Dear Colleagues,
I cannot help but join Shonda on the "soapbox." Last fall I taught School
Library Administration and Organization (University of Arizona). I required
that students collaborate with different members of the class and
practitioners in the field for collaborative lesson plans and projects. All
students used a trial version of Nancy Miller's IMPACT! software (available
on the LMC Source Web site), and I recommended that students purchase it.
The course was completely virtual (not my first choice) so online dialogues
were an essential part of our communication. In one exchange, a student
expressed the opinion that AASL and the course facilitator were brainwashing
school librarians to believe that working collaboratively and documenting
student achievement are THE best practices in school librarianship.
Although I wouldn't use the term "brainwashing," there is a reason our
national association, many of our colleagues, researchers in the field, and
school library educators are emphasizing maximizing our impact on student
achievement through classroom-library collaboration.
In the age of accountability, NO educator can afford to be on the sidelines
when student achievement is being discussed. Yes, we are about process in
the library, but process can be documented. Assessing students' brainstorms,
keyword selection, notemaking, rough drafts, and more are some of the many
ways we can document students' growth. Collaborative teaching with classroom
teachers and the impact on the professionalism in our learning communities
can be documented as well.
At the AASL Vision Summit in December, representatives of the AASL Affiliate
Assembly talked about school library "outputs." Most of our administrators,
classroom teacher colleagues, and parents are not interested in knowing how
many books are on our shelves or how many circulate each year.
This is what they are interested in: Are students engaged and motivated to
learn? Is the teaching that happens in the library, lab, or classroom making
a difference in students' achievement? Are classroom teachers and
teacher-librarians engaging in job-embedded professional development and
improving their teaching practices as they coplan, coteach, and coassess
lessons and units of instruction?
Some of us believe that the very future of our profession depends on being
able to document and answer "yes" to these questions.
Best,
Judi Moreillon, M.L.S., Ph.D.
Veteran Elementary and High School Teacher-Librarian
Author: Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension:
Maximizing Your Impact (ALA Editions, 2007)
Literacies and Libraries Consultant
<http://storytrail.com/> http://storytrail.com
It is interesting to note that there is a discussion in progress on the AASL
Forum about students, classroom teachers, and administrators not knowing
what we do in the library. I would suggest that can be remedied through
increased and more effective classroom-library collaboration.
One of the things that I've tried to impress upon some of the librarians who
are enrolled in a course that I'm teaching through the ESC XI (Fort Worth,
TX) Library Academy sessions dealing with "Teacher-Librarian Collaboration"
is the "evidence" that we offer to administrators. Our administrators want
charts and graphs of our work...but not necessarily about our books.
However, we always show these and miss sharing the important elements---what
we do.
We often want to compile reports of the statistical use of our materials
(which is great) but we also need to show our impact on student achievement
AND how we were involved in that process. Throughout the Library Academy
sessions, I've shared some of the great resources that I've used over the
last year or so...(David Loertscher's book, "Taxonomies of the School
Library Media Program" is one book that I'm "slowly drinking in" because it
contains SO much information about what to do to show our impact to student
achievement. This is a book that every librarian NEEDS on the personal /
professional shelf, near the desk, or in the briefcase for dull moments on
the bus / train / plane.
What I have discovered through my research is that while we always want to
share our circulation records or our collection numbers to administrators,
we AREN'T documenting our "collaborative efforts" with teachers, the number
of students we teach during those collaborative units, and how our direct
instruction (and use of library resources, of course) help to make a
positive impact on student achievement.
I've suggested to librarians who are enrolled in the Library Academy (and
who aren't great at keeping records of their collaborative efforts and
instructional time) to order the software program: IMPACT! Documenting the
LMC Program for Accountability by Nancy A.S. Miller (you can order it
through LMC Source http://www.lmcsource.com/tech/manage.html )
~Shonda
--
Shonda Brisco, MLIS
Library Media Specialist
Arlington ISD
Arlington, Texas
sbrisco@gmail.com
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