Category Archives: Future-Ready Learning

Digital Learning Twitter Chat

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This fall graduate students in “IS516: School Library Media Center” are participating in bimonthly Twitter chats. The chats are based on the pull quotes from chapters in Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy (ALA 2018).

It is fitting that we are preparing for our chat and talking about digital literacy and learning during “Digital Inclusion Week” (10/7/19 – 10/11/2019). For me, #digitalequityis fully resourced school libraries led by state-certified school librarians who provide access and opportunity to close literacy learning gaps for students, educators, and families.

Monday, October 14, 2019: #is516 Twitter Chat: Digital Learning

 “Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills” (American Library Association 2013). As educators with expertise in curating and integrating digital resources and tools into curriculum, school librarians and libraries are perfectly positioned to be leaders and coteachers of digital literacy.

School librarians serve as technology stewards. Stewardship is an activity that requires one to practice responsible planning and management of the resources one is given, or over which one has authority. In school libraries that serve as hubs for resources, effective school librarians curate resources that support standards-based curricula as well as students’ needs for independent learning. Students, families, classroom teachers, and administrators rely on proactive library professionals who plan for, manage, and integrate digital learning tools and experiences into the daily school-based learning lives of students.

Access and equity are core principles of librarianship. With their global view of the learning community, school librarians have an essential role to play as digital literacy leaders who help address gaps in technology access and in opportunities to use digital resources for learning and creating.

In schools with plenty, school librarians advocate for a digitally rich learning environment for students and coteach with colleagues to effectively integrate digital resources, devices, and tools. In less privileged schools, librarians will dedicate themselves to seeking funding and advocating for students’ and classroom teachers’ access to the digital resources and tools of our times.

School librarians can be leaders in codeveloping, coimplementing, and sustaining digital learning environments in their schools. They commit to closing the gap between access and opportunity by collaborating with classroom teachers and specialists and ensuring that the open-access library makes digital learning opportunities and tools available to all students.

#is516 Chat Questions
These are the questions that will guide our chat (for copy and paste).

Q,1: What are the benefits of #coteaching digital literacy/or collaborating to integrate #digital learning tools? #IS516

Q.2: What future ready dispositions are students practicing when engaged in #digital learning? #IS51s6

Q.3: How do you or how can you serve as a technology mentor for individual Ts? #IS516

Q.4: How do you or how can you serve as a school/system-wide technology mentor? (Share a tool or website!) #IS516

Please respond with A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4 and bring your ideas, resources, experience, questions, and dilemmas to our conversation so we can learn with and from you!

For previous chat questions and archives, visit our IS516 course Twitter Chats wiki page. Thank you!

Work Cited

American Library Association. 2013. Digital Literacy, Libraries, And Public Policy: Report of the Office of Information Technology Policy’s Digital Literacy Task Force. www.districtdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2012_OITP_digilitreport_1_22_13.pdf

 

Community Connections

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I believe a school librarian’s first order of business is serving as a leader within the school building itself and then within the school district. The focus of Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy is librarian leadership that benefits students, other educators, administrators, and families within the school building and district.

That said, instructional leadership and advocacy are two areas in which school librarians’ leadership activities can extend into the community outside the school building. When the greater community is aware of the school library program, advocacy appeals for more resources, staffing, and other types of support will be supported by local businesses, non-profit and civic organizations, and by voters.

Instructional Community Connections
School librarians can be the connectors who bring the resources of the community into the school building. Human resources are often overlooked by busy educators. Bringing in guest speakers and experts in their fields builds bridges for learning and perhaps future career choices for students. School librarians can coordinate or work with a school community liaison to facilitate volunteer tutors and other services offered by individuals and non-profit groups.

Taking students and learning out into the community is another area for school librarian leadership. Field trips to public and academic libraries, museums, universities and colleges connect students to community resources that can support learning. Getting outside the school building and visiting parks and nature preserves or attending fine arts performances enriches students’ lives.

Off-campus student jobs and internships are other ways school librarians can support student learning. As a high school librarian, I wrote a number of reference letters for library aides and other students who were seeking employment or apprenticeships. Based on my experience of students’ work ethic and willingness to learn, I could confidently recommend them to business owners and community organizers.

