Leadership on the surface is easy to understand, simplistically someone who is in charge of others and points them in the direction they want them to go. Before completing this subject I knew that leadership was more complicated than that, I had my own opinions on what makes a good leader and believed that I was unfortunately one of those natural born leaders based on my previous life experience. Throughout this session my beliefs about what leadership looks like have grown and developed in a number of ways.

Modules

My learning in the modules has broadened my definition of what leadership is and given me names to place with ideas that I already had. My biggest take-a-way from the modules was the interconnectedness of all the different leadership styles. Really for any organisation to work there is a need for many different styles of leadership. Gardners’ (2013) reading was my influential on creating the big picture of leadership as the “power of persuasion” and how it is often easy to confuse status with leadership. Combined with Moir et.al (2014) which showcased the importance of leadership on morale and how delicate it can be to lead in schools. Baker (2016) gave excellent practical tips on how teacher librarians can be a leader and develop partnership with the principal and teachers. Overall, I learned that leadership is complex, requires passion and hard work and thrives on collaboration, evaluation and clear communication.

I drew encouragement from the Canadian school libraries outlined in Koechlin & Sykes (2014) and how they were fostering learning by completely rejuvenating school libraries. Encouraging me to be a better advocate for school libraries. Finally, the need for strategic planning was discussed something that when I previously worked as a TL was lacking. Wong (2012) encouraged critical reflection, building a community profile and the constant need to set goals and assess regularly.

Case studies

During the case studies I was reminded of my own leadership styles and preferences. I typically lean towards servant and distributed leadership I believe that to be a leader we must also be willing to serve and show others how things are done. I also believe in sharing the load and giving people the opportunity to become leaders themselves. During our first group case study myself and another member of the group took the lead in organising how our group would communicate and bringing us together. I then volunteered to pull together our ideas at the end of the week once everyone had had a chance to contribute which was received well and allowed others to step up in later weeks, which they did. It was also encouraging to see the support given to members of the group that were struggling to meet time constraints in light of COVID-19, weeks where some of us were busy others engaged more and vice versa, though not strictly demonstrating distributed leadership it did show the advantages of collaboration and teamwork.

References

Baker, S. (2016). From teacher to school librarian leader and instructional partner: a proposed transformation framework for educators of preservice school librarians. School libraries worldwide, 22(1), 143-158. DOI: 10.14265.22.1.011

Gardner, J.W, (2013). The nature of leadership. In M Grogan (Ed.). The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (3rd ed., pp. 17-27). John Wiley & Sons.

Koechlin, C., & Sykes, J. (2014). Canadian school libraries leading learning. Synergy, 12(2). https://search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/fullText;dn=210689;res=AEIPT

Moir, S., Hattie, J. & Jansen, C.  (2014). Teacher perspectives of ‘effective’ leadership in schools. Australian Educational Leader, 36(4), 36-40.

Wong, T. (2012). Strategic long range planning. Library Media Connection, 31(2), 22-23

Reflecting on our first case study.

Leadership styles present –

Situational Leadership – Our group decided to have a video chat to get to know each other. Leaders emerged in the group based on experience with technology, use of wikis and the amount of course completed. Myself and another student took the lead in discussion and creating the wiki.

Transformational Leadership – This transitioned into transformational leadership as goals were set with deadlines for contribution to the wiki. With the shared goal of a paragraph length set and a number of references. This was agreed upon by the group.

Servant Leadership – My own personal style often links to servant leadership. I believe that to be a good leader you have to put others first and be willing to do what you are asking others to do. So I volunteered to compile the information given and present it in the main forum by the end of the week. I hope in turn this will motivate others to put themselves forward and be willing to serve during the next case study.

Initially it was difficult for us to decide upon a way of communicating that met everyones needs. I’m still not convinced we have. The face to face chat was excellent and bridged the gap of technology for many of us. However our group is unsure of how to use a wiki still with many choosing to use the comment section rather than being confident in altering the wiki itself.

To date this is the best video I have seen explaining wikis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

Module 1

2.1

Exploring the Library site – How does the CSU library change information sources into information resources?

• Granting access to articles and books
• Running classes to teach skills in information sourcing to students and staff
• Search Tools
• Allowing resources to be grouped by subjects and tags
• Opportunities to gather more resources by requesting articles from outside sources to be added to the collection

How does the content of Colvin’s article relate the school libraries? In point form, note down your thoughts on your blog.

Initial notes:

• Changing view of education from training factory workers to a 21st century skills in a knowledge based economy – Ken Robinson
• create, judge, imagine, relationships

When reading through the article I couldn’t help but be reminded of Ken Robinson’s talk “Changing Education Paradigms“. More explicitly about the concept of how schools were designed in the late 18th and early 19th century. This then caused my brain to go ding and remind me of the Framework for 21st Century Learning skills Website. On a more practical level this article made me think about the importance of teaching students in an open ended and Inquiry learning based model where students can practice these skills.

References –

Colvin, G. (2000). Managing in the info era. Fortune, 141(5). Retrieved from http://fortune.com/.

Partnership for Twenty First Century Learning. (2007). Framework for 21^st Century Learning, http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework

Robinson, K. (2010, October). Changing education paradigms

. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms