Professional Reflective Portfolio

Part A – Statement of Personal Philosophy

I believe that effective teacher librarians are those who constantly challenge and inspire students to become lifelong independent learners and critical and creative thinkers. In doing so, they equip students with the 21st century skills required to become global and digital citizens in an ever-changing information landscape. They are curriculum leaders who collaborate with the wider school community to promote the values of 21st century education and embed them within teaching and learning across the school environment. The most effective teacher librarians also inspire within their students a love for reading and an appreciation of literature beyond the classroom, allowing students to make connections between literature and the real world.

Part B – Evidence of Growth Through Key Themes

Key Theme 1: Information Literacy

In completing the first mandatory unit for this course, ETL401, I quickly became familiar with the concept of information literacy and the responsibility of the teacher librarian in developing such literacy in students (Johnson, 2020a). While there are many definitions around the concept of information literacy and different approaches to how it should best be taught to students, I found the joint statement on information literacy from the Australian School Library Association and the Australian Library and Information Association captured these thoughts best (ASLA & ALIA, 2016). This statement not only defines the essential skills needed for a student to become ‘informationally literate’, but also emphasises the teacher librarian’s role in this process and the role of inquiry learning as a framework to guide such learning.

Further study in ETL501 continued to strengthen my knowledge of this concept and emphasise the links between information literacy, digital literacy and the teaching of 21st century skills as essential practice. As teachers of information literacy we are not just teaching students to use and create information effectively, but we also need to teach students to become digital citizens, critical and creative thinkers and problem solvers (Twitchett, 2015). In essence, we are the information experts within the school and as 21st century educators we have a responsibility to our students to provide meaningful learning experiences that shape lifelong learning to best prepare our students for life beyond school (Quezzaire, 2018; Wall & Bonanno, 2014), a fact that has resonated with me very strongly.

As a trained history teacher moving into the library space at the beginning of this course, I had little experience with pedagogy and strategies to teach such concepts to students. In one of my earlier blog posts, I identified some of the initial strategies I used to approach teaching information literacy to students through a Stage 4 program based around the Information Search Process model (Johnson, 2020b). At this point of my journey, I had little knowledge of what I was doing and was relying upon an older model provided by the DET and employed by a number of other public schools in NSW. While this model certainly had its merits and I was able to create a number of scaffolds for students’ information processes (Figure 1), I found the concepts overwhelming for students and struggled to back up what I was doing with evidence and research.

**Figure 1:** Information Search Process Model scaffold I created for Year 7 Geography.

Continuing to work through the course I began to understand the value of Guided Inquiry Design, particularly with the students I was working with due to the collaborative affordances of the model and its consideration of the emotional states of students during the inquiry process (Garrison & Fitzgerald, 2016; Kuhlthau et al., 2012). I began to design an inquiry unit in collaboration with Year 7 science teachers based on the GID model and planned to implement the unit in 2021 with the Year 7 cohort in Science classes. However, due to unforeseen allocation issues and a lack of HSIE teachers, I was unfortunately tasked with teaching senior ancient history classes and no longer had enough time allocated to deliver the unit. Next year, with the school moving to a brand new site at the Meadowbank Education Precinct, an increase in the amount of teachers and with my role as the teacher librarian becoming more cemented in the school, I was able to negotiate greater time allocations for library lessons so that I can initiate the teaching of GID in the school. I hope that this will allow me to collaborate with teachers from other faculties to develop similar programs so that I can begin to develop a culture within the school around the teaching of information literacy and my role as the information expert.

Despite this initial setback however, I found other ways to develop students’ information literacy and work with other teachers to provide learning opportunities for students in this area. I was approached by a number of English and HSIE teachers to develop workshops for their senior classes to teach students about plagiarism, referencing, analysis sources online and effective note-taking. I took this opportunity with both hands and created a number of scaffolds and resources (Figure 2), as well as planning multiple lessons, and worked with these teachers to deliver learning experiences that developed these key literacies in senior students. This is something I continue in the library space, working with seniors and providing them with these resources to support their study and develop their information literacy.

**Figure 2:** Researching and note-taking scaffold I modified and adapted for Year 12 English classes.

These lessons were capped off with a poster campaign, in which I placed the following poster (Figure 3) in every classroom in the school and made a habit of reinforcing the message in weekly school assemblies, following the trend of ‘fake news’ and misinformation that began to spread at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

IFLA -- How to Spot Fake News – COVID-19 Edition — **Figure 3:** IFLA. (2021). *How to spot fake news – COVID-19 edition* [Image]. IFLA. https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/93015

Key Theme 2: Collection Management

It is vital that teacher librarians have a core understanding of the values and principles of collection management, a fact made clear to me upon starting this course with ETL503. As mentioned in my final reflections for this subject, when I started in my current position I had little knowledge of any of these practices concerning the management of information and collection of resources (Johnson, 2020c), nor did my library at the time have any existing policies or procedures around these crucial aspects of library practice.

