Collaborative Lesson Planning

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Judi Moreillon

The theme of the October issue of Educational Leadership is “Powerful Lesson Planning.” I especially appreciate the article by Michelle Bauml, associate professor in early childhood education at Texas Christian University: “The Promise of Collaboration.” She writes “effective collaboration is generally characterized by shared goals, good communication and equitable contributions by all participants” (60). She goes on to stress that collaboration doesn’t “automatically yield effective lessons.”

Applying the principles of effective lesson design is essential. Effective educators base instruction on assessment data. They collect evidence of student learning during and after the lesson. They also use observations and these data to inform the instruction in process and future instruction. These principles can support educators as they work together to codesign effective lessons in which learning objectives, tasks, and assessments are aligned.

Dr. Bauml notes, “Just as students don’t automatically know how to work in groups, teachers can’t be expected to magically make collaboration work” (60). This is where school librarians’ experiences as instructional partners can be particularly valuable in the school learning community. When school librarians develop their expertise by working with individual faculty members and teaching teams, they can serve as effective collaboration guides.

Coimplementing coplanned lessons was missing from the article because even after coplanning many classroom teachers do not have the opportunity to coteach those lessons. When two classroom teachers coteach, they must find a space large enough to accommodate doubling the class size. And they miss out on one of the important benefits of coteaching, namely lowering the student-to-educator ratio.

When classroom teachers coteach with the school librarian, they can truly experience job-embedded professional development. They can learn with and from each other in real time, make adjustments to instruction informed by two (or more educators), and comonitor students’ guided practice. Then when they follow up by coassessing student learning, they both bring their first-hand knowledge of what happened during the instructional intervention.

Coplanning, coimplementation, and coassessing student learning and the instructional itself may be the best form of professional development for all educators.

Dr. Bauml cites instructional specialists, paraprofessionals, school administrators, and special education teachers as possible collaborative planners with individual, pairs, or groups of classroom teachers (59). While I trust all school librarians aspire to be seen as “instructional specialists,” I will praise the day when more articles are published in education journals in which school librarians are specifically mentioned as collaborative instructional partners.

And to build on that vision, thank you to 230 school librarians, classroom teachers and specialists, school administrators, university faculty, and others interested in education who attended my Webinar “Classroom-Library Coteaching 4 Student Success” on Thursday, October 13th. If you were among the almost 800 who signed up and were unable to attend, you can link to the archive on edWeb.net.

Let’s keep on improving our instruction through coteaching.

Work Cited

Bauml, Michelle. “The Promise of Collaboration.” Educational Leadership, vol. 74, no. 2, 2016, pp. 58-62.

Image Caption: Former school librarian now school librarian supervisor Stacy Cameron, an ELA teacher, and technology integration specialist coplanning (Used with permission)

Instructional Role of the School Librarian

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Judi Moreillon

In August, 2016, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) posted the “Instructional Role of the School Librarian” position statement online.

According to the statement, “As educators and instructional partners school librarians are critical to teaching and learning in the school community” (“Position Statements”).

It is through my thirteen-year experience as a school librarian and twenty-one years as a school librarian educator that I know this is true. I have served at and observed the practice of school librarians at all three instructional levels. When school librarians serve “as leaders in literacy and technology, school librarians are perfectly positioned to instruct every student in the school community through both traditional and blended learning” (“Position Statements”), they can be essential contributors to students’ well-rounded education.

My experience tells me, and research supports it (Moreillon), that the most effective way for school librarians to serve as leaders in their schools is through collaborative instructional partnerships with classroom teachers and specialists. Working with the classroom teacher and through classroom curriculum ensures that the school librarian’s instruction has the potential to positively impact the learning needs of all students while it meets classroom teachers’ and school administrators’ objectives.

This is an open invitation to school librarians, classroom teachers and specialists, school administrators, parents, and anyone interested in education to participate in my upcoming Webinar “Classroom-Library Coteaching 4 Student Success.” It will be held on Thursday, October 13th at 5:00 p.m. EDT.

You can read about it on the School Library Connection Blog or register at edWeb.net.

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. “Coteaching: A Strategic Evidence-based Practice for Collaborating School Librarians.” School Library Connection, vol.1, no. 6, 2016, pp. 48-50. http://tinyurl.com/slcblog100716

“Position Statements: Instructional Role of the School Librarian,” American Association of School Librarians. 6 Aug. 2016, http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/resources/statements

Image Caption: Teacher Kathi Stalzer and school librarian Debra LaPlante, Saints Simon and Jude Cathedral School, Phoenix, Arizona, coteaching a strategy lesson with 4th-grade students

Classroom-Library Collaboration for STEM Learning

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Judi Moreillon

One way that school librarians are responding to STEM/STEAM/STREAM is to house makerspaces in the physical space of the library. Involving students in hands-on opportunities to practice the creativity and critical thinking that can lead to innovation is a timely goal. In fact, and however, school librarians who have been effectively integrating technology tools into teaching and learning have been providing students many of these opportunities for decades.

The difference with today’s makerspace movement seems to be the emphasis on the types of tools students use in their making plus a greater emphasis on experimentation/trial and error rather than on creating final products to demonstrate learning. Some makerspaces operate in isolation from the classroom curriculum and could be described as “free play” centers that are neither constrained nor bounded by curriculum. These spaces may be facilitated by the school librarian working in isolation. Other makerspaces are integrated into the published curriculum and may be facilitated by a team of educators that includes the school librarian.

In Texas, Robin Stout, district-level Media Services and Emerging Technologies Supervisor (@BeanStout), Jody Rentfro, Emerging Technologies Specialist (@J_O_D_Y_R) and Leah Mann, Library Media Services Instructional Specialist (@LMannTxLib), are spear-heading an initiative in Lewisville Independent School District (#LISDlib). LISD school librarians are piloting a Mobile Transformation Lab that moves beyond traditional “making” to address STEM/STEAM through collaborative lessons based on content area standards and district curriculum.

The team partners with campus librarians, classroom teachers and members of the curriculum department in collaborative planning meetings. The group examines the essential questions for the curriculum topic and decides which technologies from the Mobile Transformation Lab will best support the learning. Jody and Leah bring the agreed-upon resources to campus and co-teach lessons with campus staff for an entire day. They also participate in planning extension or follow-up lessons with the campus group.

You can see this process in action here:
http://goo.gl/znnvyn
http://goo.gl/wtjf8L

The Library Media Services and Emerging Technologies department offers an ever-growing repository of lessons from this project and tools to support librarians as they implement STEAMlabs with their students: http://hs.moodle.lisd.net/course/view.php?id=1010

This initiative has the potential to position school librarians as co-leaders in STEM/STEAM/STREAM learning. With an emphasis on collaborative classroom-library lesson plans, school librarians can achieve the hands-on creativity and critical thinking goals of makerspaces while school library programs remain at the center of their schools’ academic programs.

This is a makerspace strategy that is a win for students, classroom teachers, and school librarians, too.

Coteaching Inquiry and Reading Comprehension: A Perfect Match

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Judi Moreillon

Today, I am facilitating a half-day preconference workshop titled: “Coteaching Inquiry Learning and Reading Comprehension Strategies: A Perfect Match.” I am a long-time practitioner and staunch advocate for the school librarian’s instructional partner role.

In this workshop, I bring together two areas of teaching and learning about which I am passionate: inquiry learning and reading comprehension strategies (RCS). These two processes can be aligned in order to increase students’ success with both. Inquiry and RCS are metacognitive processes that invite learners to think about their thinking. They can help learners grow their ability to “learn how to learn.”

And both processes are best taught with a coteaching approach. In the workshop, participants will review these processes, complete a puzzle that spotlights how they are aligned, and practice coteaching close reading with literature that can lead to an inquiry unit of study. Coteaching RCS builds on the school librarian’s strengths in teaching information literacy skills and makes a more successful learning outcome for students.

When classroom teachers, specialists, and school librarians combine their knowledge, skills, and talents, everybody wins!

This workshop is based on my previously published books regarding coteaching RCS as well as one that I am authoring: Building a Culture of Collaboration: School Librarian Leadership and Advocacy (ALA Editions 2016).

The AASL Conference is just getting underway today. If you are not in Columbus and attending this event, check it out on Twitter at #aasl15, on the Knowledge Quest Blog, and on the AASL Facebook page.

P.S. Since I am not able to be at Treasure Mountain this morning, I am sharing my thank-you note video to Dr. Loertscher via the BACC.

