaceful, interesting and pleasant place to learn and to practise interacting with others. Visual cues, noise-cancelling headphones and positive, calm relationships are also used to engage our students with ASD.

Part C: Developmental Evaluation

The ALIA/ASLA Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians (ALIA, 2004) provides the professional knowledge, practices and commitments that teacher librarians should strive to achieve. A key development in the professional knowledge area during my studies has been the introduction of the

Information_fluency_framework which aims to “articulate the work of the teacher librarian (p.4), drawing together elements of the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities and NSW Syllabus documents to make plain for all school staff and leadership the skills and understandings that teacher librarians teach and where they fit in the curriculum. This important document, recently released and only pertinent to NSW schools, has not been a part of my studies at all. As a result, I have needed to identify and source professional learning opportunities outside of the University, such as PLCC After Hours Professional Development, spearheaded by Gina Krohn (see left). Continual engagement with professional networks of teacher librarians and alumni groups is vital to identifying opportunities to continually develop my skills and understandings around pedagogy and curriculum developments. An area I would like to focus on in the near future is utilising educational technologies to enhance teaching and learning opportunities, with a specific focus on developing the skills of kindergarten to year 2 students and their teachers.

ALIA-ASLA Standard 3.4 Community responsibilities requires teacher librarians to participate as members of professional communities. Over the last three years that I have been studying and working as a teacher librarian, I have joined several network groups, both formal, such as becoming a student member of ALIA (which I will continue into a professional membership once I graduate) and joining the Teacher Librarian Network in Northern Sydney through my employer, and informal, such as joining social media groups for Teacher Librarians both in NSW and around the country and world. I have found there the most supportive and collaborative group of colleagues I have found so far in the education industry. This spirit of cooperation and collegiality is something I strive to replicate and actively promote in my workplace.

Standard two requires teacher librarians to provide exemplary information and library services. Recently, my school held a festival of reading for Education Week. I was able to demonstrate and explain to parents and staff alike the services I offer as teacher librarian. I was able to demonstrate some of the Library Resource Guides developed to support collaboratively taught units of work in Stage 2 and 3, show teachers and parents how to access the Library’s digital collections from their mobile device and explain the reference and information services available in the Library.

Descriptions of the role of teacher librarians

Backing board used as a conversation starter at the Festival of Reading

Pictured to the right is the backing board used during this presentation. I did not specifically refer to it, but used it to draw attention to the role of the teacher librarian and to provide conversation starters with parents. This was a highly successful morning and one of the immediate benefits I can see is dramatically increased circulation of our digital collection, and three new requests for collaboration from teachers who have not previously engaged with library services. An area I would like to develop more within this strand of the professional standards is evaluation of the library’s collection. To this end, I have enrolled in a course offered by Softlink (providers of Oliver Library, our LMS) that will address use of analytical reporting in the school library. Other sources of ongoing professional learning are SCIS Professional Learning Webinars and Primary English Teachers Association Australia courses and conferences which often offer content relevant to teacher librarians.

References

Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). (2004). Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. https://read.alia.org.au/file/647/download?token=6T4ajv0c

Bonanno, K. & Moore, R. (2009). Advocacy: Reason, responsibility and rhetoric. https://kb.com.au/content/uploads/2014/08/Keynote-Advocacy.pdf

Burkus, D. (2010, April 1). Servant leadership theory. In DB: David Burkus. http://davidburkus.com/2010/04/servant-leadership-theory/

Clement, J. (2014). Managing mandated educational change. School Leadership & Management, 34(1), 39-51. https://doi: 10.1080/13632434.2013.813460

Cross, D. (2015). Teacher well being and its impact on student learning [Slide presentation]. Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia. http://www.research.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2633590/teacher-wellbeing-and-student.pdf

Jones, G. (2018). The daring librarian mission. https://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2018/01/how-to-be-teacher-librarian-rock-star.html

Kachel, D. E., DelGuidice, M. & Luna R. (2012). Building champions in the school community. In D. Levitov (Ed.), Activism and the school librarian: Tools for advocacy and survival. (pp. 85-98). ABC_CLIO, LLC.