Even my initial readings for ETL503 covering the definition of the term ‘collection management’ helped put things into context. I found this term far more wide-ranging and relevant than that of ‘collection development’, as it contains within its scope not only the selection and acquisition of new resources for the collection but also a wide range of activities around managing access to the resources, accessibility and the assigning of responsibilities (Corrall, 2018; Johnson, 2009). It is also far more relevant in 21st education given the movement towards digital resourcing, particularly in the COVID-19 world of online learning and personal device use, as library collections have expanded beyond the walls of the physical library to incorporate digital materials, resources owned by other libraries and information agencies and electronic resource subscriptions (Gorman, 2003). To this end, I found comfort in Horava’s (2010, p.151) thoughts on collection management as context and need dependent, as these helped me to focus on the issue of managing both the physical and digital collections to address specific needs within my own school library environment:

“The challenge lies in how to balance libraries’ finite resources of money, time, and energy against these several directions of collection focus. No single approach will suffice because each will be important for addressing the library community’s diverse information needs and educational goals.”

Reflecting on this led me to identify two of the more important considerations for the context of my collection, those being the needs of my users – staff, students and the wider community – and budgetary restraints (Johnson, 2020d). Although this reflection was centered around reference resources specifically, I found that it translated to the rest of my collection rather well, and after conducting staff and student surveys around their use of the library I was better able to understand their needs and how to meet them. For instance, it became clear that students had a far greater need and use for technology than traditional print materials (Figure 4), and so I realised that I needed to focus on curating digital collections and resources for my students as these were almost non-existent. In doing so, I acquired a school-wide subscription for audiobooks and e-books from Wheelers, which has since seen use from around 20% of our student body. This has now become a core part of our collection, particularly given the current lockdown situation in Sydney and the inability for students to borrow physical books from the library.

**Figure 4:** Student survey results concerning reading and technology habits.

Following this I sought to improve and promote other online resources provided by the school, including WorldBookOnline and Clickview. Although my promotion of WorldBookOnline still needs improvement in terms of targeting certain curriculums and collaborating with teachers for its use, it has seen an uptake since I began in my role in 2019. The same can certainly be said of Clickview (then EnhanceTV and barely used by any staff or students), which now has an average of 400 uses a week, and as I will touch on in my next theme, has provided me opportunities for technological leadership within the school.

With regards to policies and procedures around collection development and management within my library, this is still one area that I am really lacking in. The importance of a collection development policy was made blindingly obvious through the second assessment of ETL503, and although I noted my excitement to create and implement one in my current position, I have not had the chance to do so (Johnson, 2020c). This is something I am very much aiming to complete for next year, when my current school moves to a new location and a new library will afford me with more time to dedicate to the creation and implementation of such a policy, as well as other procedures and policies that guide the selection, deselection and challenging of materials within the collection. That being said, I did manage to complete my first stocktake of the collection during the online learning situation last year (Johnson, 2020e), something that I feel was necessary due to our outdated non-fiction section and I saw this as incredibly valuable for myself in terms of gaining an in depth understanding of my collection (Figure 5). I hope to complete another stocktake next term to give myself comparable data, support my creation of a collection development policy and to assist me to manage moving the collection to the new site.

**Figure 5:** Stocktake Summary Report from April 2020.

Key Theme 3: Leadership

As an early career teacher with only four years experience I have not had an overwhelming amount of leadership experience, however, over the length of this course my understanding of the core principles of leadership have dramatically improved and I have since been provided with a number of opportunities to develop my capacity. Upon beginning ETL504 this year I noted my lack of experience on my blog (Johnson, 2021a), as well as the fact that my position as a leader when starting my current position was complicated by the supervisor I was assigned and the lack of value given to the library space by the wider school community.

Although I initially struggled with some of the concepts of leadership theory, I realised that I needed to improve my knowledge in this area in order to develop my own practice as a leader and start my journey. This started with gaining an understanding of my current place in the school and how that fit into the field of leadership, leading me to identify myself as principally a servant leader (Johnson, 2021b), as I tended not to focus on my own aspirations and goals but on meeting the current teaching and learning needs and interests of my students and colleagues.

Continuing my readings around transformational leadership and in particular the concept of leading from the middle, it became clear that the leadership responsibilities of an effective teacher librarian, while certainly maintaining an element of servant leadership, must be broader. In particular, I strongly identified with the notion that teacher librarians are cultural change agents (Oberg, 2011) and that we are best placed in the school to collaborate with existing school leaders and teaching staff around implementing changes to pedagogy, curriculum and technology integration, as well as leading by example and best practice in these areas (Cox & Korodaj, 2019). By leading from the middle, we can effectively bridge the gap between formal leaders and classroom teachers in these areas to best support teaching and learning across the school and begin to implement meaningful changes (Toop, 2013). This was crucial to my position within the school as I learned I could start to build perceptions of myself as a leader of curriculum and technology, as well as the culture around the library as a 21st century learning space that supports staff and students in teaching and learning.

The importance of leadership from the library was made even more prevalent during the online learning situation that resulted from COVID-19, as the effective use of technology to continue teaching and learning from home and support students and staff became a massive issue. This was an area in which I saw opportunities for strong leadership from the middle, reinforced to me via the Virtual Study Visits as part of this unit as a number of different information agencies were able to harness technology as an invaluable resource with which to continue to support their users. Following these study visits and incorporating my new knowledge from ETL504, I ran a number of professional development sessions for teachers on our staff development day around Clickview, an educational video streaming service, and how to integrate it effectively in the classroom and existing teaching and learning programs (Figure 6). I have since been providing technical and curriculum support to staff via this service, particularly during the online learning phase of the current term. This has allowed me to begin to develop perceptions of myself as a technology leader within the school and someone who can lead professional development in this area, two vital leadership roles for teacher librarians as 21st century educators (Hover & Wise, 2020).

