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