Community Advocacy Connections
There is no question that the community outside the school building can provide powerful support in advocating for the school librarian’s position and the library program. The more students and educators are out in the community the greater the community’s knowledge of their talents and their needs. When students share their learning, musical or other talents at a school board meeting, parents, voters, and the press are there. In a small school district where I served in a combined junior high/high school library, I co-sponsored and sponsored two sets of student presentations. One was a classroom-library online literacy circles collaboration; the other was the library geek squad who researched and presented the need for computer upgrades.

Making sure the school district and local town/city press cover the contributions of the library program to student learning helps educate the community about the vital learning and teaching facilitated by the school librarian. This will take a strategic and concerted effort on the part of the school librarian and school/district administrators who understand the literacy and learning value added. If and when the school board decides to address a budget shortfall by eliminating school librarians, there should be a hue and cry.

Community and Sustainability
When the school and school library are positioned in the community as sites for literacy and learning opportunities, school library programs have a greater opportunity to survive in the ever-changing, ever-evolving education landscape. It is up to each and every school librarian to make the commitment to sustaining a program that is worthy of stakeholders. “Developing excellence in school library programs and a credible collective advocacy story is a path to sustaining the vitality, integrity, and the future of our profession” (Moreillon 2015, 26).

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

  1. What are the benefits of maximizing community connections?
  2. What connections are you making with resources, including human resources, to bridge school and community?

Work Cited

Moreillon, Judi. 2015. “Quick Remedies Column: Collaborative Library Stories. School Library Monthly 31 (8): 25-26.

 

Advocate for What Students Need to Succeed

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While it is all educators’ responsibility to advocate for what students need to succeed in their futures, school librarians can use their leadership and instructional partner roles to advocate for authentic, relevant, and challenging curricula. They can colead and advocate for initiatives that result in transforming teaching and learning.

School librarians’ overarching goal is to prepare students for lifelong learning. It could be said that preK-12 educators have always prepared the next generation for their lives after high school. But the speed of technological and other change in today’s society make it more difficult to predict those needs. Education organizations have suggested various skills and competencies for educators to consider as they guide future ready students’ learning. (Competencies are applied skills; all of the standards cited in this post are intended to be applied in authentic learning experiences.)

Among those skills are the Partnership for 21st Century Learning’s 4Cs (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity), the International Society for Technology in Education’s Student Standards, NextGen Science Standards, National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, and more including the National Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (AASL 2018).

In Chapter 8 in Maximizing School Librarian Leadership, I draw connections between leadership and advocacy. Both are essential behaviors of school librarians if we are indeed positioning our work at the forefront of innovation, change, and reform in education.

Leadership
“Leaders maintain an understanding of what the mission and goals of an organization are and how these can be fulfilled” (Riggs 2001). Leaders inspire and influence the thinking and behaviors of others. From the global view provided by the library—the largest classroom in the school—school librarians are stewards of the widest range and variety of resources. Their job is to develop a collection of resources that meet the needs of the learning community.

In their daily work, school librarians connect books and other resources with students in order to help them develop as strategic readers, who enjoy and choose to read for pleasure. Strategic readers use comprehension strategies to think critically, to understand an author’s purpose, separate fact from fiction, news from propaganda. They also ask probing questions, seek credible answers, and develop new knowledge that helps them make sense of the world.

School librarians connect books and other resources to the curriculum by working with classroom teachers and specialists. They help other educators extend student learning beyond the textbook and offer resources on curricular topics at multiple reading proficiency levels to help all students build their reading skills. School librarians advocate for learning experiences that give students voice and choice and set them on the path of lifelong learning.

School librarians are on the constant lookout for resources that will spark students’ curiosity while supporting classroom teachers’ required student learning objectives. In many schools, school librarians are stewards of the most up-to-date technology tools and have expertise in marshaling the power of technology to improve student learning. They have expertise with digital information, including databases. They teach digital citizenship and help students understand the implications of the digital footprint they are creating today and how it may affect their futures.

Advocacy
“Collaborating school librarians have the potential to influence teaching and learning for every classroom teacher and every student in their building. To embrace a leadership role is an opportunity to co-create a collaborative school culture of learning that truly transforms education” (Moreillon 2019). Through coplanning, coteaching, and coassessing student learning alongside classroom teacher colleagues, school librarians have the opportunity to advocate for effective instruction, relevant learning tasks, and meaningful inquiry-based learning experiences that improve student learning outcomes. This work supports administrators’ goals for their schools and their district.