**Figure 6:** The opening slide of my professional development presentation on Clickview.

In addition to beginning my journey as a technology leader within the school, I have made significant headway into developing my ability to lead curriculum changes, another key area for leadership as a teacher librarian (Abbott, 2017). A number of literacy initiatives have been driven by my current principal within the last year or so, and I was approached to co-lead one of the literacy teams that aims at building writing capacity in our Stage 4 students. I jumped at the opportunity and have since collaborated closely with teachers from several faculties with varying expertise and an external organisation, Education Changemakers, to develop an action plan and trial a program based around the PEEL paragraph writing structure (Figure 7). Although this is still in the development and trial phase, co-leading this team has been an incredibly valuable experience and I believe it is the start of my journey to becoming a key curriculum leader within the school. Despite the fact that leadership is definitely the area in which I still have the most room to grow, I am excited about the opportunities that have started to present themselves and the ways in which I am beginning to shape my perception within the school as a leader from within the library.

**Figure 7:** Planning sheet for the Stage 4 Literacy Team outlining our action plan.

Part C – Development of Skills & Attitudes

Although I am nearing the end of my Masters journey, I feel that I have made extensive progress in my own skills, attitudes and practice as a teacher librarian. I know there is still a long way to go, and plenty of room for personal growth for me to consider myself an ‘excellent’ teacher librarian; this is clear to me after evaluating my own progress against the standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians created by ALIA and ASLA (2004).

Standard 1: Professional Knowledge

Although still technically an early career teacher, as an accredited secondary history teacher I believe I already have a solid basis of knowledge of the principles of learning, key pedagogies and curriculums. However, the understandings I have acquired throughout this course have given me the knowledge to apply these principles more widely to the library and the place of the teacher librarian in the school. In particular, I have adapted key aspects of information literacy teaching into my practice, as well as developing a more in depth understanding of library and information management in line with national and professional standards. I still have some way to go to develop my professional knowledge, particularly when it comes to working with other staff to implement information literacy goals and programs, and I need to continue to work to develop a culture around promoting and fostering a love of reading in our wider school community.

Standard 2: Professional Practice

In terms of my professional practice, again I feel that I have developed immensely as a result of new learnings and understandings gained throughout this course. Through my delivery of lessons and resources around information literacy and my curation of the school’s online and digital resources, I believe I have begun to display some of the qualities attributed to the practice of ‘excellent’ teacher librarians as per the ALIA and ASLA (2004) standards. However, I am yet to implement key policies and procedures within the library that align not only with the school’s mission, but with national standards, such as a collection development policy as mentioned above. I have also started the process of building evidence to evaluate programs, services and the learning of students, although this is definitely a work in progress that will continue to build alongside my skills.

Standard 3: Professional Commitment

I believe my professional commitment has made leaps and bounds since starting in my role in 2019. I have openly sought out professional development opportunities within the sphere of teacher librarianship and libraries in general, and this is something I continue to do with enthusiasm. As stated in the previous section, I have begun to make key progress in areas of leadership and promotion of the library as a 21st century learning space that is driven by technology, although there is still plenty of room for growth. I have also become involved with a number of key professional communities and other teacher librarian networks in order to improve my own practice and to provide inspiration for my future goals, something I have seen as immensely valuable. In particular, the use of social media and promotion of libraries and their services by these excellent teacher librarians is something I hope to incorporate into my own practice in the near future.

I have many goals for my future career as a teacher librarian and lifelong learner. I feel that I have made a wealth of progress since beginning this course in 2019 at the start of my ‘long, arduous journey’ (Johnson, 2020a), and although I am certainly nearer the start than the end of this journey, I am excited to continue my development as a qualified and enthusiastic teacher librarian.

References

Abbott, R. (2017). Teacher-librarians, teachers and the 21st century library: Relationships matter. Synergy, 15(2). https://slav.vic.edu.au/index.php/Synergy/article/view/v15220175/40

Australian Library and Information Association. (2004). Standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians. Australian Library and Information Association. https://www.alia.org.au/about-alia/policies-standards-and-guidelines/standards-professional-excellence-teacher-librarians

Australian School Library Association & Australian Library and Information Association. (2016). Statement on information literacy. Australian School Library Association & Australian Library and Information Association. https://asla.org.au/resources/Documents/Website%20Documents/Policies/policy_Information_Literacy.pdf

Corrall, S. (2018). The concept of collection development in the digital world. In M. Fieldhouse & A. Marshall (Eds.), Collection development in the digital age (1st ed., pp. 3-24). https://doi.org/10.290/9781856048972.003

Garrison, K., & Fitzgerald, L. (2016). “It’s like stickers in your brain”: Using the guided inquiry process to support lifelong learning skills in an Australian school library. In Proceedings of the 45th International Association of School Librarians’ Annual Conference Incorporating the 20th International Forum on Research in School Librarianship, Tokyo, Japan. https://www.iasl-online.org/resources/Pictures/RP15_GarrisonFitzgerald_2016IASLTokyo.pdf

Horava, T. (2010). Challenges and possibilities for collection management in a digital age. Library Resources & Technical Services, 54(3), 142-152. https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.54n3.142

Hover, A., & Wise, T. (2020). Exploring ways to create 21st century digital learning experiences. International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 3(13). https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2020.1826993

IFLA. (2021). How to spot fake news – COVID-19 edition [Image]. IFLA. https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/93015

Johnson, P. (2009). Fundamentals of collection development and management [ALA Editions version]. (Vol. 2nd ed.). Chicago: ALA Editions.

