Monthly Archives: December 2014

Looking Forward

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years-textClosing out the month of December and the year, most folks take an opportunity to make a few New Year’s resolutions.  For teachers and teacher librarians, it’s a time to recharge ideas and plans for 2015 that refocus on “The Heart of the Matter: Why I Teach.” (Alber, 2014)

This month, as the BACC bloggers offered ways to find partners and resources to stretch scarce financial funds, we have tried to highlight successful examples of mutually beneficial projects/ideas that go beyond school walls, and engage a wider community of learners. We know that there are amazing things happening in our schools across the country, and we would like to hear about them.  Perhaps you might leave us a reply, or a link to other creative and innovative programs or projects that could be shared.

As an educator, whether you are planning for your students, or pursuing a partnership with community members, you have to be able to articulate your vision for learning, and show that you are committed to the long haul.  Throwing the spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks is fine for cooking, but innovative ideas need to be nurtured to make them sustainable.  Collaboration with a partner, team, or co-teacher helps to clarify the purpose and process for transforming teaching and learning.  Trial and error are also part of the process for teachers and students in the quest for meaningful learning. Never give up!

When I read Rebecca Alber’s inspiring post (linked above) on Edutopia, I was reminded that teachers are creative, ingenious, and resilient problem solvers who enjoy a challenge, as well as their students. In addition to her list, I would summarize a few items as entry points for innovative planning that bridge traditional and transformative teaching and learning-and make it fun. These are not new ideas, but ones that seem to be trending in schools and beyond.

Options for innovative planning in the classroom and the future:

  • Flipping curriculum content through inquiry and technology integration. Using technology tools and applications for collaboration and personalized, self directed learning, not just another medium for pencil and paper tasks. Assessment for performance and knowledge, not recall.
  • Global thinking and awareness. Digital literacy is front and center to understanding differences in cultures and communities. Empathy is a habit of mind that comes from exposure to alternative points of view.
  • Social justice and personal responsibility through authentic learning opportunities. Communities thrive where all citizens, even the youngest have connections to the environment, the history, and the values shared by all.  Doing is learning and builds pride and a sense of worth.
  • Reflection and goal setting for students and educators. Mindfulness for empowering and engaging learners of all ages. Respecting individual differences and dreams. Multiple pathways for learning.

As you peck away at your New Year’s list, which ones will you choose to try out next year?


References:

Alber, Rebecca. “The Heart of the Matter: Why I Teach.”  Edutopia, December 25, 2014. Weblog. <http://www.edutopia.org//blog/heart-matter-why-i-teach-rebecca-alber>

Image: Morguefile http://mrg.bz/OoxaYL

Happy holidays from your friends here at the BACC Blog!

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family ties

Today’s Can Do Attitude

Across the country, the story about education financing is a variation on a theme.  Since the recession, budgets for public schooling have been on a downward spiral in most communities.  The reasons are multifaceted and many, but the bottom line is that fewer dollars are stretched, and stretched again to cover the challenges of teaching and learning in today’s schools.  Education is expensive and labor intensive, and dedicated teachers are working harder than ever to assure that young learners have opportunities to reach their potential.  During December my co-bloggers have been sharing the good news about how creative educators and teacher librarians have been maximizing scarce resources through collaboration on many fronts.

Judi highlighted ways that schools and public libraries can work together to bring richer service and resources to their common patrons, as well as to partner with non-profits in community service learning. Lucy had some exciting ideas about the benefits of sharing HUMAN resources, in essence, people to people collaborations that are meaningful and create community bonds. Melissa gave insight about ways that Open Education Resources (OER) can provide cost effective materials and access to information that reduces financial outlays.

Some key takeaways from their postings are that creativity, ingenuity, and resilience go hand in hand in problem solving, and working on common goals with other community members is a win for all.

