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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.

ETL501: Critical Reflection

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I undertook ETL501 in order to understand more about effective design choices. My school is currently modernising our library space (Hahn, 2021, July 3). Assessment 1 allowed me to identify solutions to the pain points. Main changes now planned are the creation of distinct zones and use of half-height shelving to delineate those spaces and to act as traffic-management devices. Nicole Bolden (Bolden, 2021, September 21) suggested that signage should be prioritised: a solid idea because, not only does it allow library users to locate the resources they need, but the process of creating it also assists the new TL to become more familiar with the collection – a vital understanding to develop, teamed with an understanding of the needs of the school community.

Resource selection for my Library Resource Guide needed to be teamed with presentation. I needed to consider how to present content in a way that is open enough to encourage emerging independent inquiry skills, but structured enough to provide quality, engaging resources for content learning (Kuhlthau et al, 2015). In order to achieve desired depth of understanding, I needed to significantly narrow my scope of content. Some students would have limited independent reading skill. This presented significant challenge. Using the readability tester from Webfx, I was repeatedly reminded that, often, texts present more challenge to students than expected, highlighting the difficulty students have in negotiating the online (and print) environment, underscoring the importance of digital curation in the role of TL (Cherrstrom & Boden, 2020). By including commentary on difficulty, expected content and suggestions for integration of new knowledge into existing schemas, skills of source selection, analysis and critical thinking were developed.

While inquiry learning aims to develop skills for independent and lifelong learning (Kuhlthau et al, 2015), most students in Stage 2 could be expected to need significant teacher support. Consequently, I chose to create my Library Resource Guide to include information for teachers and to present sources that would provoke discussions, allowing the teacher and TL to model and explicitly teach needed skills. Scaffolding and developing information literacy skills is a vital component of the role of the TL (Aisah et al, 2018) and so, as well as narrowing the content focus of my Guide, I also narrowed the information literacy skills taught to allow students to deepen their understanding and familiarisation with each skill in order to overcome the superficial use digital resources described by Coombes (2019).

Creating digital learning resources is an important aspect of the work of a TL. In the Module 5.2 forum, I commented that specialised and nuanced subject knowledge required to create effective research guides for secondary libraries is different to primary school libraries, where the subject content is less technical. This is not, as Jodie Lednor (Lednor, 2021, October 1) suggested, to say that secondary TLs cannot or should not create such resources, rather articulate the importance of collaboration with subject specialists. One of my 2022 learning goals is to develop my skill in reference interviews. I believe these techniques could establish exactly what a teacher requires students to do and understand as a result of their inquiry, and therefore guide the development of resources. Ross et al (2019) offer guidance on this topic and I look forward to implementing their strategies and learning others during ETL507.

References

Aisah, M. A., Abrizah, A., Idaya Aspura, M. K. Y., & Wan Dollah, W. A. K. (2018). Development of an information literate school community: Perceived roles and practices of teacher librarians. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 23(2), 63–75. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.22452/mjlis.vol23no2.4

 

Bolden, N. (2021, Spetember 21). Effective Information Service. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_57506_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_114042_1&forum_id=_241160_1&message_id=_3804327_1

 

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.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/02763877.2020.1776191

 

Coombes, B. (2009). Generation Y: Are they really digital natives or more like digital refugees? Synergy, 7(1), 31–40. https://search-informit-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/10.3316/aeipt.178236

 

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2015). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century, 2nd Edition . Libraries Unlimited.

 

Lednor, J. (2021, October 1). Re: Creating Resources. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_57506_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_114042_1&forum_id=_241159_1&message_id=_3808932_1

Ross, C. S., Nilsen, K. & Radford, M. L. (2019) Conducting the reference interview: A how-to-do-it manual for librarians, 3rd edition. ALA Neal-Schuman. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/detail.action?docID=5850100

ETL504 Assignment 2 Part B

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Part B – Reflection

Before beginning ETL504, my thoughts about educational leadership were limited. My view of leadership as a top-down, formal and hierarchical structure dictated by the organisational chart of the school was, I have come to see, overly simplistic. This is evidenced in Assignment 1 wherein I was just beginning to see the importance of less authoritarian leadership styles, and formed an appreciation for changing staff engagement in different leadership groups. I wrote about teacher librarians supporting teachers through collaboration, which itself represented a change in thinking. Not so much that I did not appreciate the need for collaboration previously, but that this constituted a form of leadership.