Johnson, T. (2020a, March 9). The start of a long, arduous journey to become a teacher librarian. Musings of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/03/09/the-start-of-a-long-arduous-journey-to-become-a-teacher-librarian/

Johnson, T. (2020b, May 24). ETL401 assessment 3 part c: Reflective practice. Musings of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/05/24/etl401-assessment-3-part-c-reflective-practice/

Johnson, T. (2020c, May 17). ETL503 assessment 2 part b: Collection development policy reflection. Musing of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/05/17/assessment-2-collection-development-policy-reflection/

Johnson, T. (2020d, August 3). Reference materials – print or digital? Musing of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/08/03/reference-materials-print-or-digital/

Johnson, T. (2020e, April 29). The journey so far. Musings of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/04/29/the-journey-so-far/

Johnson, T. (2021a, March 3). Teacher librarians as leaders. Musings of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2021/03/03/teacher-librarians-as-leaders/

Johnson, T. (2021b, May 24). ETL504 – assessment 2 part b. Musings of a Modern TL. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2021/05/24/etl504-assessment-2-part-b/

Kuhlthau, C. C., Maniotes, L. K., & Caspari, A. K. (2012). Guided inquiry design: A framework for inquiry in your school. CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Oberg, D. (2011). Teacher librarians as cultural change agents. SCIS Connections, (79), 1-3.

Quezzaire, P. (2018, February 23). Libraries in the 21st century: The struggle between perception and reality. The IB Community Blog. https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2018/02/23/libraries-in-the-21st-century-the-struggle-between-perception-and-reality/

Toop, J. (2013, July 2). Making the most of middle leaders to drive change in schools. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/jul/02/middle-leaders-driving-change-school

Twitchett, L. (2015). Supporting digital literacy and 21st century learning through the school library. Synergy, 13(2).

Wall, J., & Bonanno, K. (2014). Learning and literacy for the future, Scan, 33(3), 20-28.

ETL504 – Assessment 2 Part B

Teacher Librarians: Leaders from the Middle

As stated in my initial reflection upon starting this unit, I had very little experience and knowledge surrounding the notion of leadership and the library (Johnson, 2021, March 3). Having only taught for 4 years, most of which being in a school library environment in which the library is not necessarily valued as a 21st century learning space, means that this is still an area that requires a significant amount of personal and professional development.

In saying this, however, my knowledge has expanded significantly as a result of the modules and readings of this unit, particularly in the areas of leadership theory and understanding how leadership operates within school environments and has done so in my own situation and experiences. I now recognise my position in the school to be principally one of a servant leader; as someone who has focused not on my own aspirations or the school vision, but on listening to and serving the needs and interests of library users (Crippen & Willows, 2019; Stewart, 2017). This was made clearer to me when completing the conflict management self-assessment, identifying me as someone with tendencies to accommodate and compromise as opposed to compete, something that really resonated with me. While this leadership role certainly has its merit within school libraries, teacher librarians need to be curriculum, information and technology experts within schools that lead from the ‘middle’ – effectively bridging the gap between formal leaders (such as the principal and senior executive team) and classroom teachers (Toop, 2013). This role can and should be fulfilled by advising formal leaders on developments in pedagogy, curriculum and technology integration, and using this knowledge to collaborate with teachers to build their capacity, model best practice and support their teaching and learning (Cox & Korodaj, 2019). Leading from the middle therefore resembles transformational leadership far more than it does servant leadership (Baker, 2016), and is something that I need to focus on developing to become a more effective leader as a teacher librarian.

Reflecting on the role of teacher librarians as leaders, I believe that I need to become more proactive in seeking out collaborations with teachers in order to build my capacity as a transformational leader. I also need to start to challenge the perception of myself within the school as one of an early career teacher operating out of the library to that of a leader of teaching and learning – a perception that I believe will develop through effective collaborations. I have previously created information literacy lessons and programs and research scaffolds for specific classes (Johnson, 2021, March 3), however these were done individually and based on what I believed was best practice. While it important to model best practice to students and staff (Cox & Korodaj, 2019), I need to collaborate with the teachers in these classrooms to develop resources and lessons that meet the information needs of their students, and show me to be a leader and expert in curriculum development and support. Next year, moving to a new library as part of Marsden High School’s redevelopment I must take the time to explore meaningful collaborations with teachers in the Science, English and HSIE faculties to incorporate these resources into existing teaching and learning programs. This will hopefully provide a base from which I can grow my collaborations with teachers around curriculum development. I have also begun my journey as a technology leader this year, leading a professional development session on the effective use of Clickview to support teaching and learning (Johnson, 2021, April 21). This was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot from this. Now knowing the value of being a visible technology leader (Baker, 2016), I aim to pursue this as a regular element of my practice, leading technology integration and support within the school to develop my ability as a leader and to begin to change perceptions around myself as a teacher librarian.

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.

Cox, E., & Korodaj, L. (2019). Leading from the sweet spot: Embedding the library and the teacher librarian in your school community, ACCESS, 33(4), 14-25.