Well, it also does help to have money for programs and resources for learners. The traditional sources- PTAs, book fairs, cake sales-you get the picture- have  provided  reserve funds, but there are other potential sources to tap, too.  There are foundations, and charitable organizations locally and statewide that are willing to fund programs and provide resources that enhance their mission within the community. It may be that there are folks in your school district who write grants, and you should talk with them, first. Many schools don’t have someone on staff, so grab your can do attitude and jump in.  It does take a bit of investigation to ferret out the possibilities and then to find a partner or collaborator who will work on a plan to apply for a grant or a donation.

When seeking funds for active learning projects, from a well known foundation or a local business organization, you have to prepare an action plan with a detailed description of goals, outlines of activities, needed resources, expenses and evaluation. Successful plans have an innovative twist and involve connecting student learners or school with the local or global community for a mutually beneficial purpose. While grant writing may not be listed in your job description, action planning should be essential to move your school library program forward. The process for identifying a problem or gap, and coming up with creative ways to transform learning in your school or district really depends on a clear understanding of the unique mission of your program, data collection and articulation, and how to work within a collaborative team.

Fortunately, there are many opportunities to access ideas for grant writing and action planning success, and also clearinghouse information for possible foundations and businesses.  Look no further than social media for crowdsourced ideas. Try a search using Livebinders, Pinterest, Scoopit! or any of your other favorites.

Here’s a couple that I have found to be quite comprehensive:

Sources for grants (Here are a few that are national, but you can find ones particular to your state or local community, also):

wildlife quiltFamily Ties at Founders School

In my own experience, a cross-disciplinary group of teachers-classroom, art, music, library, tech integrationist- collaborated on a three year project that transformed standards based learning units and curriculum.  As we developed our plan, we incorporated many community resources and applied for funds through grants and direct donations to bring visual and performing artists to the school, museum visits, and funds to self publish a series of student writings.  It was a major success within the community, because staff, students, parents, businesses, local cultural organizations, and  media outlets became united in a school wide theme titled “Family Ties.”  The images included here are from one of the  three self published books.  The collaboration team worked creatively and diligently to connect content curriculum, arts programs, and community resources to make learning exciting and meaningful for all students.  The culture of collaboration was in high gear, and the results were amazing-and lots of fun, too!

Images: Collection of Judith Kaplan

 

OER for Resource Access

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This month as we have been focusing on how school librarians can provide equitable access for all students despite financial challenges many school libraries are experiencing. My fellow bloggers have discussed human resource sharing, partnering with nonprofit organizations, and sharing with non-school libraries.

http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook

http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook

When I think about providing resources for students I immediately think about how many great free resources are out there. Recently there is a good bit of buzz in the school library world about OER: Open Educational Resources, which are “are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. Although some people consider the use of an open file format to be an essential characteristic of OER, this is not a universally acknowledged requirement” (“Open Educational Resources”, n.d.).

Just last month the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSO) reported on their survey that examined the state of Open Educational Resources in K-12. They found that:

  • Twenty states are currently planning OER initiatives.
  • Sixty percent of SEA respondents recognize the value of OER in school districts in their state and are promoting OER as either a supplement and/or replacement for traditional instructional materials.
  • States with existing OER programs are utilizing a variety of online methods to develop, curate, and access OER materials and integrate them within school programs. (p. 4)

They are also launching the K-12 OER Collaborative and are currently asking for people to participate.

OER provide benefits to teachers by providing them with cost-effective materials that are available for sharing, accessing and collaborating for personalized learning (Bliss & Patrick, 2013). There are lots of resources out there to get you going using OER in your school library:

OER definitely has the promise to assist in our efforts as we strive to provide resources to our students and teachers!

 

References

Bliss, T. & Patrick, S. (2013). OER state policy in K-12 education: Benefits, strategies, and recommendations for open access, open sharing. International Association for K-12 Online Learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/cms/wp-content/ uploads/2013/06/inacol_OER_Policy_Guide_v5_web.pdf

Council of Chief State School Officers. (2014).Open Educational Resources in K-12. Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Digital_Resources/ State_of_the_States_Open_Educational_Resources_in_K-12_Education.html

“Open Educational Resources.” (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Resource Sharing for Manpower

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Hello everyone! Before delving into my first blog post, I would like to thank Judi Moreillon, Melissa Johnston and Judy Kaplan for inviting me to be a part of “Building a Culture of Collaboration”. I have followed this blog and shared it with students and future school librarians for quite some time now, and I am honored to be a part of this project.