Word cloud created at Wordle.net

Summer Reading… for Professional Development

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Judi Moreillon

Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan earned the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Education for their book Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. In an education environment that hones the national focus on educator quality as a predictor of student achievement on standardized tests, these authors provide concrete strategies for helping teachers improve their craft in order to build “professional capital” in every school.

It is no surprise to educators who have served in collaborative culture environments that collaboration is a cornerstone of their vision for transforming teaching.

“The most common state in teaching used to be one of professional isolation: of working alone, aside from one’s colleagues. This state of isolation still exists in more than a few schools today, where teaching is not the ‘Show Me’ state, but the ‘Only Me’ state. Isolation protects teachers (librarians) to exercise their discretionary judgment in classrooms (libraries), but it also cuts teachers (librarians) off from the valuable feedback that would help those judgments be wise and effective” (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012, 106). (Parentheses added.)

These authors challenge educators to develop “social capital” in schools built on trust and based on shared conversations and interactions related to instruction. By combining “human capital,” the credentials, experience, and teaching ability of faculty members, and “social capital” educators can create and sustain an effective learning environment.

As instructional partners, school librarians are perfectly positioned to be leaders in building human and social capital in our schools. Through coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing student learning outcomes, we break down the isolation that prevents innovations in teaching and learning from spreading throughout the school. When we coassess our instructional effectiveness with our coteaching partners, educators move toward Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan’s vision of schools with strong professional capital.

Read this book. Meet your principal for coffee this summer. Give it to her or him and make plans to be coleaders on a team that can transform your school.

Work Cited

Hargreaves, Andy, and Michael Fullan. Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York: Teachers College Press, 2012. Print.

Co-Assessing Collaborative Work

Posted on June 24, 2015 by jelkaplan

Successful instructional partnerships are bread and butter roles for the teacher librarian in educational communities. Classroom teachers and other specialists who partner with TL’s find that everyone works better, and works smarter. This month BACC bloggers have been providing ideas that support collaborative practices for co-teaching and learning. True collaborative relationships are developed with time and experience, and involve teaching partners who co-plan instruction, co-teach, and co-assess students together in an active learning model. Judi, Lucy, and Karla have highlighted key pieces for each component in collaborative partnerships that contribute to a win/win for both educators and students.

In order to work closely with another educator, teacher librarians have to build confidence and trust with a partner. As Judi said, co-planning involves knowledge and skills in pedagogy and content standards by both partners. Combining expertise and taking responsibility for sharing tasks for delivering instruction and assessment means that you have to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk. If the process is to be a partnership, not a dual track distribution of who does what, partners need to build opportunities for self reflection and communication into the collaborative model of teaching. Critical thinking and creativity abound when teaching partners share ideas and insights from different perspectives.

Reflection and Communication While the Co-teaching Plan is in Progress:

Time is at a premium for co-planning and co-assessing, and often these tasks are done on the fly outside the class time through shared documents and folders, IM, Skype, email, or a learning management system interface such as Edmodo or Moodle. Face to face synchronous sessions should be a priority, too, and built into the schedule for both partners. During the implementation phase of the co-teaching plan, partners set up a framework to check in and assess the daily/weekly progress or challenges of the students, and the learning plan. The framework can include a process for students to keep track of their work in blogs, in online discussions, Google documents, forms, and so on. Open accessibility to student work allows communication between teacher and students in a continuous feedback loop, or to ask/answer student questions. Responsibility for responding and tracking students can be divided between the partners, but there also needs to be a process for continuous conversations about adjustments to lesson plans and learning activities based on the variability of students on the road to achieving learning outcomes. Sometimes the road that has been laid out needs to take some unexpected turns. That is what makes the co-teaching so organic and interesting. No need to wait until the planned activities are completed before co-teachers review the plan.

If our expectation is for students to be metacognitive and reflective in their learning, educators should be mindful of that in their collaborative teaching, also.

During the year, I have been following Buffy Hamilton’s excellent blog posts (Unquiet Librarian, 2015) that demonstrate reflection about co-teaching that highlight the dynamics of her work with colleagues in a high school. I have mentioned her blog before, but it continues to be a source of inspiration. Take a minute to read this post that shows that partnerships can include teachers and students, too. It is clear that the communication between the partners is continuous and thoughtful, and leads to changing ideas. You will want to retrace many of her other posts, too.

