The Teacher Librarian could potentially face a number of challenges as they attempt to fulfil their role in the school. The push to implement and integrate GID to the curriculum across faculties and key learning areas in order to build the information literacy skills of students across grades, for example, could face a number of challenges to overcome.

For large schools with a high student population and a diverse and extensive staff, implementing one inquiry learning model would be difficult, to say the least. Each teacher has their own pedagogical approach to teaching and learning, and requesting changes on a school-wide scale would require support from executive staff, and a wide-spread understanding of the roles of teachers and teacher librarians in the inquiry learning process.

Garrison & FitzGerald reported on some challenges to collaboration in their 2019 research, which found, amongst other noteworthy results, that almost 41% of respondents only “sometimes” had collaboration between teachers and staff when planning and delivering inquiry learning units in their workplace (p. 6). Some of the biggest barriers identified were new colleagues (for both teacher librarians and teachers) or workplace environments, and concerns about time constraints and the perceived increases or changes in workload (p. 7). This wasn’t just reported by teachers. Teacher librarians reported that their library class time was more frequently being taken up by relief from face-to-face teaching for primary teachers – an organisation of time that does not facilitate collaboration between staff, and therefore does not facilitate the development and implementation of inquiry learning units.

Evidently, then, the support of executive staff, who are often those in charge of workloads and timetabling, and their understanding of the role of the teacher librarian is crucial to the successful implementation of inquiry learning to build information literacy skills in students.

It is not a process that could happen instantaneously, however, and TLs would be sure to face reluctance from other staff members. However, TL’s could support this process through informing staff, from SLSOs to those in executive positions, of the benefits, the most compelling of which is the transferrence of skills. The GID as a process teaches students to recognise how they learn, and teaches them a process for learning that is transferable across KLAs (other benefits can be found here). A TL should aim, therefore, to offer professional learning sessions where teachers are informed of the GID – how it works, how to implement it, and the support offered to them by the TL.

 

Reference List

Garrison, K., & FitzGerald, L. (2019). “One interested teacher at a time”: Australian Teacher Librarian Perspectives on Collaboration and Inquriy. International Association of School Librarianship. 1-10. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/2343152998?fbclid=IwAR01RLBXOmJJDjO7XLEM2fGguCT4_gnHeKDpo8DNPGIDaTpuYVk6nEZkwdE&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo