Convergence – Module 5.4b

How is digital citizenship approached in your school or experience?

TukTukDesign / Pixabay

Digital literacy was only recently implemented with the year 7’s.  Last year I ran a few HASS classes with the then Yr 7’s and realised that they were absolutely incapable of doing very simple tasks such as saving documents, referencing with more than URLs, uploading documents and even using MS word.  I was flabbergasted. So I set up a formative assessment task with a rubric to see what the students were capable of doing and then present that information to the AP for teaching and learning. I used the general capabilities continuum, specifically the ICT and CCT components; and used the stages of the continuum as benchmarks to assess the students. The task showed me that nearly ⅔ of the year 7 students from last year were unable to do very simple tasks and were averaging at a year 4 level.  Their information literacy was minimal!! The ramifications of this information were immense. How were these students going to progress through high school and complete their educational tasks sufficiently if their baseline was so low? How were they going to be active and informed citizens? How did these students get this way after being mostly at BYOD schools? And, how did we miss this?

Most of the teachers assumed a basic level of digital literacy and citizenship due to the ‘digital native’ tag.  After all, these students were adept at using youtube, playing music, taking photos and using Snapchat! There are also expert at hiding their screens when teachers are nearby, and consummate at switching screens when caught out!

The upshot of my assessment of last years Yr 7s is that there is active interest in embedding ICT and the GC within the curriculum.  I am in the process of re-writing the Year 7, 8 and 11 RE units of work to make sure that ICT and CCT are appropriately addressed and assessed.  As there is no explicit curriculum for RE, I have free range to make it skills based and use inquiry to teach the content. The only problem I am having is with some of the teachers that are disagreeing with my approach.  Luckily I have permanency and am willing to take the risk.

Has the school in which you work (or know best) developed an information literacy policy?

My school is currently in the process of implementing an information literacy policy. My colleague is writing it in collaboration with the AP of teaching and learning.  The plan is to align information literacies with the general capabilities continuum and then coordinate them to the year levels. The theory is that once we have the framework we are going to use it to implement the various aspects of across the stages and curriculum.

geralt / Pixabay

We are using a few of ANU policies as an end point for our framework.  Ideally we would like our students to be at this level by the end of year 12 so we thought if that is the goal then we can use the ‘backwards by design’ process and stage the levels backwards according to year levels.  I am using the framework that my colleague is writing as a basis for my work with RE.

These are the policies we are using to structure our framework on;

https://anulib.anu.edu.au/research-learn

https://services.anu.edu.au/files/FileManagement.pdf

https://services.anu.edu.au/files/AdvancedDigitalResearch.pdf

How is information literacy approached in your school or experience?

geralt / Pixabay

Information literacy is still currently a disorganised program.  Whilst some teachers implement aspects of it in their teaching and learning, there is no whole school approach to informational literacy.  In addition, there is limited true inquiry within our school. Granted there are a plethora of ‘research’ assignments that bore both students and teachers.  But real, true inquiry projects are missing. This is primarily due to teachers citing overcrowded curriculum and lack of time. But here in the ACT, there is such a large range of flexibility allowed with the national curriculum.  There is no need for so much explicit content instruction and rigid assessment tasks. Unfortunately, there is a strong cohort of teachers that persist in repeating the same teaching and learning activities that were taught from two decades ago.  The only difference is that students now present their tasks on MS Word and or a powerpoint. But by the same token, we have other teachers that inspire students to do their best within the parameters they have thrust upon them.

The challenge is real – Module 5.3b

EliasSch / Pixabay

There are many challenges to teachers implementing guided inquiry lessons into their teaching and learning. They include among others; a misunderstanding of what inquiry learning is; inability to implement their own teaching activities; inability to collaborate with colleagues, lack of time and fear.

The first reason is that teachers (not teacher librarians who know better!) often confuse guided inquiry learning which is deep in knowledge, rich in skills and meaningful to the student,  with a superficial regurgitation of facts that accompany a traditional research task (Maniotes & Kuhlthau, 2014). Students are exasperated, teachers are frustrated, yet the loop of insanity continues from kindergarten to year 12.  Maniotes & Kuhlthau (2014) says STOP this insanity!

 Freedom to implement authentic teaching and learning practices is often hampered by the hierarchy within schools.  Whilst many teachers are given the flexibility to plan their own lessons and thus choose their pedagogical practices, they are often bound by the school and departmental parameters in regards to timelines and assessment (Templeton, 2019).  This is very evident in high schools where there are department heads and year level coordinators that manage assessments and their timelines for historic reasons, often completely unknown to anyone in this century. These obstinate teachers are unwilling to adapt and or modify their teaching practice with the advent of an information society.  The adage, “but we’ve always done it this way”is a common theme (Templeton, 2019 & Maniotes & Kuhlthau, 2014). These parameters translate to an inability to structure longer guided inquiry units of work as teaching hours are crammed with explicit content instruction aimed at superficial tests and mindless research tasks that no one wants to do and even fewer want to mark.

 Lack of collaboration is often blamed for ineffective teaching practices by both teachers and teacher librarians.  These intransigent educators are reluctant to participate in collaborative practice and balk at co-creating teaching and learning activities (Ezard, 2019).  Often these stalwarts of inflexibility are also the ones that struggle to hand over the reins of learning to the students and or willing to practice team teaching.  This loss of controlling the learning is often translated as loss of control of a class, which is a complete contraindication of what a guided inquiry unit is. A vibrant class that is engaging with learning task is going to be noisy as noise usually is entwined with social discourse.  It does not mean that the students are disrespectful, nor does it mean that there is disharmony. Learning is a social construct and students learn better when engaging with their peers (Kools & Stoll, 2016). Teacher librarians need to understand that the resistance to guided inquiry is often due to the unwillingness of collaborative practice and not themselves as individuals (Ezard, 2019).

 As mentioned previously time is an issue in schools.  Teachers lack the time to collaborate with their peers to co-create inquiry tasks, and they often also lack time to allow actually put a guided inquiry into practice.  But what teachers often forget is that guided inquiry does not have to be a long unit of work that ends in a presentation. Guided inquiry can be as long as a term or as short as a week.  Ideally, the practice does require time to build and teach skills, but the flexibility of the framework allows the teacher to guide the lesson as much as the students require.  The true point of a guided inquiry task is to TEACH the skills, not the content.  Learning of these skills is a cumulative effect that requires constant practice across all classes and year levels.

 The last reason that inhibits the implementation of guided inquiry is fear.  Fear of the unknown; fear of rebelling against the system; fear of unemployment due to the previous rebellious behaviour; fear of losing control of a class; fear of failing to meet expectations; fear of not achieving learning outcomes; fear of trying something new; fear of failing.

 

References

Ezard, T., (2019) Leading the Buzz in your school. ASLA 50th Conference. Canberra

Kools, M. and Stoll L. (2016), “What Makes a School a Learning Organisation?”, OECD Education Working Papers. No. 137, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlwm62b3bvh-en

Maniotes, L.K, Kuhlthau, C. (2014) Making the shift. Knowledge Quest. 43(2) 8-17

Templeton, T., (2019) Rantings of an emerging teacher librarian. I lost my mind 3 children ago. Retrieved from … lost weblink.

Module 5.3a – Information Literacy

How might the TL help the school move towards integrated information literacy instruction?

The change in societal expectations of students has meant that students need to have strong fluency in information literacy and the inclusion of inquiry learning within the curriculum was the ACARA’s response to this change.  Information literacy is cumulative and needs to be embedded across the curriculum and year levels. Unfortunately, information literacy is not integrated into the curriculum, but rather aspects of it can be found within some subjects and their inquiry strands.  This disjointed learning means that the skills that inquiry promotes are taught in a haphazard manner instead of being practiced in sequential and regular intervals. Information literacy is cumulative and thus requires it to be embedded across the KLAs and year levels rather than in ad hoc stand alone units (Lupton, 2014).  Therefore, IL needs to be part of the content, structure and sequence of learning.

Fitzgerald & Garrison (2017) reinforce that consistency is important and a school wide focus is important.  The central position of the library within a school allows a teacher librarian to have an holistic view of the school’s teaching and learning.  This holistic vision means that a TL is able to liaise and collaborate with their colleagues to implement a framework for inquiry learning within the school so that those essential skills can be practiced at regular intervals (Kuhlthau et al., 2015).  This framework, once designed by the TL, can be then adapted by the classroom teacher and or TL to suit the needs of the subject and or year level. As the keeper of the framework, the TL is also able to differentiate the scaffolding to suit the learning needs of the students in anticipation of the unit of work.

What challenges lie in the way of such instruction?

The biggest challenge for the implementation of inquiry units is time, or the lack of time.  The curriculum is already very crowded and with the prevalence of standardised testing and the emphasis on traditional assessments, there is insufficient time to properly run inquiry units at regular intervals.  Additionally, whilst inquiry units are popular in primary schools and in lower secondary, it is deemed less rigorous in senior years. This is a fallacy, but old habits often die hard. The other challenges for inquiry units are lack of collaboration within the teaching staff and reluctance for students to work in collaborative groups.  As mentioned in other posts, many teachers struggle to work collaboratively with their colleagues for numerous reasons. Teacher librarians are often excluded from curriculum planning and assessment design due to the presence of subject silos within schools. This inability to collaborate often leads to poorly designed and implemented guided inquiry units that fail to engage students and provide lacklustre results.  This inability for teachers to collaborate effectively is then often transferred to their reluctance to let students to work in similar groupings. Inquiry units are best done collaboratively as learning is enhanced when based within social constructs. These groups are often called inquiry circles or focus groups. Unfortunately some teachers are reluctant to have their students working in groups as they differ from the traditional classroom setting and upset their preferred teaching style.

How teacher librarians and teachers might encourage students to transfer information literacy skills and practices from one subject to another?

The library is often a neutral zone and utilised by all subject areas.  Therefore, students are able to view the TL as the ‘inquiry teacher’ regardless of the subject that the task is for.  This means that it is plausible that students would be able to transfer their skills in inquiry learning from one subject to another simply because the teacher teaching the subject has not changed.  Additionally, the TL is already aware of the learning needs of the students and thus can scaffold them appropriately. This scaffolding can be tailored individually to allow all students to participate to varying degrees.  Fitzgerald & Garrison (2017) point out that reflection within an inquiry unit forces students to contemplate their learning and ruminate on the processes they used to achieve their goal. This reflection helps students determine their strengths and weaknesses for future tasks and thus be more conscious of their learning. This cognisance of learning is an essential part of the process and can be used as feedback as well as determining the zone of proximal development (Fitzgerald & Garrison, 2017).

Doyle, A., (2019) The hard skills employers seek. The Balance Careers. Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-are-hard-skills-2060829

Fitzgerald, L. & Garrison, K. (2017) ‘It Trains Your Brain’: Student Reflections on Using the Guided Inquiry Design Process. Synergy, 15/2

Kuhlthau, C.C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2015) GI: Learning in the 21st Century. 2nd editon, Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Lutheran Education Queensland (n.d.) Approaches to learning. Inquiry based learning. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1360/lutheran-education-queensland-inquiry-based-learning.pdf

McLeod, S., (2018) Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

Symbiosis – Module 3.3

Teacher librarians and Principals have a symbiotic relationship in which each person’s role is intricately woven into each other (Farmer 2007).  Principals are the leaders of a school. Their role is to create a culture of learning that enables effective teaching practice and promotes learning that is independent, enthusiastic and with life long potential.  Teacher librarians collaborate with principals to make this vision into reality by taking this vision of academic integrity and making it real. How do T/L do this?

 We collaborate with heads of departments to embed the general capabilities into the curriculum across units of work and year levels  (Haycock 2007). We work with individual teachers in creating units of work that are creative and inspire deep thinking. We work with the inclusive education department to help structure modified units of work that promote equality and equity.  We resource the library with materials that encourage students to engage with the content, promote literacy via recreational reading programs, and we do it wearing co-ordinated twin sets with pearls (Lipton 2016).