I first became a school librarian (without a library clerk) at a middle school located in a large urban district. Due to the district’s size and centralized format, our students benefited from a giant inter-library loan system, plenty of connections with the city public library system, and nearby universities. Consequently, I did not think about resource sharing in terms of books or materials. I thought of it in terms of manpower. How could one person implement all of the instructional partnerships, programs, and academic support systems that I dreamed of implementing? Resources and experiences I knew our students, many of whom were economically disadvantaged, desperately needed? I quickly realized that HUMAN “resource sharing” had to become a part of my library program in big way. Over the years, my library program shared HUMAN resources with neighborhood churches that adopted our school (helping to shelve and check out books); Paws Across Texas – a wonderful organization that brought in therapy dogs and volunteers to help struggling readers on a weekly basis, and local businesses that provided incentives and rewards (many times at no cost) for student reading achievement. These folks helped extend my time and ability to focus on collaborating with teachers for student achievement.

Years later, I moved to a middle school in a small, rural town. HUMAN resource-sharing became more important than ever! There I partnered with the local radio station that broadcast a show from the school library helping to boost family attendance at library literacy nights. The local newspaper regularly agreed to run short notices on the new books and materials we received to help promote the school library’s resources. There is no doubt in my mind that HUMAN “resource sharing” significantly amplified my ability to provide a stronger school library program, and consequently, a higher level of collaboration with teachers, students and parents. My program developed a reputation for being able to network with “out-of-the-box” resources. A science teacher and I connected with a northern university to study the phases of the moon. A language arts teacher and I established a partnership with a Native American reservation that resulted in several years of cultural exchange and rich book study experiences for her 6th graders.

Now, there are even more opportunities for HUMAN resource sharing! Science museums with educational outreach programs, virtual project based learning communities that can connect your students with real-world, authentic issues, after school coding clubs, even a thriving HUMAN resource sharing example spearheaded by the mayor of Nashville! The possibilities for HUMAN resource sharing are mind-boggling (and extremely exciting). When thinking about ways to HUMAN resource share, consider how you can enrich the partnerships you are fostering with classroom teachers. What HUMAN resource can you connect them to? Can you Skype in an expert? Can you involve a community member such as a medical professional or local business owner as a part of your guided inquiry team? Are there untapped HUMAN resources in your area that could provide an authentic audience for student projects? I encourage you to consider HUMAN resource sharing as a way to enrich your school library program, expand the expertise and resources you can offer teachers when collaborating, and maximize your impact on student learning.

Works Cited

Kuhlthau, C. (2010). Guided inquiry: School libraries in the 21st century. School Libraries Worldwide, 16(1), 17-28.

Resource Sharing with Non-profit Agencies

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icon_teamAssets-based community development is a way of thinking about how libraries can embed their work within their community rather than waiting for the community to walk through their doors. School librarians who consistently reach outside the walls of the library to integrate resources found in the community can increase the real-world relevance of their cotaught lessons. They can go the extra step to build collaborative partnerships that take the literacy learning expertise of the school librarian and resources of the school library program out into the community.

Situating their inquiry in the real world of their community can increase students’ motivation and help ensure that the questions they ask are authentic, real-world questions. This can also help learners identify a target audience that will actually care about their findings. Engaging in this level of “professional” work may be most important for high school students who are considering their workforce and educational options after graduation.

With ubiquitous Web-based information, students (most?) often search for non-print resources when conducting inquiry projects. Non-profit and governmental agencies that publish online information can be a rich source of data for students, particularly secondary students who seek to learn more about their communities as they pursue topics of personal interest. School librarians can assist students and teachers by connecting them with resources in the community with which they are unfamiliar.