Korodaj, L. (2019). The library as ‘third space’ in your school: Supporting academic and emotional wellbeing in the school community.Scan, 38(10). https://doi.org/10.3316/aeipt.226270

LaGuarge, J. (2020, April 30). BFTP: Keeping your library collection smelling F.R.E.S.H! The Adventures of Library Girl. https://www.librarygirl.net/post/bftp-keeping-your-library-collection-smelling-f-r-e-s-h

Lesesne, T. (2003). Making the match: The right book for the right reader at the right time, grades 4-12. Stenhouse Publishers.

Saggers, B. & Ashburner, J. (2019) Creating learning spaces that promote wellbeing, participation and engagement: Implications for Students on the autism spectrum. In Hughes, H., Franz, J. & Willis, J. (eds.), School Spaces for Student Wellbeing and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6092-3_8

Schneider, J. J. (2016). The right book for the right reader at the right time. In The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children’s Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge (p. 98-158). https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/childrens_lit_textbook/6/

Sturge, J. (2019). Assessing Readiness for School Library Collaboration. Knowledge Quest, 47(3), 24–31.

A balanced collection

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This week’s module asks whether our school library has a balanced collection. A balanced collection means that there are sufficient items in the catalogue that cover all curriculum levels and offer a variety of types. For example, it needs maps, posters, kits, professional resources, fiction, non-fiction, junior fiction (all sufficiently diverse), web-based resources and AV resources, but could also include games and toys, construction equipment and such. In terms of fiction, our library has a relatively large collection that is slowly being updated and diversified. The junior fiction section houses picture books and simple chapter books. Many of the simple chapter books do need updating and diversifying. It is a challenge to find such resources that feature diverse characters without being “preachy” or overly contrived. I would not say that it is balanced at the moment, but it is a work in progress and is certainly closer to being so than it was 2 years ago. The fiction section contains a good number of print items, mostly realistic fiction and fantasy. I am working to build our collection of other genres, especially graphic novels. Until 2020 our school library did not hold any graphic novels or manga at all. Now it is easily the most popular collection, but it is never on the shelf so I think it still needs augmenting. The challenge with manga and graphic novels is the inclusion of socially appropriate content. Many hold story lines that are appropriate, but artwork that is not or vice versa. Again, this is a work in progress.The non-fiction section needs a lot of work at the moment. Many resources are out of date or uninspiring and unattractive. It is more difficult to sources resources on some subjects than others because they are outdated so quickly – subjects like technology and geography are quickly out of date. This subject has reminded me of the value of almanacs for this purpose. I think this is an area I would like to explore more fully in the fullness of time. It is also an area in which I think a digital collection could be very useful. It is much easier and cheaper to update websites and links than it is to update the print collection.

Our digital collection is almost non-existent at this point, though I have recently been successful in gaining approval for an ebook subscription trial through Wheelers. The next stage of this trial is to recruit some students to evaluate it. I like that it is accessible from any device – iOS, Android or browser based. I like that there are collections that have been curated already to start us off and that we can add other titles over time as we have a chance to review them. Another method of enhancing the digital collection is by including in Oliver web-based resources. I will begin by looking through the SCIS database as there is a plethora of resources and suggestions available there. I must create some method of regularly checking that the links are still active. I will include this as a task in the annual stocktake but perhaps more regular checking will be important, as I alluded to in my post about Scootle recently. Perhaps I can teach the students how to use the “send resource” function to alert me to any issues they discover, thus harnessing the people power of our 900 students, and hopefully offering another way of interacting with the library.

The collection of items such as kits is fairly small in the school library at the moment as this has been under the perview of subject coordinators at my school. Science resources are kept in the science store, for example and are not part of the library collection. I think this needs to change as it is not very effective. Nothing is catalogued, the storeroom is a bombsite and noone knows what is there or how to find it. In the fullness of time, this is a project I would like to take on, but at the moment it is a longer term plan. Visual items, such as maps, posters and AV resources, has, in my opinion become less vital in recent years with the advent of technology that can access these items on an as-needed basis and the items are more likely to be up-to-date. This is always supposing that the digital collection is up to scratch to assist teachers and students to find such quality resources. This is not the case at the moment.

Selecting format: hardcopy or ebook

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Myrberg and Wiberg (2015) suggest that ebooks and print books both have advantages and disadvantages depending on the task, the preferences of the user and the technology used to access them. They suggest that readers who prefer print books, once they get used to ebooks, use them just as efficiently, but also suggest that ebooks that are born digital – ie were designed for electronic use and take advantage of the various tools such as integrated dictionaries, placing questions next to the relevant parts of the text etc, are superior to ebooks that have been converted from print to digital media with minimal changes or utilisation of the ereader’s facilities. Meanwhile, Du Temple (2020) suggests that some of the key advantages of ebooks are the anonymity of the reader – they can be accessed privately without peers or teachers knowing what has been selected – and their accessibility – they can be accessed at any time of the day or night and in almost any location. This, she argues means that teens, particularly, are more likely to explore and seek help for social-emotional or mental health issues they may be dealing with. Gray (2017) raises issues around equity of access – ebooks are only available to students whose families can afford to buy them an ereader or tablet/phone. He also discusses the problem of cross-platform access – some resources are only available on certain devices. This problem has largely been solved by apps such as Libby which allow readers to access materials from subscribed libraries regardless of the platform they use.  There are also issues around whether the library is spending its limited budget acquiring titles permanently in the collection, or just providing access for a time. What happens if that access is no longer able to be included in the annual budget?

What, then, are the implications for my primary school library? Currently my library does not provide access to any ebooks or audiobooks at all. Should they be added to the collection and in what form? I believe that both hard and softcopies are useful to different people in different ways and the ideal scenario would see all titles available in both formats. Of course, budgets do not allow for this. Perhaps this is an opportunity for student-led selection. I don’t believe that there will ever be an excuse to do away entirely with the print collection, however, I do think that ebooks could play an important part in areas of the collection that are quickly outdated such as technology, international politics and scientific advancements. Many reference materials might be included in the electronic collection, some, such as encyclopedias, in place of print copies and some, such as dictionaries and thesauruses, in addition to it. This is always assuming that the teacher librarian has included in the selection criteria for the digital materials the frequency of update available for the ebook and the pattern this takes. If a digital book automatically provides access to the most recent update when accessed by a student, this is ideal. If on the otherhand, a digital file must be checked regularly for updates and these downloaded individually, this needs to be factored in to the library staff workflow and is, from a practical perspective, unlikely to be possible.

One must consider whether it is necessary or desirable for fiction and non-fiction, and indeed junior fiction titles to be included in the digital collection. Many junior students at our school do not have the technology skills to access ebooks readily, but many older students seem much happier to read fiction than non-fiction in electronic format. I suspect that this is because linear reading styles typical of fiction books are more easily navigated on an ereader than the dip in and out style of non-fiction texts.

Another spanner in the works is the recent extraordinary times we find ourselves in. During lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic, students are not able to access any of our library titles. If they were available in a digital collection, at least they could get some use out of them. As it is, though, the print collection sits on shelves in a deserted building, gathering dust.

 

Du Temple, T, (2020). The positive potential of ebooks within school libraries. SCIS Connections, (113). https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-113/the-positive-potential-of-ebooks-within-school-libraries
Gray, M. (2017). Ebooks: To subscribe, or not to subscribe? SCIS Connections (101). https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-101/ebooks-to-subscribe-or-not-to-subscribe
Myrberg, C., & Wiberg, N. (2015). Screen vs. paper: what is the difference for reading and learning?. Insights, 28(2), 49–54. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.236

Website Evaluation Criteria

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Evaluating the quality of information presented on a website is a skill targeted by teacher librarians in their information literacy programs, starting from the early years. As students develop the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, begin to be able to identify the purpose of an article and learn to find and use information, it becomes increasingly important that they learn to evaluate the content they encounter. In a primary school setting, teacher librarians need a model for evaluation of content that is simple enough for students to remember and implement, but also effective. Below are some thoughts on what such a model could look like.

 

C Current/complete Is the date of publication shown? (not just today’s date)
Is the date recent?
Have big changes happened since the article was written?
Does the article show the whole picture?
L Language Is there emotive language?
Is there exaggeration or sweeping statements?
Is technical language used to help or hinder?
A Author Is the author identified?
Is the publisher identified?
Is the sponsor identified?
Can you contact the author for clarification?
P Proof Are facts backed up with trusted sources?
Are claims supported by evidence?
Are other perspectives acknowledged?
Do other articles agree or disagree?
Are further readings linked?
Do other trusted sources link to this article?
Do links work?

 

Technical criteria

In addition to criteria considered by students in evaluating online content, there are technical considerations for teacher librarians looking to recommend online resources to the school community. Teacher librarians should consider accessibility requirements as well as layout, usability, relevance to the curriculum, reading and cognitive level, balance between text and images and appropriateness to the context.

However, some technical aspects such as downloading speed, avoidance of Flash, responsiveness, adaptability to different browsers, whether information is held behind paywalls or require user accounts to view, should be considered. Cumbrowski (2018) suggests many other issues for consideration, however, many of these aspects are beyond the needs of most teacher librarians and are more relevant for web developers looking to have their sites indexed more readily by search engines.

Cumbrowski, C. (2018, March 22). 50 questions to evaluate the quality of your website. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/evaluate-website-quality/233555/#close

ETL501 – Module 2.1 – print vs digital reference materials

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In her article Why libraries should retain a core print reference collection (Lederer, 2016), Lederer makes several points regarding the value of print reference materials. Many of her points relate to convenience and the longevity of print reference resources. How to these points relate to the primary school context? In the usual course of events, there are very few primary students learning only online and needing access to online only resources (though during the current pandemic, this is different) and so they usually have access to the print collection as easily or more easily than the online collection. Primary students, especially in the junior years may have difficulty being able to log in to the computer at all, let alone navigate to and through an online environment.

The level of detail and currency required for curriculum activities is less demanding than in Lederer’s academic library context. Many primary students who are still developing literacy and computer skills may have a good deal of difficulty accessing digital reference materials independently. Often they cannot read the results they find, if they manage to find the articles, though if the source uses assistive technology such as immersive readers, audio and video content, they can access the information more readily. Primary students require more generalised resources with much lower reading levels and more reliance on visual content, yet they are still learning to interpret that visual content. Having the teacher librarian available to conduct regular lessons on how to access and use reference materials is vital.  Also, seeing the print resources on the shelf during lunchtime or independent reading times means many students choose to explore these texts by flipping through, not looking for specific information but becoming familiar with the form and composition of the text.

Digital resources are much more difficult to navigate and explore when the user doesn’t have a specific question in mind. Primary students may not have any basic understandings of topics they are asked to investigate, whereas students in a high school or academic library usually have at least some context or background knowledge around what they are investigating. Reference materials are perfect for users who need to gain a general understanding of the their topic.

Lederer, N. (2016). Why libraries should retain a core print reference collection. The Reference Librarian, 57(4), 307-322. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2016.1145093