Crippen, C., & Willows, J. (2019). Connecting teacher leadership and servant leadership: A synergistic partnership, Journal of Leadership Education, 18(2), 171-180. https://doi.org/10.12806/V18/I2/T4

Stewart, J. (2017). The importance of servant leadership in schools, International Journal of Business Management and Commerce, 2(5).

Reflecting on an Information Agency

As the links for the 2020 virtual study session site did not work I chose to reflect briefly on a site from the 2019 physical study visit – the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences within the Powerhouse Museum.

In terms of finding information about its users, the website was incredibly vague and the information difficult to find. There was no concrete information about the users of the museum, although assumptions can be made based on the purpose of the museum, its location and the information within it. One would assume that as an educational institute, with content ranging from smaller children to adults that the museum has no specific ‘targeted’ users, it is a general public use information agency that is conducive to a learning and interesting experience for small children right through to adults. I feel that there is more information relating to the users of the museum but they may not necessarily wish to display it to the public, although these are definitely areas of inquiry for myself if I were to conduct an investigation of the site.

The information about the agency itself was far more abundant and easy to find. The services provided by the museum, its origins and the types of information it has on display can all be learned about in great detail, in a relatively user-friendly website experience. This certainly aligns with my expectations of the agency as an educational and informative space, designed to pique interest and answer questions specifically related to the fields of arts and science with the current displays. Again, if I were to investigate the site I would have far more questions about its users and how they connect with this information, particularly the younger users and what they get out of experiences at the museum.

Teacher Librarians as Leaders

My Experience & Understanding of Leadership

As a reasonably early career teacher having only taught for four years now, I haven’t had an overwhelming amount of leadership experience… I have been working at my current school now for just over two years in the teacher librarian role, however this role and my understanding of it has changed dramatically over the course of those two years.

First Impressions

Initially I was employed as a fresh face with the purpose of bringing more technology, life and enthusiasm into the school library, something that I was more than open to. I was not seen as a leader within the school, nor was the library space seen as a space from which to lead. My understanding of the role was as a supportive element of the school, one that principally supported both students and teachers in teaching and learning and well-being. It was not necessarily a position from which to lead curriculum development or be a leading force for change and development within the school, particularly for someone with my lack of experience. For starters I was too scared to even speak in front of the school at assembly…

I approached a number of other TLs from the local area to gain some experience and expertise and to develop my knowledge and understanding of the role and what it meant to be an effective TL. In doing so I connected with some awesome TLs and received some amazing advice and experience to help me going forward. This advice not only shaped my initial practice in the library, but lead me to the course I am now more than halfway through completing. After just the first year of study and the shared knowledge I have gained from the TL networks I have now become a part of, my idea of who and what a TL is in a school environment has changed dramatically.

Beginning ETL504

Having developed my understanding of the role significantly over the course of two years, I now realise that the leadership potential and responsibility of the TL as a leader in the school is massive. In my first year I was operating in the library under the then Head Teacher of Admin, a very capable teacher but someone who was even less aware of library processes and the value of the school library than myself. I was still settling into the role and finding my feet, but this supervision, along with the lack of value given to the school library by other more senior leaders and members of the executive team, severely limited my ability to operate as a leader within the school.

Going into ETL504 in Semester 1 of 2021, I have now completed 5 units of the course, including ETL401 and ETL501, and my ability to lead from the library has already seen vast improvement. I have managed to lead a number of programs coming out of the library to do with reading in Stage 4, information literacy development in classrooms, research lessons and resource development for EAL/D students and the development of student voice in the library and across the school, all things that I would never have thought possible when first starting in the role. I also have a greater understand of how well positioned the TL is in a school to lead curriculum development, support staff in the implementation of school-wide programs and operate as a force for driving change.

However, whilst I feel I have personally made leaps and bounds since the beginning of the course, there is still a long way to go! My understanding of leadership as a concept and the underpinnings of good leadership, particularly in a school environment, are still very basic. Although I have completed a number of personal goals to lead programs and teams, I strongly believe my library still has a long way to go to be seen as a place of leadership within the school and for myself to be seen as one of the leaders. Over the course of this unit I hope to extend my knowledge and use key leadership theories and principles to extend myself as a leader within the school, leading alongside senior executives and other key leaders to change perceptions around the library and myself and begin working as a leading force for driving change within our school.

ETL402 Assessment 2 Part B

My Approach to Literary Learning: A Critical Reflection

Having studied the subject outline at the beginning of this course, I was both perplexed and mortified by this assessment; not only by the multiple parts it contained, but also by the complete lack of knowledge and awareness I had of the concept of ‘literary learning’.

After some initial readings it became clear that ‘literary learning’, although a concept strongly linked to the learning of literacy, was not the same as ‘literacy learning’ (Lehman, 2007). Although there is a strong connection between the two, literary learning relies on an entirely different set of skills to employ higher order thinking and can be suited to any subject or curriculum area – provided that there is quality literature concerning the area of study! A growing awareness of multiliteracies further highlighted the significance of this connection, as ‘literacy’ does not just encompass an ability to read or write but a wide range of abilities and skills across all areas of life, such as digital literacy, critical literacy (Antsey & Bull, 2006) or even ‘virtue’ or character literacy (Hart et al., 2020).