“Advocacy in all its forms seeks to ensure that people, particularly those who are most vulnerable in society, are able to: Have their voice heard on issues that are important to them. Defend and safeguard their rights. Have their views and wishes genuinely considered when decisions are being made about their lives” (SAEP n.d.). When school librarians advocate for future ready students, they are advocating for students’ voices and agency, their rights, and their empowerment to pursue learning that will make a long-term impact on their readiness for college, career, and community life.

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

  1. In your way of thinking, how are leadership and advocacy linked?
  2. Describe how your passion for school librarianship, your role as a school librarian, and the role of the library in future ready learning has led you to advocating for future ready students.

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. 2019. “Leadership Requires Collaboration: Memes Have Meaning.” School Library Connection Online: https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Home/Display/2193152?topicCenterId=1955261&tab=1

Riggs, Donald E. 2001. “The Crisis and Opportunities in Library Leadership.” Journal of Library Administration 32 (3/4): 5-17.

seAp.org. “What Is Advocacy?” https://www.seap.org.uk/im-looking-for-help-or-support/what-is-advocacy.html

 

 

 

 

 

Assessing Students’ Dispositions

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Assessing one’s development of future ready dispositions is an important aspect of self-assessment. During the course of inquiry learning, students have multiple opportunities for choice and voice that can lead them to becoming proficient as self-regulating learners. Feedback regarding dispositions is essential because it helps students see their progress and points them in positive directions for improvement.

Dispositions such as confidence, persistence, and self-direction may be more visible to educators than others such as flexibility, openness, and resilience. Students and educators can share joint responsibility for assessing students’ progress with regard to dispositions. Their different perspectives can create opportunities for social and emotional growth for students and greater understanding of students on the part of educators.

Student Self-Assessment
Assessing dispositions directly is a challenging proposition. It may be true that a student’s own perception of her/his progress in developing specific positive dispositions may be the most effective assessment. This will require trust between students and educators and student self-awareness and honesty. (I have found that many students are harder on themselves in self-assessment because they think educators are looking for perfection rather than for progress.)

“Ideally, educators will guide students to notice how they are applying dispositions throughout the inquiry and involve them in self-assessment throughout the process—not just at the end of the unit” (Moreillon 2019, 46). Polling can be used to “take the temperature” of the class regarding their feelings about the topic, task at hand, or progress toward learning targets. Exit tickets, journaling, and reflection logs are some of the most frequently used assessment tools than can help students drill down deeper to find their areas of strength, improvement, and challenge.

Modeling Dispositions
“Collaborating school librarians play a key role in helping students develop these dispositions in authentic contexts. When educators coteach, they model dispositions associated with team work—flexibility and open-mindedness. When they coteach technology-supported learning experiences, educators model on-going digital learning and dispositions, including perseverance and risk-taking. When educators guide students in real-world online learning, they model curiosity and grit” (Moreillon 2018, 95).

It is also important for coteachers to acknowledge when they make missteps in terms of dispositions. They can share their own negotiations during planning and implementing lessons so that students see how adult use various dispositions to work effectively with other people. If they are especially open and trusting, educators can invite students to observe and comment on how educators are demonstrating dispositions during coteaching.

Educator Assessment
If developing dispositions is one goal for students during an inquiry learning process, then assessing dispositions must be part of the process evaluation. Ideally, educators will name the dispositions students may be utilizing during inquiry. Educators will point out students’ developing dispositions and where they might be challenged in terms of social-emotional learning (SEL). This should be done individually and confidentially for individual students. It can also be done when noting a trending disposition for the whole class.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) offers an Assessment Guide that “provides several resources for practitioners to select and use measures of student SEL, including guidance on how to select an assessment and use student SEL data, a catalog of SEL assessments equipped with filters and bookmarking, and real-world accounts of how practitioners are using SEL assessments.”

As Christina Torres, an English teacher in Honolulu, Hawaii, wrote: educators “must get content- and skill-based data and socioemotional information to best support our students. Discovering and supporting your students’ needs, allowing students to share their strengths, and asking them about their emotional state shows we care about what they think and how they feel. Data doesn’t have to reduce students to a number, but the way we treat students can” (Torres 2019, 2).