WTL501 – Module 2.1 – Reference Materials

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Farmer (2014) provides a guide to the development of the reference collection in American schools. It is clear that the information is specifically targeted towards American schools, however it is still relevant to Australian school librarians. Farmer suggests that librarians should be careful to select materials that contain American spellings and measurements, which is also true of Australian librarians, though, of course, including English spellings and decimal measurements.
Farmer points out the necessity of keeping the collection current and the fact that many reference titles are quickly out-of-date. Many school libraries do not have the funds to be updating these volumes every year, if, in fact a print update is available. While it is important to provide current reference materials, this is not an indication that older versions are not useful in a school for purposes other than locating factual information. Primary school libraries provide materials used to teach students about textual features such as indexes, contents pages, bibliographies, directories etc and this does not always require up-to-the-minute accuracy and currency, though it would be an added bonus if this was also the case. This has to be balanced against the competing needs of other curriculum areas the budget must cover. Recently in my school library we attempted to purchase class sets of updated atlases of the world. The most up-to-date edition we could buy in print form was from 2009 and contains suggestions to readers that they consult the online version for updates. We decided to purchase them anyway as it is deemed important to provide class sets of print copies for the purpose of teaching map-reading skills as well as textual features of atlases and reference books more generally.
Farmer suggests that it is important to consider hardware and software requirements when selecting digital reference materials. While this is certainly a concern, it is one that needs to be addressed not only from the point of view of the library computers, but also the universal usage by library users at home who may be using any number of different operating systems, old or new hardware with varying amounts of processing oe display power. In recent times, many reference material publishers have made their products available on a number of platforms and in a variety of formats such as websites, mobile or responsive websites, apps, cloud-based streaming services etc, that do not necessarily rely on the user having the most up-to-date technology available. This is important for patrons accessing content remotely, but also means that these services are in direct competition for student attention with sites such as Wikipedia, meaning that the educational programs offered by the library need to be on point in this regard.
In addition to the resources listed by Farmer and Alderman (2014), Australian school libraries might consider providing syllabus documents and professional readings collections in the teachers’ reference collection and conversion charts of common measurements and spelling differences between traditional English and American English. They might consider language references for First Nations languages and cultural materials.
A thought occurs that, as print-based materials are out-dated so quickly, digital resources should have an advantage. Perhaps signage and advertisements for these digital materials should be displayed in the reference area of the library. Perhaps teacher librarians should be including specific lessons about how these materials can and should be used in the library program, especially in primary schools where more students are likely to experience regular contact with the library through the RFF program.
Farmer, L. S. J. (2014). Introduction to reference and information services in today’s school library. Rowman & Littlefield.
Alderman, J. (2014). What is a reference collection? LIS1001 Beginning Library Information Systems & Strategies. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=bliss

Module 3.1: Stress

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Cross (2015) identifies teacher stress as a major factor in the attrition rate of teachers at all career stages, but especially early career teachers. She identifies as major factors leading to teacher stress:

  • excessive workload,
  • pressures of assessment targets and inspections,
  • changes to curriculum and teaching styles including a lack of decision making contributions,
  • false public perceptions of teachers coupled with poor student behaviour and management of that behaviour leading to poor self esteem and self-efficacy,
  • aggression and
  • classroom and school culture.

Clement (2014) suggests that some factors contributing to teacher stress as it derives from educational change are:

  • feeling a sense of compulsion,
  • a lack of opportunity for meaning-making and
  • teacher perception of change as transitory.

Protective factors against teacher stress, as identified by Cross (2015):

  • resources to increase sense of self-efficacy,
  • connectedness with students and colleagues,
  • support from colleagues and
  • receiving recognition for their work.

Bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as “an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments”, in other words, a belief that they are able to be successful. so, how might teacher librarians work to reduce the stress of our colleagues? I believe the key lies in the relationships that we develop with and between colleagues. Servant leadership, characterised by listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of others, and building community (Spears, n.d in Burkus, 2010) presents an opportunity to build those relationships and address the needs of colleagues. From a more practical standpoint, teacher librarians can assist by curating a collection of professional learning resources directly around areas of need, analysing and synthesising and then publishing information about key changes and developments in educational theory, provision of instructional leadership as needed, by team teaching with colleagues, modelling key strategies, targeting teaching to areas of curriculum need, eg approaching some HSIE content during library lessons from an information literacy perspective. Collection and curation of resources both for students’ and teachers’ learning needs and promoting them at point of immediate need is an important skill for teacher librarians. Provision of a safe space, a cone of silence, for problems to be talked out can make colleagues feel heard and increase a sense of contribution to the overall direction of the school.

Teacher librarians can also support plans and initiative of the leadership team by promoting the advantages and resources needed to complete the tasks needed.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.

Burkus, D. (2010, April 1). Servant leadership theory. David Burkus. http://davidburkus.com/2010/04/servant-leadership-theory/

Clement, J. (2014). Managing mandated educational change. School Leadership & Management, 34(1), 39-51. https://doi: 10.1080/13632434.2013.813460

Cross, D. (2015). Teacher well being and its impact on student learning [Slide presentation]. Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia. http://www.research.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2633590/teacher-wellbeing-and-student.pdf

CSU Library

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Go to the CSU Library and explore the library site. How does this library change information sources to information resources? Record 5 items in your notes and consider relevance in the school library context.