Once I had achieved an understanding of the concept of literary learning, I attempted to visualise it in the classroom and library space. In doing so, a distant memory of my primary school casual teaching days came back to me in which I remember teaching several library lessons to a Year 4 class. I cannot remember the exact book, but I strongly remember teaching the concept of places and belonging through a picture book reading and teacher-led discussion, what I now know to be a simple literary learning strategy. Since then, I have used more sophisticated strategies to teach literary learning in secondary classrooms. The most significant example of this was a combined Geography and English novel study looking at how the themes in dystopian texts are reflected in our own world and global attitudes towards sustainability and the environment. I found this to be a highly effective unit with students for two reasons; students had choice of the literature they were reading, a method I had used before on this group of students (Johnson, 2020), and discussions were conducted in a modified version of Socratic Circles (Styslinger et al., 2010) that allowed students to vocalise their thoughts and opinions about the texts they were reading to make connections with other students and their choices of literature. However, a lack of teacher cohesion on the content to be assessed did lead to some difficulties with the culminating project created by the students. As a result of this and my increased understanding, in future I aim to make literary learning units more cohesive and clearer by collaborating closely with classroom teachers to establish a common purpose and goals for student development of multiliteracies across the unit (Merga, 2019). By deciding on a common purpose at the beginning of the unit, students will have a better idea of where the unit is going, and how the content being studied in their chosen literature relates to the overarching concepts and content from the relevant subject.

References

Antsey, M., & Bull, G. (2006). Defining multiliteracies. In M. Antsey & G. Bull (Eds.), Teaching and learning multiliteracies: Changing times, changing literacies (pp.19-55). International Reading Association.

Hart, P., Oliveira, G., & Pike, M. (2020). Teaching virtues through literature: Learning from the ‘Narnian Values’ character education research. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 41(4), 474-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2019.1689544

Lehman, B. (2007). Skills instruction and children’s literature. In B. Lehman (Ed.) Children’s literature and learning: Literary study across the curriculum (pp. 43-56). Teachers College Press.

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

Johnson, T. (2020). The ‘too cool to read’ group: A success story. CSU Thinkspace. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2021/01/12/the-too-cool-to-read-group-a-success-story/

Styslinger, M., Pollock, T., Lowery, R., & Fink, L. (2010). The chicken and the egg: inviting response and talk through Socratic Circles. Voices from the Middle, 18(2), 36-45.

The ‘Too Cool to Read’ Group: A Success Story

Working in a secondary school library for just under two years now I have dealt with my fair share of reluctant readers, typically in the 12-15 year old boy category. A lot of our students come from ATSI or migrant backgrounds (up to 70%) and do not have long histories of reading for pleasure, nor any desire to start in their library lessons! This was one of the first issues I identified in working in this library, a real lack of reading culture that permeated from Year 7 right the way through to Year 12 AND staff. However, that being said, there are a number of success stories that have come out of the library in my attempts to establish this reading culture. The one that I am most proud of would have to be the case of the ‘Too Cool to Read’ group of three Year 7 boys.

My Success Story

These boys had already established themselves as the ‘cool’, disruptive group within the first few weeks of being at school, and although they could be menaces in class they were mostly respectful towards their teachers. I couldn’t help but find myself striking up a connection with these three funny yet incredibly frustrating boys. In sustained reading lessons they would pretend to read various copies of the Guinness Book of Records, but really they would just flip through the pictures laughing and pointing out what they saw as similarities between some of the more frightening images and their friends’ faces. Through various conversations I managed to find out that these boys thought reading wasn’t ‘cool’ and that they preferred to watch TV or movies, particularly action films full of guns and swearing and catch phrases they could use to get a laugh in the classroom.

As a young boy of a similar age, I had a real affinity for Matthew Reilly’s action-packed fiction books. Although not the best quality literature, these books read like action movies, so much so that I would picture the scenes in my head every morning on the bus on the way to school. After a few initial library lessons in which I was getting to know all the students, I came to realise that this might be a really engaging connection to literature for these boys in particular. In their next library lesson, I negotiated with the boys, saying that just for today we’ll put the non-fiction away and that I’d like them to read only the first 5 pages of these books (just the first 5 nothing more!), and for them to tell me what they thought. I handed them Ice Station, Temple and Seven Ancient Wonders and left them to their 5 pages.

Cut to half an hour later and the boys hadn’t come back, the library was quiet, and I had to investigate. The boys were sitting in their corner as always, but this time they were silent with books in hand. As I walked over to them, they all looked at me with massive smiles on their faces, and admitted that these books were indeed ‘cool’ and wanted to keep reading. Each one of the boys proceeded to borrow the book I had given them that lesson and finish it within the week. All three then came back to borrow the books their friends had read in that first lesson, until all three of the above titles had been finished. Then they came back again the following week asking if he had written any more books, and by the end of the term all three boys had read Matthew Reilly’s entire collection that was available in our library. From that point on it wasn’t a matter of reading ‘not being cool’, but the books they had read in primary school and that their parents had picked for them just weren’t cool enough.

I will never, ever forget the looks on their faces as I walked over to them in that library lesson. It was as if they had accepted defeat and were too embarrassed to admit it, but were so happy that they had. I see it as one of my proudest teaching moments, making serious connections with these students, finding out their interest and how best to connect them to meaningful literature that they would enjoy. I will be telling this story at their graduation in four years, that’s for sure!

References

Reilly, M. (1998). Ice Station. Pan McMillan.

Reilly, M. (1999). Temple. Pan McMillan.