Post Instruction Review and Reflection:

Once the co-teaching plan has been completed, it is equally important for partners to take time to reflect together on the process and the success/and or challenges that were encountered along the way. Once again, time is always an issue, so partners need to make sure to have some face to face conversations and analysis about the evidence that has been collected to show that students were able (or not) to transfer their understanding and demonstrate knowledge and skills. This is an important piece of evidence based practice for both teaching partners. The collaborative work should be documented and shared with administrators and other stakeholders, and will lay the groundwork for repeating the curriculum unit another time, or to begin to build another collaborative experience.

Key ideas to assess with a critical stance:

Process/Learning Plan-what was successful? What didn’t work? What misconceptions became evident? What adjustments should be included?
Product-Was the performance task authentic and did it demonstrate student learning? Are there changes that need to be made?
Student reflection and feedback-How did the students respond to the process and the learning? What are their suggestions for improving the learning plan?
Communication-How effective was the communication between partners?
Individual reflection-Impact on my own teaching and learning

Once you find your teaching partners, they will want to join the party, too. Tell us about your adventures in co-teaching-it’s all the rage!

Works Cited:

Hamilton, Buffy. “Bridge to Presearch and Growing Student Understandings: Connect, Extend, Challenge.” Unquiet Librarian. Weblog. March 4, 2015. Accessed June 24, 2015. https://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/bridge-to-presearch-and-growing-student-understandings-connect-extend-challenge/

Photo:

Judy Kaplan Collection

Coplanning for Student Success

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Judi Moreillon

When classroom teachers and school librarians coplan standards-based lessons and units of instruction, they can experience the two-heads are better than one phenomenon. Each educator brings a unique perspective as well as knowledge, skills, talents, and teaching style to the collaboration table.

Both classroom teachers and school librarians must know the standards. Whether the Common Core or other state standards. Classroom teachers have more familiarity with the background knowledge and skill development of the students in their classrooms. School librarians bring their knowledge of the resources of the library and beyond as well as strategies for integrating technology tools into lessons. Together, these equal educators have the potential to develop more creative, more engaging, and most of all, more effective instruction for students.

Many school librarians and classroom teachers find it helpful to use collaborative planning forms to record their ideas as they brainstorm and plan. Often the school librarian takes responsibility for making notes and/or completing the planning form and using it to rough out a lesson or unit plan, which both partners fine-tune. These are some sample elementary level (Chapter 1) and secondary level planning forms that can be downloaded from the Web.

In the 2014-2015 school year, Kelly Hoppe school librarian at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, Texas, coplanned with 9th-grade pre-AP English language arts teacher Jessica Wilcox for a year-long collaboration. Jessica felt that even though her students were on the pre-AP track, they weren’t skilled library users. She wanted to do something that would immerse students in library skills and critical reading skills using YA and classic literature. Together, Jessica and her school librarian Kelly collaborated to create a year-long program to meet these students’ needs.

Jessica and Kelly began by helping student learn how to use the library more effectively. Along the way, they discovered that students needed more support with how to make sense of difficult texts that were above their proficient reading level. These coteachers will have an article in the August issue of Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA) that describes their collaborative process and the results of their coteaching.

Works Cited

Wilcox, Jessica. “Teacher Librarian Collaboration.” YouTube.com. 2015. Web. 29 May 2015. <https://youtu.be/d9WHb8i8v5I>.

Word cloud created at Wordle.net

Advocating for Instructional Partnerships

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Judi Moreillon

I am a passionate advocate for school librarians’ instructional partner role. Research and my own experience suggest that classroom-library collaboration is a best practice and results in improved student learning outcomes.

While building relationships with classroom teachers, it is critical for school librarians to build relationships with influencers and decision-makers. Principals and school superintendents who understand the impact of coteaching on student learning can help create the ideal environment for this practice: a state-certified professional school librarian, a flexibly scheduled libraries with sufficient support staff and a budget that affords engaging resources and technology tools.

Principals and superintendents can advocate for vibrant school library programs. School librarians can collect and share stories designed to meet these decision-makers’ priorities as well as touch their emotions. There is a growing consensus about the importance of educators’ expertise to impact student learning. School librarians can collect advocacy stories from classroom teachers who can tell the stories of improvements in both their teaching and students’ learning as the result of classroom-library collaboration for instruction. Here are some examples.