I was always aware that some teachers had the capacity to be more enlightening and guiding than others. The difference between the “experienced teachers” and the “dinosaurs” was quite obvious, but I had not attempted to describe or name the phenomena. One way in which my thinking has changed is by developing an ability to articulate thoughts on leadership. This has led me to develop the idea that if one learns to name and describe a phenomena in language, one develops a more detailed schema that then supports other thinking. The importance of nominalisation and articulation through language is well documented in the field of psychology, it turns out, and is a concept I would like to read more about.

Through this subject I have learned the importance of creating staff engagement in order for change management processes to be successful (Pennington, n.d.). Staff need not only to be enthused about the change, but also be involved in professional development around the implications, opportunities and considerations involved in change. In her 15th March post (Styles, 2021, March 15), Yvette discussed her experience with creating flexible and collaborative spaces. The result was less successful than it might be due to a number of factors, such as autocratic leadership style and lack. A mix of transformational and instructional leadership was needed. The transformational leader could engage all staff in the process, developing a shared vision and encouraging engagement. An instructional leader could facilitate staff learning around pedagogical changes made possible in the new environment. Targeting identified teacher leaders first could ensure their skills and influence are fully mobilised.

Throughout the subjects I have undertaken so far, advocacy has been an important concept, but I had not considered how other stakeholders might be mobilised in support of this goal. In my post “Leadership and Advocacy” (Hahn, 2021, May 5), I discussed a moment of discovery from module 6. I have decided that I need to focus more on activating the advocacy of others in support of the library program, as described by Kachel et al (2012) and to do that, I need to help them develop the language to recognise and articulate the ways in which the library program can support and add value to what they are already doing.

Digital technologies has been a focus area recently. I wrote about plans for development in my discussion posts on 25th April and 8th May. Using a combination of instructional leadership and teacher leadership, I plan to help my colleagues focus their attention on what they want their students to learn by using the technology, rather than focusing on how much fun they are having. To return to the syllabus to remember what it is that students need to learn and understanding why that learning is important is my goal for the professional development sessions I have now been given approval by the principal to run. ETL504 has helped me to consider the options available in terms of how this project should be approached. Giving a name to the various strategies available means I can learn more about how each works and be more deliberate in my choices. I have been influenced particularly by Farrell (2014), Weisburg & Walter (2010) and the practical advice offered by ASLA (2013) and AOSL (2013).

References

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). (2013). Empowering learners: Guidelines for school library programs. American Library Association. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/reader.action?docID=1342650&ppg=57

Australian School Library Association. (2013). Future learning in school libraries. ASLA. https://asla.org.au/future-Learning-paper

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.

Pennington, R. (n.d.). How to make change work [Vimeo]. https://vimeo.com/145795736

Styles, Y. (2021, March 15) RE: School direction [Online discussion comment]. Interact 2. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_55151_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_110083_1&forum_id=_227669_1&message_id=_3421739_1

Weisburg, H. K. & Walter, V.A. (2010). Being indispensable: A school librarian’s guide to becoming an invaluable leader. American Library Association.

What attributes makes a good leader?

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I have been fortunate in my professional life to have worked with some amazing and inspiring leaders. They each have their unique abilities and characteristics and have been effective in different areas and roles within the school and with different types of tasks.

I worked with Margaret in my first years of teaching. As AP, She provided a positive model of how to run a class to me as a very new teacher. She offered feedback that was timely, useful and within my zone of proximal development. She encouraged teamwork and facilitated collaborative planning and preparation, encouraging each member of the team to rely on the others, ultimately showing that each member was reliable, capable and trusted to do their job well. Her special skill lay in servant leadership and team dynamics.

A few years later I worked for AP and later DP, Rae. She had a way of keeping the workload and expectations manageable. In her everyday, get the job done, arrive at the end of the week, task oriented leadership, she kept the team on track by setting realistic goals, providing plenty of notice about work that needed doing and taking care to keep student learning at the forefront of all discussions and decision making. She developed positive relationships with all members of the school community and was proactive in dealing with issues as they arose. This meant that students, parents, teachers and the school leadership all felt a sense of shared direction and support and that she had their best interests at heart.

Currently I am working with a teacher leader who, although relatively new to teaching, brings a wealth of experience in other industries with her as well as experience bringing her own two boys through the special education sector. Jo has a way of listening and getting to the heart of a problem quickly and succinctly. She is intelligent as well as intensely practical and identifies problems before they begin, allowing her to be proactive and avoid potential pitfalls. Jo asks questions and really considers the answers. She identifies those people who know about topics she is investigating and asks for help as needed. Similarly, she offers advice and counsel to others as needed and people listen. She is a reflective practitioner and skilled communicator.