Side note: When classroom teachers and school librarians coteach, it seems natural that they would also engage in shared assessment in terms of the development of dispositions they practiced as they coplanned, coimplemented, and coassessed student learning outcomes and their instructional interventions.

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

  1. What has been students’ and classroom teachers’ responses to assessing students’ dispositions, especially if this strategy is new to them?
  2. How do you self-assess your own dispositions in terms of your growth as an instructional partner or leader?

Works Cited

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. “CASEL: Educating Hearts. Inspiring Minds.” http://www.casel.org

Moreillon, Judi. 2018. Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy. Chicago: ALA.

­­­_____. 2019. “Co-Planning and Co-Implementing Assessment and Evaluation Strategies for Inquiry Learning.” Knowledge Quest 47 (3): 40-47.

Torres, Christina. 2019. “Assessment as an Act of Love.” ASCD Education Update 61 (2): 1-2.

Digital Learning Dispositions

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In Maximizing School Librarian Leadership, I argue that educators modeling and students practicing dispositions is a key aspect of future ready learning. In our technology-enabled world where answers to straight-forward questions are nearly instantaneous, it is essential that students learn to invest in deeper digital learning. This requires them to learn and practice dispositions such as openness, flexibility, persistence, and more. Another way to refer to these attributes and behaviors is social and emotional learning skills or SELs.

“When schools recognize that emotions drive much of how and what we learn, students and educators will flourish” (Bracket 2018, 14).

Survey of  Students
The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) conducted a national survey of current and recent high school graduates; 1,300 participated. 77% of the survey participants said they were not as prepared socially and emotionally for life after K-12 as they are academically prepared. In short, they weren’t fully college, career, or community ready. School librarians can be leaders on their campuses when SEL curriculum is rolled out. They can also be leaders in highlighting the importance of SEL in schools and districts where this movement has not yet arrived.

“Students who are in schools where the integration of social, emotional and academic development is strong report doing much better academically, getting along better with others, feeling safer, being much better prepared for life, and having higher rates of volunteering than those students who do not attend such schools. Their experiences are borne out by research demonstrating that high-quality social and emotional learning boosts many of the outcomes we already measure – such as attendance, academic achievement, behavior, graduation, college attainment, employment, and participation in community” (DePaoli, Atwell, Bridgeland, and Shriver 2018, 1).

For a brief summary of the survey, see the link below for an EdSurge article by Emily Tate. In her article, Tate quotes Timothy Shriver, CASEL’s board chair: “There has been a long and divisive conversation about whether we should be educating the head or the heart. That either/or conversation needs to be over.”

Digital Dispositions
I agree with Shriver; there should be no question. Educators must attend to the needs of students’ hearts as well as their minds. Noticing the role dispositions play in (inquiry) learning is one way to bridge hearts and minds.

Grit and persistence (discussed in previous blog posts) often come into play during digital learning and in life. (The author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Angela Duckworth is developing a website called “Character Lab” to provide SEL resources. Check it out!) Other dispositions such as confidence which can result from having choice and voice in choosing and using digital resources and tools, and optimism, which comes with successful learning experiences are other SEL dispositions that educators guide students in reflecting upon as they wrap up inquiry learning experiences.

Edsurge includes the 4Cs (Partnership for 21st Century Skills) as dispositions: communication, collaboration, critical thinking (and problem solving), and creativity (and innovation) as future ready dispositions. Karen Cator, CEO of Digital Promise, participated in an EdSurge on the Air podcast interview: “How Do You Prepare Students for Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet?”  In the interview, Cator, a former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, talks about transitioning workforce development to the skills that are “uniquely human.” She suggests coteaching and coaching for classrooms teachers in order to learn to facilitate new kinds of learning experiences. She notes that inclusive innovation means problem solving with the people who are affected by the solutions to these challenges; for educators this means innovating along with students. She also notes that educators have a responsibility to make sure all educators and students can benefit from innovations in teaching and learning.

Executive Functions
Some dispositions are also known as “executive functions.” These include self-awareness, self-control, self-direction, good study habits, and more. When students take the responsibility for self-monitoring inquiry learning, educators can help learners understand that they are practicing dispositions that will be useful when they enter the workforce, enter higher education, or raise a family. Educators can help students design strategies for increasing their success in developing executive functions such as creating learning plans, learning logs, checklists, and other tools. Inquiry learning is an ideal context for practicing these dispositions.