I appreciated the three things we were told to consider when “Communicating the Story”: What libraries and librarians really do that’s unique and valuable; why it matters in terms of their values and their priorities; and why it is urgent. Classroom-library coteaching answers all three of these questions for the administrators we seek to influence.

School librarians are in a unique position. Similar to principals, we have a global view of the learning community. We know the entire curriculum; we work with all students and teachers in all disciplines. We know the resources that can help our teachers and students succeed. This global perspective is valuable to the learning community in determining what students must know and be able to do. We can help teachers plan across grade levels and content areas because we see the big picture.

Principals and superintendents are focused on teacher improvement. When two educators—a classroom teacher and a school librarian—coplan, coteach, and coassess a lesson or unit of instruction, they learn from one another. This kind of job-embedded professional development can be part of the daily work of educators; it doesn’t cost anything (except as noted above in terms of scheduling, staffing, and resources). Coteaching happens in real time with real students. The results are observable by these decision-makers; the results in terms of student learning can be tangible. A culture of collaboration can transform a school or district.

The urgency of improving teachers’ teaching and students’ learning will be clear to these administrators who are held accountable for student achievement by parents, school boards, and state- and federal-level education agencies. We cannot let students fall behind in reading comprehension, applying information-seeking processes, or using technology tools. These are basic and recognized 21st-century skills that can help our students be competitive in a global society and economy. Teachers must be up to date with strategies to meet these objectives.

Finally, I want to borrow a slogan from a national school library advocacy campaign from the Dewitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Library Power Project from 1990s. I believe it frames the message school librarians want/need to share in order to influence today’s decision-makers. “Teaching is too difficult to do alone. Collaborate with your school librarian.” This was true at the dawn of the Information Age and it is even truer now. Framing our message in terms of what teachers need is a way to show principals and superintendents that they have a partner in the school librarian—a partner who can help them meet their goal of an effective teaching force in our schools.

Image: Remix of Library Power Slogan. Dewitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Library Power Project

On the Horizon

Posted on March 16, 2015 by jelkaplan

This month, Judi and Lucy have highlighted some ways that school libraries and teacher librarians have continued to provide resources and instruction that support the variability of all learners in a diverse school community. At the heart of our mission is the concept of equitable access to information and the freedom to read a range of literature in many formats. Another part of the vision for library service is to provide a safe and welcoming environment for active learning for contemporary learners to “Think-Create-Share and Grow.”

On a personal level, teacher librarians get to know learners’ individual reading tastes, interests, strengths, and challenges in a setting other than the classroom. Often, we have a longer view of student growth over time because the school library space is a constant from year to year. We develop relationships with students that extend through their time in elementary, middle, or high school as we see their talents and personalities evolve. I always found that to be one of the most rewarding aspects of my work.

As Lucy has said, “to remain effective and relevant, we must constantly update our skills and keep up with the movements and trends affecting our practice.” Now there is a new/old opportunity on the horizon for teacher librarians in the emerging field of personalized learning, and we should be ready to collaborate with our teaching colleagues in a shift from teacher centered learning to student centered learning that has the potential to change teaching practice now and in the future.

Emerging technologies and new pedagogies focused on learners and learning have already brought about tremendous change in the traditional classroom, and there is more to come.

What is personalized learning?

Personalized learning is a term that is used to describe many approaches to customizing instruction in the field of education. The term is used in multiple ways to describe an approach to learning that gives students voice and choice in their own learning. When learning is personalized, teachers help students set goals based on their interests, knowledge, and skills. As “guides on the side,” teachers help them to develop learning plans to achieve the goals, and monitor progress. The objective is for students to master competencies and demonstrate evidence of learning through performance. Self-assessment and reflection are integral to student success in mastering learning. Gradually, students will be able to take responsibility for their own learning and chart their own pathways for the future.

Personalization of learning, personal learning plans, and performance portfolios will impact the way that students will be using classroom and library learning spaces, and how teachers and teacher librarians interact with students. Students will be trained to set personal goals, and to develop a system for designing what, why, and how they learn. Teachers will become coaches, and provide instruction as needed, and how this will impact the traditional way that schools and curricula are designed is in transition.

Why should teacher librarians be at the PL table?