 

I am unable to access the physical CSU library due to location, so i evaluated the library website. As CSU is a university with a special interest and skill in distance education, I feel that this is an appropriate method of observing the services offered to distance students like myself. I have grouped my observations into 5 groups:

  1. organisation of information sources by subject
  2. educational offerings such as tutorials and workshops
  3. book-based and digital resource lending
  4. Ask A Librarian service
  5. community services such as access for high schools and alumni

The CSU library offers students studying particular subjects curated readings that are searchable by subject as well as by topic, author and keywords. This service includes reserve and e-reserve, reading lists, industry specific database access, but also includes teams of librarians dedicated to particular disciplines. The CSU library employs:

These teams are responsible for selection and deselection and curation of discipline-specific resources. Employing focused teams of specialist librarians allows the library to ensure it is providing the most comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant resources for students and academic staff. These teams can collaborate with teaching staff on course development and resource provision to ensure the collection is as relevant and current as possible and meets the needs of students and academic staff alike. In school libraries, this is done on a much smaller scale. Usually the teacher librarian collaborates with class teachers or subject teams to do the same job as the faculty teams at CSU library: ensuring teachers and students have access to current, relevant resources.

The CSU library offers students workshops, tutorials and recorded webinars on aspects of information literacy, including assignment writing advice, research assistance, digital citizenship advice etc. Students can access this information at point of need or can peruse more general subjects at their leisure. In the school library, these skills are often taught in library lessons or during one-on-one student assistance or booked classes. In high schools, it may be appropriate to include some similar resources on the library website.

The print and digital collection is made available to students and staff of the university through the Primo interface. Using authorised access points along with browsing options, library users can discover resources that suit their needs and can request these resources be posted or digitised for distance students. Providing access to a variety of databases as well as interlibrary loans provides access to a greater variety of resources than would be available in a traditional print-based lending library. Teacher librarians can work to form community partnerships with local public libraries as well as specialist collections such as the Henry Parkes Equity Centre Library in order to increase the offerings for the school community.

The Ask A Librarian service assists students and staff by providing research assistance and providing help to intellectually access the information resources available through the library. By responding to requests for information not only with the answer to the question, but with an explanation as to how that answer was obtained, librarians can model for patrons how information seeking can be undertaken. Teacher librarians do this in schools everyday, though usually in person. Recently the Softlink team added an “Ask the library” button to the LMS Oliver, allowing students to ask questions remotely, which may be particularly useful for students who wish to investigate sensitive or personal subjects.

The CSU library offers access to its collections and services for alumni and high school students, increasing the information opportunities for students and, simultaneously raising the profile of the university and university library in the community.

ETL402 Assessment 2 Part B

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Reflection

Upon beginning ETL402 – see my post ETL402: Literature Across the Curriculum (Hahn, 2020, November 7), I identified that a significant skill I wanted to develop is matching of user with literature. I suspected that it involved a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of the literature landscape, collection, students, and curriculum. I hoped to expand my knowledge of each element and their interactions. And so I have.

In my post, ETL402 Module 1.1 (Hahn, 2020, November 14), I discussed the instructive nature of children’s literature: the religious focus may have shifted, but students are still learning from literature. Teacher librarians must ensure the collection is developed continually, offering a broad selection of current, quality literature in various formats, supporting the curriculum and specific needs of the school community. Resource promotion at point-of-need is important. In my post ETL402 Module 2.1 Professional Knowledge of Children’s Literature (Hahn, 2020, November 21), I discussed strategies for connecting teachers with literature. The creation of reading lists tagged with syllabus links (Cherrstrom and Boden, 2020) has been positive in conjunction with a reference interviews. Annotated bibliographies have been developed, however staff are reluctant to read them. Book talking at planning meetings proved very successful. This leads me to suspect, and Merga (2019) and Bishop (2011) confirm, collaborative magic lies in the relationships teacher librarians form with teachers.