For example, in a course in human geography, high school students may be asked to explore various aspects of their community. Non-profit agencies such as chapters of the United Way regularly gather data on demographics, income levels and economic opportunities, education attainment, physical and mental health, and other aspects of their immediate community. School librarians can create pathfinders to support students’ learning as they learn more about the community in which their inquiry questions are situated.

Here is a sample pathfinder I created for the Denton (Texas) Inquiry 4 Lifelong Learning project: http://tinyurl.com/di4ll-9-resources. It includes links to data from the Denton Chapter of the United Way as well as “Engage Denton,” an online community forum, and nationwide resources that collect data on U.S. communities.

Depending on students’ inquiry questions, all types of community agencies may be able to provide information. A school librarian who has connections in the community may help individual or small groups of students connect to experts and data that may not otherwise be known or available to them. In the process, community agencies learn more about the learning in which students are engaged. This knowledge can lead to stronger connections, collaborative projects, and can also build school library advocates.

As David Lankes argues, “it is time for a new librarianship, one centered on learning and knowledge, not on books and materials, where the community is the collection, and we spend much more time in connection development instead of collection development” (9). Bringing the resources of the community into students’ learning and students’ learning into the community are places to begin “connection development.”

Works Cited

Denton Inquiry 4 Lifelong Learning. Sept. 2012. Wikispaces. Web. 04 Dec. 2014 <http://dentoninquiry4lifelonglearning.wikispaces.com>.

Lankes, R. David. The Atlas of New Librarianship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. Print.

Image Credit: Prawny. “Icons-icon-team.jpg.” Morguefile. Web 01 Dec. 2014 <http://mrg.bz/EtES83>.

Resource Sharing with Non-school Libraries

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public_library_sizedWhen budgets are tight and curriculum is in constant flux, school librarians can be hard-pressed to purchase and provide all of the resources students and teachers need to be successful. In most school districts, school librarians practice interlibrary loan with their colleagues. This can be problematic. For example, when districts follow a pacing calendar that requires, for example, that all fifth-grade students will be conducting U.S. state studies at the same time of the year, district resources will be in short supply. School librarians who serve with classroom teachers who engage students in student-initiated inquiry projects can also find it difficult to meet all of the information needs of individual learners.

The wise school librarian will have strong relationships with public or academic librarians in the community. Being on a first-name basis with these colleagues can increase a school librarian’s success at filling the gaps in the school library collection on an as-needed basis. For print resources, interlibrary loan with institutions outside the school district can increase students’ and teachers’ access. In addition, knowing the electronic resources available to students who hold public or academic library cards can help the school librarian and collaborating classroom teachers expand the options for learners.

Some academic, public, and special libraries have specialized resources that can support student learning. Archives, history, and genealogy collections, more and more of them digitized, can be treasure troves for student inquirers. Encouraging youth to take advantage of these resources helps build broader literacy support for their learning. Students will be familiar with the resources available from other libraries and may be more likely to use them once they no longer have access to a school library.

Non-school libraries may have unique resources that can help students explore local interest topics. For example, the Denton (Texas) Public Library produces a TV show called “Library Larry’s Big Day.” In addition to being aired on a local station, episodes are available on YouTube. School librarians and collaborating classroom teachers can guide students to access the videos which include visits to the Denton Community Market, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and other locations of local interest.

The more school librarians work with librarians who serve in other types of libraries the greater our chances of creating a lifelong literacy pathway for preK-12 students. Resource sharing can lead to collaborative activities that further strengthen literacy in our shared communities. If our mission is to serve the information needs of students, school librarians can make connections and build relationships with other library institutions to support learning today and pave the way for future learning for children and youth.

Works Cited

Denton Public Library. Library Larry’s Big Day. CityofDenton.com. Web. 01 Dec. 2014. <http://tinyurl.com/dentonllbd>.

Image Credit: Emily Fowler Branch, Denton (Texas) Public Library, by Judi Moreillon