Lived Experiences
Educating the whole student means attending to the heart as well as the mind. Planning a relevant curriculum means that school-based learning connects to students’ outside-of-school lives. “Learning happens best when the full, often complicated nature of our lived experiences are recognized celebrated, and serve as the basis upon which we experience school” (DePaoli, Atwell, Bridgeland, and Shriver 2018, vi).

Through coplanning and curation, school librarians can ensure that empowered students are prepared for learning and life with SEL experiences. They can ensure that students are given opportunities to tap into their imaginations and curiosity and are encouraged to take the initiative as knowledge creators who share their learning with personally meaningful, authentic audiences. Working together classroom teachers, specialists, and school librarians codesign and coimplement digitally powered instruction that includes SEL and leads to improved student learning outcomes as well as increased student engagement and motivation.

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

  1. Which dispositions do you believe are most closely tied to and practiced during digital learning experiences?
  2. How do you assess students’ development of digital learning dispositions?

Works Cited

Bracket, Marc A. 2018. “The Emotional Intelligence We Owe Students and Educators.” Educational Leadership 75 (2): 13-18.

DePaoli, Jennifer L., Matthew N. Atwell, John M. Bridgeland, and Timothy P. Shriver. 2018. “Perspectives of Youth on High School Social and Emotional Learning.” CASEL. https://casel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Respected.pdf

Tate, Emily. 2018. “Students Say Poor Social and Emotional Skills Are Leaving Them Unprepared.”  EdSurge Blog. https://tinyurl.com/edsurgetate18

Looking Back, Looking Forward

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Although I believe it is essential to regularly reflect on various aspects of our lives, the new year is just one of those times when some of us are “programmed” to take our reflections especially seriously.

This year, I owe a great debt to Dr. Maryanne Wolf for my New Year’s “professional life” reflection and commitment to future action. In the past four weeks, I have read, made notes, reflected, reread passages, and written about her latest book Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (2018).

This is not the first time in my life that questions about reading in the digital age have kept me awake at night. In 2008, I read Dr. Wolf’s book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Since that time, I have often found myself wondering about how, what, and why we read is changing our personal and professional lives as well as our national and global society.

The Past: Cautionary Tales
Way back in 2010, I presented “A Time to Skim, a Time to Read, or How to Convince Surfers to Take a Deep Dive” at the School Library Journal Summit in Chicago. In that brief talk, I advocated for slow reading—what I would now call “deep reading.” (If I were sharing that talk today, I would advocate even louder!)

The next year, two books greatly influenced my thinking on reading in the digital age. William Powers’ book Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (2011) made me think about taking time away from my devices in order to create time for reflection and perhaps access to my own imagination and creativity. Later that year, I read Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2011) and furthered my quest to find online and offline balance in my life.

In 2012, I coauthored an article with Cassandra Barnett for Knowledge Quest in which we connected school libraries to Nicholas Carr’s work. We wrote if Carr “is correct, we should nurture the fertile thinking time that can happen between input and innovation by providing students the option of a peaceful environment in the midst of the action in the school library” (Moreillon and Barnett 2012, 2).

Sherry Turkle’s research and writing about the impact of technology on relationships and empathy also influenced my thinking that year… Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011) and more recently, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (2015). Turkle’s writing and TED Talks created fertile ground for planting the seeds of Maryanne Wolf’s latest cautionary tale.

The Present: What We Don’t Yet Know
Wolf is not a technophobe. She is involved with others in developing technology tools to support young readers. TinkRBook involves something called “textual tinkerability” that encourages readers to interact with text (145). Her Curious Learning research project is looking at apps for learning oral language (147).

But Wolf stuck a chord with me when she made this observation in Reader, Come Home. “No self-respecting internal review board of any university would allow a researcher to do what our culture has already done with no adjudication or previous evidence: introduce a complete, quasi-addictive set of attention-compelling devices without knowing the possible side effects and ramifications for the subjects (our kids)” (Wolf 2018, 125).