When you look at Standards for 21^st Century Learners (AASL 2007), the dispositions and competencies in the document align with concepts for personalized learning. These are the standards that teacher librarians use to guide their daily practice in designing learning for students. Along with Common Core State Standards, or other state standards as frameworks to guide curriculum, teacher librarians collaborate with colleagues to create meaningful and engaging performance tasks that provide authentic learning opportunities. Teacher librarians are already in the business of partnering with students in their inquiry, problem, project, and place-based learning assignments, so personalized learning is an extension of their professional practice.

Across the nation, there are 41 states and the District of Columbia that are in various stages of exploring, developing, or implementing competency based education policies that are driven by personalized learning for students. The state legislation or education rules already in effect or being proposed provide “flexible pathways” for determining graduation requirements from high school. Instead of using the Carnegie Unit (time), there can be alternative ways to evaluate performance through mastery of competencies, and local school districts are charged with developing systems for tracking individual performance, and mastery. This is a major paradigm shift in educational delivery models, as well as a change in school culture. There is lot to talk about, and teacher librarians should be part of the conversation, too.

How can I learn more about personalized learning?

There are journals, websites, and professional texts that are excellent resources for gaining understanding about the concepts and challenges for shifting the way we approach teaching and learning for our increasingly diverse learners in an age of information and ubiquitous technology.

Here some recommendations that you can share with your colleagues to get the discussion rolling:

Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey. Make Learning Personal. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2015. Website: http://www.personalizelearning.com/
John H. Clarke. Personalized Learning: Student-Designed Pathways to High School Graduation. Thousand Oaks, CA: 2013.
Allison Zmuda, Greg Curtis, and Diane Ullman. Learning Personalized-The Evolution of the Contemporary Classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2015.
Competency Works website:

State Policy Resources http://competencyworks.pbworks.com/w/page/67261821/State%20Policy%20Resources
A Snapshot of Competency Education Policy Across the United States http://www.competencyworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/inacol_competency_snapshot_oct_2013.pdf

It’s time to get personal!

Next week-A look at models for PL in practice.

Image:

http://www.birdclipart.com/bird_clipart_images/ocean_sunset_with_sailboat_and_seagulls_as_the_sun_sinks_beneath_the_horizon_0515-0909-2920-5913_SMU.jpg

Differentiating Instruction as the School Librarian

Posted on March 9, 2015 by lucysantosgreen

I’m not sure about you, but it has been *cough, cough* several years since I completed a degree in education and obtained teacher certification. Most of us in the education profession realize that to remain effective and relevant, we must constantly update our skills and keep up with the movements and trends affecting our practice. But sometimes, these trends are cyclical. We see an educational approach or method repackaged or rebranded for a new generation of students. My father is fond of exclaiming “There is nothing new under the sun!” and many times I am inclined to believe he is right. When I first heard the terms: “differentiated instruction,” these brought to mind some of the ideas we have discussed in the field of instructional design for quite some time. Ideas like learner analysis (who are my learners? what do they know? what are their learning struggles? where do they need support?) and content analysis (what am I teaching? What are the key ideas, concepts? What is the best order to introduce these concepts?) were some of the most obvious and immediate connections.

Even so, recognizing “differentiated instruction” as containing approaches we find familiar, and actually enacting and supporting this practice as school librarians are vastly different situations. If we are to collaborate with teachers and support learning for all, then we need to be able to verbalize differentiated instruction, recognize what it looks like, plan for it, and support its implementation. Differentiated instruction is “a way of thinking, an approach to teaching and learning that advocates beginning where students are and designing experiences that will better help them achieve” (Koechlin & Zwaan, 2008, p. 2).

There are four design elements that can be conduits for differentiation:

1. Content (the subject for student mastery, curriculum materials that introduce the subject)

2. Process (student learning activities)

3. Product (student artifacts of learning)

4. Learning Environment (classroom set up and conditions)

When you read through those four conduits, did your eyes light up with recognition? Did you think to yourself: “I do design these four elements differently depending on student needs! I differentiate!” If so, then congratulations! However, if you are struggling a bit to envision how you might have a role impacting these four elements when you are not the classroom teacher, then I encourage you to set aside fifteen minutes this week and read Everyone Wins: Differentiation in the School Library by Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan. In this article, Carol and Sandi list concrete examples of ways you can implement, as well as support differentiated instruction in your school. As the authors state: “connecting kids and content in meaningful ways is the work of all educators, and helping every child achieve is our mutual goal” (p. 2).

School Librarian Leadership

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Category Archives: Coteaching