Diversity is a goal for my school library. My module 2.3a forum post (Hahn, 2020, December 5) identified an indigenous literature focus, but it applies equally to other types of diversity. It is important for all students to see themselves reflected in the literature available to them (Crisp et al., 2016) and yet our collection does not adequately depict the lived experiences of our students. Reflecting through a censorship lens, I do not believe this was a deliberate act of exclusion, rather, a failure to pay specific attention to inclusion. I am less certain that this is true of subculture representations such as LGBTQ. Careful and deliberate selection of literature with prominent, diverse characters will be imperative.

Despite Pietschmann’s (2014) contention that primary students cannot comprehend intertextual links sufficiently to access transmedia content, it is through interaction with such content that they will develop these skills (Sukovic, 2014). It will therefore be necessary to augment the digital collection, an area currently almost non-existent in our fiction collection, a not unusual situation, according to O’Connell et al. (2015) but one that must be addressed. As my discussion post for module 5.2 (Hahn, 2020, December 28) suggests, an important notion I will take away is that the digital nature of a resource must give the reader/viewer something that cannot be accessed from the print version.

The teacher librarian is a leader of pedagogy as well as of literature and literacy. Collaboration with class teachers, promotion of resources from a literary learning perspective and provision of professional literature and development required to implement such learning is a vital part of what we do and contributes greatly to the impact the school library can have. The promotion of free reading and literary engagement is vital. My post, Expanding free reading ETL402 (Hahn, 2021, January 2), described two strategies I would like to implement during browsing sessions and discussion in the module 3.1 forum provided many others.

Part B Reference List

Allen & Unwin. (2009, June 25). Anita Heiss — Aboriginal writing: Literature as a political tool [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/0x_34uJww_E

 

Bishop, K. (2011). Connecting libraries with classrooms : The curricular roles of the media specialist. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

 

Cherrstrom, C. A., & Boden, C. J. (2020). Expanding role and potential of curation in education: A systematic review of the literature, The Reference Librarian, 61(2), 113-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2020.1776191

 

Crisp, T., Knezek, S. M., Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., Girardeau, K., & Starks, F. (2016). What’s on Our Bookshelves? The Diversity of Children’s Literature in Early Childhood Classroom Libraries. Journal of Children’s Literature, 42(2), 29–42.

 

Merga, M. (2019). Collaborating with teacher librarians to support adolescents’ literacy and literature learning. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 63 (1), 65-72 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.958

 

O’Connell, J., Bales, J., & Mitchell, P. (2015). [R]Evolution in reading cultures: 2020 vision for school libraries. Australian Library Journal, 64(3), 194–208. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/00049670.2015.1048043

 

Pietschmann, D. Volkel, S. & Ohler.P. (2014). Limitations of transmedia storytelling for children: A cognitive development analysis. International Journal of Communication, 8, 2259-2281. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/2612/1205

 

Sukovic, S. (2014). iTell: Transliteracy and Digital Storytelling. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 45(3), 205–229. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/00048623.2014.951114

Transliteracy

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Kalogeras (2014) describes media convergence as the flow of content across multiple media platforms. Transliteracy is the ability to combine information from these multiple platforms into an integrated whole. My school library has done this well in the non-fiction domain, offering platforms such as the print collection, internet access, subscriptions to World Book Online and the creation of digital pathfinders for various units of work that incorporate primary sources, video and audio content, artwork etc for use by students and class teachers in their studies, mainly within HSIE.

The same, however, can not be said for the fiction collection. The only offering, aside from the print collection, is a subscription to Storybox Library. There are currently no audiobooks, ebooks, DVDs, games or websites included in the collection. This is an area which I would like to learn more about. I need to develop my knowledge of strategies to be leveraged, resources to be sought out and the best methods of making these available to the school community. Many of our students have ereaders – I have seen them use them for silent reading activities. I think we are missing an opportunity here. I hope that this module will provide some of the answers and suggest areas for further investigation in order to pitch to the TL and the school leadership.

 

Kalogeras, S. (2014)Transmedia storytelling and the new era of media convergence in higher education. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1057/9781137388377