We have indeed entered into a grand technological experiment with the minds, bodies, and futures of the youth who were/are born into a digitally dominant U.S. society. We want them to have all of the benefits that the technological world offers—access, speed, connection, and possibilities as yet unknown. Yet, we also want them to know the affordances of the analog world—a world in which information and life move at a slower pace, a space that may allow more time for critical thinking, creativity, reflection, and innovation.

If you are curious to learn more about Maryanne Wolf’s work, read her November 16, 2018 Science Friday article and then seek out a copy of her book!

The Future: Transformation (Marrying Values and Reflection with Action)
I truly believe, as Carr (2011) noted, schools and libraries are the epicenter for transforming learning. With effective, state-certified school librarian leaders serving the multiple literacy needs of students, colleagues, administrators, families, and communities, schools can reach their capacity to prepare youth for living and working in a connected world. School librarians can collaborate to ensure students can read, analyze, use, and create new knowledge online and offline. We can help them find their personal sweet spot—a balance between life on the screen and life off of it.

Transforming our schools and libraries is the school librarian’s path to creating opportunities for transforming our world. For my part, I recommit myself to the 2018-2019 Maximizing School Librarian Leadership blog-based book study, monthly podcasts, and Facebook Group as my contribution to this timely and critical goal. I will continue to learn from and think with others in my PLN, write, and make the case for the critical importance of effective school librarians and fully resourced school libraries in future ready education.

How would you describe your 2019 commitment to transforming learning and teaching through school libraries?

Wishing you all the best in the New Year,

Judi

 

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. 2011. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. New York: Norton.

Moreillon, Judi. 2010. “A Time to Skim, a Time to Read, or How to Convince Surfers to Take a Deep Dive.” School Library Journal Summit, Chicago. https://tinyurl.com/time2skimtime2dive

Moreillon, Judi, and Cassandra Barnett. 2012. “April is School Library Month: You Belong @your library: A Portrait–in Words and Pictures.” Knowledge Quest 40 (4): 1-6.

Powers, William. 2011. Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. New York. Harper.

Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic.

_____. 2015. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age. New York: Penguin.

Wolf, Maryanne. 2008. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper

_____. 2018. Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. New York: Harper.

 

Curiosity, Experimentation, Creativity

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“Explore” is one of the shared foundations in AASL’s National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (2018). When learners explore, they engage with the learning community by “expressing curiosity about a topic of personal interest or curricular relevance” (38).Curiosity
In their book. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman (2015) emphasize the importance of curiosity as a springboard to creativity and innovation. Educators who create learning environments and opportunities that stimulate students’ curiosity help them on a path to lifelong learning.

For far too many students, schooling has stunted their innate curiosity. Over time, they have come to think of school as the place where the educators ask the questions, and students’ job is to respond to those questions with answers the educators already know. When students are given opportunities to revive their sense of wonder, they can take charge of their learning in ways that will support them throughout their academic, professional, civic, and personal lives.

Experimentation
Experimentation was once reserved for science and art courses, with chemistry labs and art classes the most often offered opportunities. The STEM/STEAM/STREAM focus in recent years has added technology, robotics, and engineering to the mix. Many school librarians have turned to makerspaces as strategies for engaging students and classroom teachers in experimentation. The opportunity to risk, fall short, and learn from missteps is a foundational tenet of makerspaces.

Although a makerspace may be housed in the library, hands-on, minds-on learning can be strengthened when the “maker” philosophy is diffused throughout the school. When classroom teachers, specialists, and school librarians collaborate, students have the opportunity to experiment and explore in all content areas and develop a growth/inquiry/innovator mindset. School librarians who coplan and coteach with their colleagues help spread the benefits of makerspaces in the learning community.

Creativity
Creativity was once associated with the fine and industrial arts more than any other areas of the curriculum. Students signed up for art, music, shop, and home economics classes with an understanding that the curriculum in those courses would allow them free rein to explore, experiment, and “fail forward.” In these courses, students and educators expected students to access and enact creativity in their thinking and in the final products they created.

Creativity is one of the Partnership for 21st Century Learning’s 4Cs. When students are encouraged to imagine and “think outside the box,” they may pursue and express their questions, knowledge, and learning in unexpected ways. For some youth, personalized learning can be a pathway to unleashing students’ creativity. For others, small group exploration may be the path to connecting their own creativity with that of their peers.