In thinking about the leadership qualities demonstrated by these leaders, I see that the attributes that make a good leader are:

great communicator
reflective practitioner
excellent listener
proactive
considered, thoughtful and measured
collaborative
a model of best practice

Module 3.2: Conflict resolution

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I was struck in this module by the TED Talk given by Campbell ad Clarke (2015) in which the presenters discuss the desirability of using conflict to promote creativity and innovation by looking at situations from other perspectives. I think this is a skill that can work in an educational setting, given the right people involved. Both parties would need to come to the discussion prepared to hear the perspectives of the other before any progress could be made. This is a skill that can be modelled, taught and expected by leaders both of teachers and students. Most people do not go into situations of conflict just to be oppositional (though, it must be acknowledged that some people are bull-headed). I take the view that perhaps the other party in the conflict knows or feels something I don’t know about. If I take the time to investigate why they think or feel the way they do, I can understand their perspective more clearly. Perhaps they may have a point. And perhaps not. I will admit, though, that I am more likely to spend time and effort on these issues if the person I am in conflict with is someone who’s opinion I usually respect. This I have the luxury to indulge because I am not currently their leader. If I were to become their leader, I would need to change this. Taking the self-assessment, results show that I am relatively good at compromise and collaboration, but also score above half-way for avoidance, competing and accommodating. I believe this is probably true and reflects my tendency to approach conflicts differently with different people. I would like to improve my skills in turning conflict into an opportunity to grow by exploring other perspectives. I think this could be a very powerful tool in the right hands.

 

Campbell, C.M & Clarke, S. [TEDx Talks ]. (2015).  Conflict – Use it, don’t defuse it [Video]. YouTube.  https://youtu.be/o97fVGTjE4w

Distribution of leadership

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What strategies to take you from TL, the keeper and stamper of the books and the quiet space (library) (how many of our colleagues perceive TLs), to become something different?

The role of the TL is so much more complex than many of our colleagues realise. We are the keeper of the books, though scanning has taken the place of stamping in most schools. We are the keepers of the (sometimes) quiet space, but we also are leaders in our learning communities. Among our colleagues, we form communities of practise and learning. Through collaboration we can both model and learn new teaching approaches, we can pose questions and encourage ways of thinking that previously lurked unrecognised in a TR cupboard. We can collaborate on curriculum development, integration of technology and information skills into the wider curriculum, attaching a genuine purpose to the skills students must learn in these areas.

The space we keep is not just quiet. It is a cone of silence. We listen to peoples’ troubles, concerns, frustrations and annoyances and provide a prodigious amount of chocolate and bickies to keep them coming back. By listening to our colleagues both individually and as a group, by keeping our ears to the ground we can start to recognise patterns and point them in the direction of assistance. We can recognise and celebrate the achievements of our colleagues and are in a position to communicate and promote various initiatives within the school and from the leadership that aim to address the frustrations. In an ideal world, the principal is in a position to provide visionary leadership – to develop transformational goals and map the pathways to success (Ingram, 2017). They motivate and inspire their staff to keep them on the paths set out. The DPs provide the transactional leadership – they keep the wheels in motion, putting out the spot fires and dealing with the day to day operations of the school, keeping the big picture in mind. The APs also provide transactional leadership, keeping the ball rolling and dealing with the everyday smooth running of their stage. The TL provides the servant leadership – focusing on trust, collaboration, empathy and ethics (Burkus, 2010). The TL works to promote the best interests of colleagues, students and the community.

Each leader has role to play in the success of the school. In this way, leadership in the school is often actually a type of distributed leadership – not because some leaders are responsible for different key learning areas, or certain initiatives, but because they are responsible for providing the very different types of leadership needed to keep the school both ticking over and reaching for the next milestone in their improvement journey.