Reilly, M. (2005). Seven Ancient Wonders. Pan McMillan.

ETL501 Assessment 2 Part B: Critical Reflection

In terms of technology and the role of the TL in creating resources and learning objects, I have learned so much over the course of this unit that I need to consider, assess and implement in my own practice in the future.

Teacher librarians typically have three main roles within school contexts: they are information specialists, curriculum leaders and information service managers (Laretive, 2019), all three of which relate to the use of technology in supporting effective 21st century teaching and learning. This is particularly significant when thinking about 21st century learning from a school library perspective, as teacher librarians not only provide information literacy skill development for students but also have the opportunity to provide meaningful learning experiences and to guide lifelong learning when properly resourced (Quezzaire, 2018). Furthermore, teacher librarians are experts in the fields of knowledge and information; there is no one tool or technology that will provide students with all their information needs such that we are required to go above and beyond to provide our stakeholders with the most effective tools for learning (Gilbert, 2013). Through engagement with the unit content I have come to realise that this ultimately requires librarians to create their own resources and learning objects to fulfil these specific information needs, whether it be for library lessons, in the classroom or in collaboration with other teachers in the school (Johnson, 2020a). Especially in the current COVID-19 climate where there is a trend towards digital resourcing, school libraries are focussing now on providing online access and support for stakeholders (Dearnaley, 2020). This will inevitably result in the creation of a multitude of learning objects to support student, staff and parents in navigating this online environment, as well as engaging and participating in online learning, and supporting the learning itself.

As I have reflected previously, digital materials and learning objects should be created for specific purposes and their usefulness evaluated to investigate their effectiveness (Johnson, 2020b). This has been nowhere more relevant than in making the research guide for this assessment. Throughout my teaching career I have created a number of specific learning objects to achieve all manner of different ends, although my evaluation of these, as well as my collaboration with other staff to use these objects, has certainly been lacking in the past. As such, I began this assessment by approaching staff I would be co-teaching with next term to see which topic areas needed the most support, as well as to identify specific learning needs of individual students across Year 7. Following this, the process of finding digital resources for this research guide was thorough. This was due to my own strict criteria as all web tools and learning objects should be assessed against specific learning needs (Laretive, 2019), such that I initially rejected a number of informative websites in favour of more interactive resources that would support individual research processes. As a result, I believe the resources used are highly effective, although the time that went into searching and selecting these as opposed to creating and designing the website have let me down in terms of presentation and useability. In future, I will aim to address both of these crucial elements in a more balanced manner, especially now that I have developed a framework for future resources.

References

Dearnaley, M. (2020). A snapshot of a school library during COVID-19. Access, 34(2), 22–25.

Gilbert, K. (2013). What we hold in our hands: Teacher-librarian, knowledge manager [online]. Synergy, 11(2).

Johnson, T. (2020a, September 15). Learning Objects: A Quick Reflection. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/09/15/learning-objects-a-quick-reflection/

Johnson, T. (2020b, August 3). Reference Materials – Print or Digital? Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/tomthetl/2020/08/03/reference-materials-print-or-digital/

Laretive, J. (2019). Information literacy, young learners and the role of the teacher librarian. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 68(3), 225-235.

Quezzaire, P. (2018, February 23). Libraries in the 21st century: the struggle between perception and reality | IB Community Blog. The IB Community Blog. https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2018/02/23/libraries-in-the-21st-century-the-struggle-between-perception-and-reality/

Learning Objects: A Quick Reflection

Scootle ‘Learning Paths’

http://blog.scootle.edu.au/2016/05/31/scootle-learning-paths/

This LO is ‘Learning Paths’ in Scootle and is used to streamline the delivery of online resources, increase teacher collaboration and curate and manage lists of resources for different groups. It allows teachers to create a list of resources to be viewed in a specific order for a lesson or unit, as well as allowing for notes and additional resources to be added to curriculum content.

I believe this LO would be extremely effective its purposes as:

Students can access a teacher-created learning path directly to have immediate access to all of the resources used for a lesson/unit of work.
Teachers can share ‘learning paths’ with other teachers, as well as modify and add already created learning paths to their own login.
Resources can be annotated and notes added (e.g. Instructions for students or teacher use of a resource), as well as resources added or deleted as required.

COVID-19 Wellbeing Resources

https://studentwellbeinghub.edu.au/educators/covid-19/

This LO is similar to the previous choice as it packages a number of digital items to instigate a learning experience. It is a single website that provides a number of other digital services and resources to support student, teacher and parent wellbeing around COVID-19, as well as a great deal of extra information.

I believe it would be extremely effective in providing support to any member of a school community around concerns to do with COVID-19. The depth of resources provided in the LO offer multiple different avenues of support, strategies and links to additional services available to the school community. There are also a number of easily navigable menus, the site is well-presented and easy to read and there is a search function, all of which add to the useability of the learning object.

STEM Educator Resources

https://www.thegist.edu.au/schools/stem-educator-resources/

This is another LO that packages various digital items in order to provide a learning experience, although it is extremely effective.

The LO is aimed at supplying STEM programs and lessons for educators, providing a wealth and depth of resources for STEM teachers of Years 5-10 alongside other additional promotional posters. Again, the website is easily navigable, easy to read and follow, the colours are soft and there are handy search and sub-menu functions. It is an extremely user-friendly LO and the lessons/units of work provided are comprehensive and easy to replicate.