Coleading School Librarians
An effective school library program involves students and educators in exploring the curriculum, resources, information, and ideas in creative ways. School librarians can spotlight the ways students use library resources and tools to create. They can work with colleagues and administrators to ensure that curiosity, experimentation, and creativity are cornerstones of students’ learning experiences.

Taking the attitude and enacting the behaviors of “explorers,” students can stretch themselves beyond their own expectations. Through codesigning and coteaching with classroom teachers and specialists, school librarian can also stretch themselves and advocate for engaging learning experiences for students.

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

  1. What are your school’s considerations in determining the location of a makerspace in your school building?
  2. What are the benefits to students when school librarians share responsibility for facilitating making?

Works Cited

American Association of School Librarians. 2018. National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. Chicago: ALA.

Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman. 2015. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Maximizing Leadership: Chapter 6

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Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy was published by ALA Editions in June, 2018.

Chapter 6: Digital Literacy

“An effective school library plays a critical role in bridging digital and socioeconomic divides” (AASL 2018, 14).

“Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills” (American Library Association 2013). As educators with expertise in curating and integrating digital resources and tools into curriculum, school librarians and libraries are perfectly positioned to be leaders and coteachers of digital literacy.

School librarians serve as technology stewards. Stewardship is an activity that requires one to practice responsible planning and management of the resources one is given, or over which one has authority. In school libraries that serve as hubs for resources, effective school librarians curate resources that support standards-based curricula as well as students’ needs for independent learning. Students, families, classroom teachers, and administrators rely on proactive library professionals who plan for, manage, and integrate digital learning tools and experiences into the daily school-based learning lives of students.

Access and equity are core principles of librarianship. With their global view of the learning community, school librarians have an essential role to play as digital literacy leaders who help address gaps in technology access. In schools with plenty, school librarians advocate for a digitally rich learning environment for students and coteach with colleagues to effectively integrate digital resources, devices, and tools. In less privileged schools, librarians will dedicate themselves to seeking funding and advocating for students’ and classroom teachers’ access to the digital resources and tools of our times.

What you will find in this chapter:
1. Strategies for Leading Digital Literacy;
2. Leading Digital Learning Organizations;
3. Future Ready Librarians Framework;
4. Selected Criteria and Possible Evidence for Future Ready Librarians.

The importance of digital literacy for students, particularly for students from less privileged homes, cannot be overestimated. Ensuring equitable access through professional development offerings and instructional partnerships, school librarians serve as digital integration mentors and coteachers alongside their colleagues. Future ready librarians also ensure that students have the knowledge and tools they need to be safe, engaged, and effective digital learners, creators, and citizens. Digital literacy teaching and learning is a leadership opportunity for school librarians

Works Cited

American Association of School Librarians. 2018. National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. Chicago: American Association of School Librarians.

American Library Association. 2013. Digital Literacy, Libraries, And Public Policy: Report of the Office of Information Technology Policy’s Digital Literacy Task Force. www.districtdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2012_OITP_digilitreport_1_22_13.pdf

Image Credit: Word Cloud created at Wordle.net

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Maximizing Leadership: Chapter 5

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Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy was published by ALA Editions in June, 2018.

Chapter 5: Deeper Learning

“A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change” (Berger 2014, 8).

Deeper learning is future ready learning. It requires that students interact with academic content in ways that engage them in critical thinking and problem solving. They must tap into curiosity and apply the 4Cs—creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and collaboration (P21)—to discover and create new knowledge. Inquiry learning is a process that fosters deeper learning.

Questioning is at the heart of inquiry and can set students on a lifelong path of learning. When students develop authentic questions, they become invested in discovering and filling the gaps in their knowledge. Educators can guide them to explore various perspectives and collaborate with others to reach answers to their questions and solutions to problems. With a focus on effective questioning strategies, educators support students in striving for innovative thinking and creating.

Many education-focused thought leaders and organizations place a greater and greater emphasis on rigor. In many schools and districts, an overemphasis on standardized testing has resulted in fewer opportunities for students to do more with the required curriculum. When educators coplan and coteach inquiry units, they activate students’ curiosity. They engage them in delving deeply into personally meaningful, authentic questions and developing new knowledge that can be applied and shared in the real world. In short, they have codesigned and coimplemented a more rigorous learning environment for students.