References

Ingram, D. (2019, Fevruary 4). Transformational leadership vs transactional leadership definition. Hearst Newspapers: Small Business. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/transformational-leadership-vs-transactional-leadership-definition-13834.html

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

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

INF447: Research in Practice concluding reflections

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This subject has been the hardest so far on my TL journey. I think this is probably due in very large part to the completely new nature of the content. Even when completing my first undergraduate courses, I had some familiarisation with the content because, after all, I had been to school and could remember at least a little of what it was like. Enough to make connections to the content I was being asked to learn. I think I have two key take-aways from this subject. One is a new understanding of reading and interpreting research documents. Understanding that sometimes that which is not published can be as significant as that which is. The design and execution, the methodology chosen and the paradigms underpinning the research available to practitioners carries so much meaning, has taken the researchers time and effort to think out and analyse. Yet it is in analysis of generalisability or transferrability that the true power of INF447 becomes apparent. One must first establish that the topic and content of a piece of research is relevant to the setting in which one works before any of the findings can be usable at all. It seems now that this should be obvious, but I don’t think I could have articulated it before. It is something that I may have noticed after the fact of reading it, but now will be one of the first things I establish deliberately.

The second key take-away will be the effect of the above on the students in my future library. Both as regards the new content and the need to establish relevance of information sought. I have always known that any new content presented to students must be located for them within their general schema of knowledge such that they may make their connections to their lives, to their existing knowledge and to other content presented. I did this naturally in developing my lessons but henceforth I shall make a deliberate point in every lesson of making clear what learning is expected of students and where that new information fits within existing knowledge.

This subject served to point out that information to be learned must be relevant and used in a meaningful way as a direct result of the teaching and learning activities. Looking back, I think this was one of a great many disservices to modern history that were played out in my high school education. Information was presented but its relevance and usefulness was not established and therefore the information was not retained. This must be a cautionary example.

On completion of ETL505

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What an enjoyable subject! Before beginning this subject, I really thought I had a handle on how our library’s classification system worked and could be used. Yet again, I was to find that what we don’t know that we don’t know is what it is all about. I have a new appreciation for subject headings and ScOT terms, a clearer (though admittedly still a little cloudy) idea of how Dewey Classifications are developed and how resource description can be.. I was going to write helpful, but really so very useful when done fully and correctly.

My students are also benefiting already. Because I understand not only what the information in the catalogue means, but how it was created and what other options there were (indicating not only what it is, but what it is not) I can help students to find or identify – in the non-FRBR sense – what it is that they need. I have a new appreciation for authority files and what can go wrong when they are constructed inexpertly. Having a look at the series classifications that come from SCIS now, compared with those that were downloaded a few years ago is one example of how these can be used effectively.

I find the SCIS website easy to use and the subject headings etc really quite simple. As long as one follows the rules, it is a straightforward enough process to identify what goes where and why. WebDewey, on the otherhand, I am still trying to wrap my head around. The concept of assigning a numerical representation to the topics or subjects of a resource seems simple enough, but when it comes to drilling down into the various options within each classification, I still get a little lost. The example of the motorbike repair given in the modules was a really good example. If you don’t know that there is a better option than the obvious one, how do you know to look for it? When should I spend time looking for other choices when what appears immediately seems an ok fit? This I am still pondering and I suspect the answer will lie in the realm of experience and becoming increasingly more familiar with the content.

I have very much enjoyed using the workbooks in this subject. I like that there is one correct answer and, if I understand well enough, I will be able to find it. And if I don’t find it, I can tell immediately that I have not fully understood and need to revise that topic. The practical nature of the subject, ie that it has to do with how the library actually works and is something I can put into practise right now, is an aspect of this type of learning that I have found very appealing.

Beginning ETL505 – Describing and analysing educational resources

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The Interact2 site for my next subject, ETL505 was released today. So far, I have read the schedule and ordered the text book. I thought it might be instructive to record my initial thoughts about this subject before doing any reading or study, so that I might reflect and ruminate on my learning and how my understanding has changes over time.

This subject is about organising information and organising information resources such that someone who needs to use them will be able and likely to find them. This would, I think, have to do not only with physically locating a resource that is already known to the information seeker, but also to discovering of resources previously unknown, and determining their potential use and value to the users current information search. I hope that we shall learn about cataloging and the creation of bibliographic data. In my school library, Library management systems, such as Oliver, use the bibliographic information supplied by SCIS to create the catalog records that users search. But how do SCIS create those records? Sometimes, I change certain elements on the individual copies to enhance how I think my school community might locate and use the resource. For example, fairy tales often download as Junior Fiction, but in my library they are stored in Non-Fiction classified at 398.2 (folk and fairy tales) as most of the people who want them are not looking for a specific edition by a specific author, rather a more general need for the story, perhaps as part of a unit of work for the junior students. I hope that this subject will include some discussion of the impact of various choices when producing bibliographic data and perhaps how those choices enhance the ability and likelihood that they will be found and used.