 Principals enable teacher librarians by enabling the teacher collaboration that is essential for TL practice.  They agree to school wide reading and digital literacy programs. They minimise or eliminate teaching lines so that we can dedicate our days to assisting our colleagues in their professional practice.  Principals who need teacher librarians give them time and money to do their job. Teacher librarians need principals who value and respect them, their roles and their positions in the school.

References

AITSL (2017) Principal Standards. Retrieved from https://www.aitsl.edu.au/lead-develop/understand-the-principal-standard/unpack-the-principal-standard

Farmer, L. (2007). Principals: Catalysts for collaboration. School Libraries Worldwide, 13(1), 56-65.

Haycock, K. (2007). Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 13(1), 25-35.

Lupton, M. (2016). Adding value: Principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher librarian. School. Libraries Worldwide. 22/1 49-61

Its the standards that matter – Module 3.1

 

I recently moved from provisional /graduate teacher to proficient teacher whilst I was working as a Teacher librarian.  I’ve only ever taught as a casual teacher for about two years and only just scraped  my 180 days minimum as TQI required in the ACT when I moved to proficient.  Gathering evidence for my ATSIL standards was ridiculously hard when you never have had a class to yourself.  So the thought of having to even think about ASLA TL standards was enough to make me avoid this task for a week.

Then I spent a week assisting the RE co-ordinator and his 2IC plan next semester’s units from Years 7-8.   Using their unit plans I worked with the teachers to embed the general capabilities curriculum firmly into the teaching and learning.  I used scootle to find resources that would promote critical and creative thinking, inter cultural understanding and ICT.   I assembled a range of fiction titles that would support the units of work, including locating an audio-book for our visually challenged student.  I also looked for interactive websites and videos that would enhance the learning process.  Then I collaborated with the inclusive education team to work on modified programs for the students with learning needs.  It took us all day but we came up with several scaffolded tasks that could be used interchangeably.

It was then the TL standards made sense.  The standards set the benchmark of professional behaviour of what teacher librarians bring to the school community.  I am too new a teacher and  definitely too new a TL to be proficient at all the standards.  But what I can do is achieve each one slowly, bit by bit.

 

2.2 Learning and teaching

Excellent teacher librarians:

• collaborate with teachers to plan and implement information literacy and literature programs that result in positive student learning outcomes

• ensure that their programs are responsive to the needs of learners in the school community

• support learning and teaching by providing equitable access to professionally-selected resources

• assist individual learners to develop independence in their learning

• teach the appropriate and relevant use of ICTs and information resources

Module 2.1 – The Porridge Pot

RitaE / Pixabay

This section has changed my perspective on the concept of information.  Prior to this unit, I had seen this word to be simply informative. A transmission of knowledge from one to another.  The continuum was very helpful in understanding the difference between raw data, information and knowledge. I particularly liked how the types of knowledge was described.  It made me think of oral traditions of many cultures, that transmit vast knowledge and traditions across generations via story telling. In the eras of near universal illiteracy, information was communicated via stories and tales by tribal elders.  Even now, Indigenous peoples across the world maintain their societal traditions and cultures by a rich history of oral traditions.

It was interesting to describe information as a commodity.  Arguably, one could use schooling as an example of information as a commodity, as it is transmitted from experts to apprentices at a cost.  The very nature of information and its ability to be transferred from one person to another without loss to the original person makes it an excellent business practice.  In fact, one could go further and suggest that education systems use information and its inherent properties as an unending source of income. I find this rather amusing as it reminds me of the story of the magic porridge pot  by the Brothers Grimm.

In the children’s story, the porridge pot overflowed and overwhelmed the town.  This is very similar to what is happening with the information quantities present in society today.  The attributes of information that make it such a viable commodity also means that it is being constantly created and this ‘self multiplication’ is leading to an glut of material.  Combined with technology that is rapidly changing and expanding, this overabundance of knowledge is increasing dramatically as our ability to produce information is also increasing.