What you will find in this chapter:
1. Strategies for Deeper Learning in a Culture of Collaboration and Innovation School
2. A Cross-Discipline and Discipline-Specific Questioning Matrix
3. Selected AASL Deeper Learning Competencies (AASL 2018)
4. Questioning Strategies for Deeper Learning
5. Socratic Questioning

Questioning is at the center of successful inquiry. “Learners who are empowered to deepen their own learning will acquire new knowledge by thinking critically and solving problems” (AASL 2018, 28). School librarians who commit to improving their ability to stimulate students’ questioning have an essential role to play in coteaching with colleagues to provide students with opportunities for deeper learning. Educators who are skilled at launching inquiry and supporting students as they develop personally meaningful questions serve as deeper learning instructional leaders in their schools.

Works Cited

American Association of School Librarians. 2018. National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. Chicago: American Association of School Librarians.

Berger, Warren. 2014. A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.

Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21). “Framework for 21st Century Learning.” http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-frcamework

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Leadership Shapes the Shore

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My husband and I just returned from a two-week visit to England. During our trip, I took an almost complete technology-free sabbatical, answering only the most pressing email and not engaging with social media at all. My goal was to take a break from thinking about my book revisions (the result of the title change and plans to include the new AASL national standards) and my place in the great scheme of school librarianship. I wanted to know if other thoughts would occupy my mind.

Still, I seemed to find messages in the scenery that spoke to me about our profession. (I guess I have found my true “why”! Okay, so I didn’t give up reading on the trip. Read my take-aways from Simon Sinek’s Find Your Why in next week’s post.)

After we hiked the Jurassic Coast from the Chesil Beach in West Dorset (just one of the four gloriously sunny days we enjoyed during our travels), we drove to the seaside town of Seaton in East Devon.

This photograph shows one of two metal sculptures that demarcate the entrance to the boardwalk.

“The shore shapes the waves.”

A photograph of the other sculpture is below.

At first, these two complementary ideas spoke to me about how school librarians must respond to and interact with “the shore,” the ever-changing environment in which we live and work. Our actions within this environment are “the waves.”

There are positive aspects to being mindful of our school, district, state, and national trends and priorities. When we situate our work within those larger contexts, we align the library program with other people’s goals and may be able to reach our capacity to influence teaching and learning toward a future-ready direction.

This may be especially true for future ready librarians who are serving in school districts that have taken the Future Ready Pledge. A commitment to change, growth, and improvement in instruction presents leadership opportunities for these librarians. The waves they make land on a hospitable shore – an environment and school culture where they have support for enacting future-ready learning.

On the other hand, for far too many of school librarians, “the shore” can act as an impediment to such progress. Understaffing, fixed schedules that prevent school librarians and library resources from meeting the just-in-time learning needs of students and colleagues, the lack of collaborative planning time during contract hours, inconsistent or non-existent leadership at the district level, and more can create an undertow that limits our opportunities to make positive change. Such a shore can undermine our opportunities to change, grow, and lead.

“The waves shape the shore.”

To my mind, for most of us, this idea is a stronger metaphor for future-ready school librarian leadership. Rather than being at the effect of our environment, school librarians must be proactive in building a continuous learning environment and culture in our schools.

Through our work as leaders we must shape the shore. We must design library programs and guide our schools and districts as well as our state and national associations in shaping learning environments that “work for” students and educators.

Cohort 2 Lilead Fellows are engaged in the first of four leadership courses. In the current course, participants “identify an issue in their school or program that is important to their school, district, or state’s priorities, examining and planning practical and tangible ways the school library program can help address the issue. They will identify new ways of thinking about their library programs and how they can lead in change efforts at the building-, district-, and state-levels.”

This requires transformational change—not merely tinkering but targeting our “waves” to shape “the shore.” Our future leans more toward this message. We must use the force of our unique areas of expertise, our waves, to collaboratively create a receptive shore for change. This requires us to build connections between the library and the classroom, between curriculum and resources/tools, between and among educators, between school, home, and community.

School librarians must be proactive in offering ever more relevant, engaging school-based learning opportunities for future-ready students and in supporting the teaching and professional growth of our future-ready colleagues and administrators.

Image Credit:
Photographs from Judi Moreillon’s Personal Collection