Thanks to all who responded to my request for practical advice about
collaboration in the high school setting. While it did not generate a response
as rich as those for collaboration strategies in elementary schools, there are
many useful tactics compiled below:
--Original Request Thu, 31 Oct 2002
Subject: TARGET,SEC: collaboration
I'm looking for practical tips about establishing and maintaining strong
collaborative relationships with teachers and administrators. Any novel ideas
or general strategies will be appreciated.
--Responses
Teacher Librarian is a refereed journal, committed to providing thoughtful,
provocative, lively and relevant articles exploring current issues such as
collaboration, leadership,technology, advocacy, information literacy and
management for teacher-librarians working with children and young adults.
---------
Look at COLLABORATION TO MEET STANDARDS: TEACHER/LIBRARIAN PARTNERSHIPS FOR
7-12 by Toni Buzzeo (Linworth 2002) for three solid chapters of history,
application, and practical suggestions for overcoming roadblocks to
collaboration followed by seventeen full standards-based collaborative units
with assessments.
---------
I always give my teachers a Wish List form or Suggested Ideas for Materials
form (at the beginning of each semester) to list items they would like for me
to order for their subject areas. I also respond with thank you cards and
small tokens of appreciation-calendars (vendors give these away all the time),
posters for their classroom, etc. whenever they support our library activities
and events throughout the year. At the beginning of each school year, I
prepare "Welcome" packets for the new teachers on campus- and I also have a
drawing of school supplies at the beginning of the year for all teachers who
visit the library during that first week of school. I know this is more in the
way of PR, but I find it helps to establish a rapport with my faculty. Then I
attend each department meeting to encourage teachers to come by the library
and sign up for library time- at which point I let them know how I can help
them with their research. When they come in to sign up, I hand them a sheet
"How Can I Help?" to fill out and return to me- it lists ways I can
prepare-bookmark web sites, reserve reference materials, etc. A day or two
before they are scheduled to come in with their classes, I visit the teacher
to discuss my preparation. This is the way I manage to "collaborate" with
them. Otherwise, if I wait on them to stop by, it may not happen.
---------
I've found the following things work well with my principal:
Submit ideas in writing so that he can review them when his
schedule permits.
Always take a positive and/or humorous attitude when
relating to your administrators. They deal with problems
that the teachers and librarians can't even imagine! They
really don't need to hear you griping about something
trivial.
Invite administrators to attend meetings and events you are
having, or to observe a special lesson taking place in the
library, but always include the fact that you understand
they may be too busy to be there.
Tell others about good things your administrators have done.
Compliments have a way of making their way back to the
person concerning, making them feel good.
If your administrator asks you to do something, do it now.
That is your first priority whether you like it or not.
I have less luck with collaborating with teachers, so I'll
let someone else send you tips on that.
---------
I have found that the best way to reach HS faculty for
collaboration is to start small. Share lesson plan ideas with a few
teachers. Be open to meeting with teachers. Work with one or two to
begin with, and then let them pass the "I had a great collaboration
experience" info on to the rest of her faculty friends. It may take a
while, but it works. Another thing is, this year we made a point to
reach out to the new teachers. We gave them individualized help and
sponsored a new teachers party at a local sports establishment after
school one Friday. So far collaboration and library use has skyrocketed
this year.
---------
I am an MLS student also who just finished her first Practicum in a high
school library. The librarian has a form that is distributed to every teacher
that asks for input on units that will be taught and what types of resources
(human, electronic, print, etc.) the library could provide to assist with
instruction.
It was suggested in one of my classes that the librarian obtain copies of the
curriculum maps for each subject area. He/she could then review them and go to
individual teachers (or department mtgs.) with suggestions of how he/she can
collaborate.
One of my class discussion threads (I'm a distance student) was on
collaboration. The overwhelming majority agreed that the librarian must be
proactive in reaching out to the school community because so many teachers
have no idea at all what the library and its staff have to offer them to
support their instruction.
---------
This advice contributed to a group assignment entitled "Creating Effective
Teaching Communities: Fostering Collaboration between Classroom and Media
Center," by Alicia Duell, Christy Mulligan, Todd Heldt, and me, students in
the youth services librarianship course offered through the University of
Illinois's distance ed program. The group wanted to share our results with the
LM_NET community. Here is a link to our report:
http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/publish/RainDogs/teachcollab.html
Hopefully these resources will be useful to both new and veteran school
collaborators. Thanks again!
Brian Conway, student
University of Illinois GSLIS
bcconway@uiuc.edu
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