The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) published a set of professional standards for teachers in 2011. ALIA Schools (2014) published a document detailing the features of excellent teacher librarian practice, showing how teacher librarians might interpret the Professional Standards in their particular context and the sorts of evidence that might be available to demonstrate how the teacher librarian has met the Standards. ASLA (2014) also published its evidence guides for the Proficient and Highly Accomplished career stages.

Professional Standard 4.1 calls for teachers and teacher librarians to support student participation by “Establish[ing] and implement[ing] inclusive and positive interactions to engage
and support all students in classroom activities. ” (ALIA Schools 2014, p8).  within Standard 4.1, AITSL requires teacher librarians to establish and implement inclusive and positive interactions to engage and support all students in classroom activities. I do this by considering the special needs and interests of the students in the classes I teach. One example is a young man in Year 1, lets call him John. John displays many of the characteristics of high functioning autism but does not yet have a diagnosis of such. He responds well to lots of positive praise, explicit one step instructions with his name in the sentence, hand gestures to complement verbal cues and visual supports. John has a special interest in military history and weaponry. During one lesson in mid Term 3 of 2019 his class were learning to place an image into a PowerPoint presentation. I read Heads and Tails: Insects (Canty 2018) to his class to support their recent class work on using prediction as a reading strategy. I asked the students to copy and paste an image of their favourite insect from a bank provided onto their own slide. John expressed that he was not interested in insects. As I knew of his special interest, I suggested that he could select his favourite model of tank to include on his slide instead. Once he had a picture of a tank on the slide, he was then happy to copy and paste a dragonfly onto the side of the tank and told me a story about a dragonfly seeking the protection of the tank to avoid the enemy. While he did not complete the same task as the other students in his class, John did achieve the stated learning intention (copy and paste an image in PowerPoint). This small exchange demonstrates the importance of modifying tasks to suit the particular needs of students in order to create a learning environment that is inclusive and in which all students can be successful and access the learning content.

Standard 4.2 requires that teacher librarians “use effective strategies to create well-managed learning environments in the school library” and Standard 4.3 requires teacher librarians to  manage behaviour in their workplace (ASLA 2014, p.14). If I am being completely honest, this is something I am still working hard to improve. Many of my classroom management techniques translate well to the library setting. I can call student’s attention to something, manage groups, use prevention strategies, modify the physical environment to suit certain activities. I can modify learning activities, roam, use voice variation and humour and adjust management techniques to suit different age groups. However, I find the physical layout of the library at the moment to be challenging. The long, tall shelves of the non-fiction section invite students to hide and misbehave as they think they can’t be seen or heard. The bank of PCs sits behind the non-fiction shelves and can not be easily seen from other areas of the library and so students take advantage and are sometimes off task or misusing them particularly at browsing time. During this time many students need attention for their circulation needs and text selection questions and I find it difficult to manage the behaviour and attend to the circulation tasks simultaneously. I am seeking to address this by changing the layout of the library to put the tall shelving around the perimeter of the room and move the computers out into the middle of the room, or better yet, replace them with Chromebooks. Setting independent work tasks first for students and then inviting only the students who are borrowing to move off to browse the collection does seem to lessen the behaviour issues, however circulation rates drop significantly especially among those students who can least afford to avoid reading. This concerns me and I think this is not as useful a strategy as one would wish.

Standard 4.4 requires teacher librarians to be “aware of relevant current school curriculum and legislative requirements and implement these documents in library management and teaching practice”(ASLA 2014, p. 14). The introduction of the new Science and Technology syllabus (NESA 2017) in NSW schools has prompted our school staff to reflect on our teaching of digital technologies and ICT capabilities. The school’s scope and sequence for this area of study is under review. We are developing new cybersafety units of work and resources to support them. When complete, these will be suitable to demonstrate meeting this standard. In addition, the emergency procedure posters and maps that detail procedures in the case of a lock down, lock out or evacuation are displayed next to both exits from the library. Student medical information and first aid kit is displayed near the circulation desk and in the workroom. Rules for safe use of the library space are displayed and referred to in each lesson. The school’s PBEL visual prompts are displayed in prominent places. All of these features could be photographed and used as evidence of meeting this standard.

References

The Australian School Library Association (2014) Evidence guide for teacher librarians in the proficient career stage : Australian professional standards for teachers retrieved from https://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/AITSL%20Standards%20for%20teacher%20librarian%20practice%202014.pdf

ALIA Schools (2014) AITSL Standards for teacher librarian practice retrieved from https://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/AITSL%20Standards%20for%20teacher%20librarian%20practice%202014.pdf

Canty, J. (2017) Heads and tails: Insects. Kew East, Victoria: Berbay Publishing

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). (2017). Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus. Retrieved from https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/science/science-and-technology-k-6-new-syllabus