My Own Practice

I would certainly incorporate these three LOs into my future practice, particularly to assist STEM teachers’ with programming and resourcing. Two of the chosen LOs would be extremely effective in supporting the resourcing and programming of STEM units across various year levels of my current school and I would definitely share them with the Maths and Science faculties as they would be incredibly useful for teachers AND students. The other resource is incredibly useful for providing well being support for my current school community, as many parents and students struggled during online learning and are still struggling to live in this new COVID-19 world. I have since added it to our Wellbeing Website.

I use a number of different LOs in my current practice to support my delivery of curriculum in the classroom, some created by myself, some created by colleagues and others that have been shared or found online or in professional networks. I also use a number of LOs to support my current practice outside of the classroom, including in the library, as an early career teacher and as part of my current course of study! Although, in reflecting on my current use of LOs, I believe I am not being as collaborative as I should or could in sharing LOs I have created or found useful in my own practice, nor have I instructed other staff on how to use LOs I have found effective in the past. In future, I plan to be more proactive in my collaboration around LOs, both those that I have created and those I have found. I also need to work on my organisation and management of LOs, particularly digital learning objects as maintenance of a digital collection is extremely lacking in my current practice, although this also relies on my organisational skills in general…

References

Education Services Australia. (2020). COVID-19 resources. https://studentwellbeinghub.edu.au/educators/covid-19/

Education Services Australia. (n.d.) STEM educator resources. https://www.thegist.edu.au/schools/stem-educator-resources/

Hughes, D. (2016). Save time and effort with Scootle learning paths. http://blog.scootle.edu.au/2016/05/31/scootle-learning-paths/

Flipped Classrooms

To flip or not to flip?

Flipped classrooms have some pretty big implications for program design and delivery in 21st century schools, both in the classroom and in the library space.

Classroom

In terms of the classroom, flipping frees up a lot of time for teachers to work individually with students on problems and questions as they have already learned or experienced the content at home. Where it has been reported to work practically, flipped learning has seen a beneficial effect on student learning in the classroom, as students are able to take responsibility for their own learning, experience content at their own pace to increase knowledge and understanding and potentially get through the content quicker than they ordinarily would in class (Earp, 2016). However, this relies on a number of assumptions of our students, particularly around having access to the work (some may not have internet access or an appropriate device), possessing the literacy and information literacy skills to work their way through the content unassisted, and being motivated to actually engage with the content at home.

The same could be said for myself over the course of this degree as the units could be seen as ‘flipped’ in some capacity (although delivered online we have the opportunity to interact with our tutors/convenors/peers and ask questions). I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to go through the content at my own pace and feel like I have connected well with the content and the way it is delivered, although I have found staying engaged to be a personal challenge at certain points of the year. In saying this however, and knowing how disconnected I was during my first degree at Macquarie University, I have definitely seen an improvement in my own learning process over the year or so that I have been doing this course and would ultimately put that down to the flipped nature of the content.

Library

In terms of library program design and delivery, flipping content is a very interesting idea. Programs that target information literacy by using Web 2.0 tools or specific online resources would require explicit training for students AND staff so that they can get the most out of them (although most online tools/resources have troubleshooting facilities available to users). In fact, this process could potentially mirror very closely that of the flipped classroom, in which students would be provided with the understanding around a tool/resource to be used in the next lesson and then given time in the lesson to apply the tool/resource to relevant problems and activities. This would allow TLs to focus specifically on working with students to improve their understanding of how to apply their new knowledge most effectively, without having to spend half the lesson cementing students’ knowledge around a certain tool/resource. The same could be applied to library research lessons, whereby students are given time at home to learn how to use research tools to find specific information and then given time in class to use the tools and their new understanding and skills to complete their research task.

References

Earp, J. (2016, February 3). Homework culture key to flipped learning success. Teacher. https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/homework-culture-key-to-flipped-learning-success

Teachings in Education. (2017, June 20). Flipped classroom model: Why, how and overview [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/BCIxikOq73Q

Reference Materials – Print or Digital?

Farmer’s (2014) ideas about selection aids and criteria for both print and digital material mirrors a lot of the content I learned last Semester in ETL503. It makes sense to hold digital resources to a higher standard than print, as there are more elements that need to be taken into account (ownership vs access, ease of use, licensing etc.). It is also interesting to think of parents, teachers and TLs as reference sources, particularly as I am myself asked ‘research’ questions or even simple questions about facts and information just about every day by multiple students!

In my own experience the biggest factor influencing the decision about formats of reference resources is the purpose of the resource (what need is it fulfilling) and budgeting. Our school has had access to WorldBookOnline for a number of years but it had not been promoted until early last year (just before I started my role). As a result, the license had been continually renewed even though it had barely been used at all and only recently did I think to re-evaluate the purpose and usefulness of the resource. Originally, the license had been purchased purely as it was a ‘new’ resource and there was no specific use determined for it, nor were students or staff made aware that they had access to it or even what it was. In fact the very old reference books it was intended to replace were still on the shelves until I performed a weed earlier this year! I have since promoted World Book as our key reference resource that students should be using to start their research and the use has picked up dramatically, particularly during the COVID drop off. However, it is still not being used anywhere near as much as it should be considering how many research tasks are conducted by our secondary school students.

References

Farmer, L. S. J. (2014). Introduction to reference and information services in today’s school library. Rowman & Littlefield.