Lost in the Reads

via pixabay As educators, we are continuously trying to refine our practice so that we can have a meaningful impact on student learning. Teacher-Librarians are in the unique position to be able to provide support to the entire educational community to achieve this goal. This is one reason why being a Teacher-librarian is such an exciting position. To that end, Leading Learning states that in order to be an effective Learning Commons “It is essential to support both student and teacher growth.” (Canadian Library Association, 15).  This type of collaboration is beneficial to everyone, teacher, students, and the teacher-librarian. The examples below use the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) to identify how to best introduce and support change in a colleague’s practice. The following charts outline the Level of Use and Stages of Concern used in CBAM.    from  National Academies from National Academies Teacher 1: Mrs. Sinclair Profile ...

via pixabay                I started my career as a high school English teacher looking to go into Library Services. I am now in an elementary library and absolutely love it. I think I have adapted to the elementary setting and mindset quite well overall. However, introducing online databases to elementary students has tested the very limits of my patience, and judging by my very patient and competent elementary colleagues’ disdain for online research projects, I assume this goes beyond my own lack of abilities to properly communicate with the tiny humans.                While it would be so much easier to just print off what they need, and pull the books of the shelves, it is more important that students begin to learn online research skills early. This is why I want to make things a bit easier for myself and my colleagu...

via giphy I have been racking my brain all week with what I could possibly create that would bring value to my school community, and colleagues. It has not been an easy task. Looking at what our library offers I began to think about our online ERAC databases. Every year I try to coordinate class schedules, lap top cart bookings, and limited research time to teach students how to access and use these databases. Every year I fail at hitting all the classes, and often those I do get to see end up with a very brief overview because one of the pieces of the puzzle didn’t line up properly. So, back to my thinking and thinking, I knew I wanted to do something that would be immediately beneficial to those teachers I work with on a day to day basis, and at the same time would not be superfluous to my own library instruction with students. via giphy See where I am going with this? No? Me either -yet. But I think where this is heading is to the creation of some kind of online i...

Pixabay Looking back over the last few weeks it is impressive to think of all the learning that has happened in such a short time span. All of the units have opened new avenues of exploration and insights for me in my personal and professional development. I have learned so much from classmates by reading their blogs and seeing the learning they have also been experiencing.  This course has really helped me to look beyond the scope of my own little library to a broader network of connecting with colleagues and other professionals.  Will Richardson's book Why School  showed me the ability that connecting online has to bring about better learning opportunities for students. While I have a long ways to go in creating PLNs and the like I am starting down this path. Through the use DIGG Reader and following blog posts, as well as using twitter more effectively I am slowing taking steps to access the potential of online collaboration that this course has shown me. ...

Teachers lead busy lives. Between planning engaging lessons, coordinating extra curricular events, differentiating instruction, providing meaningful assessment for learning, teachers do not have time to sit through pages and pages of resources and ideas. Good pedagogy is founded in student centred learning. The same applies when teachers are the learners. As a teacher librarian I should be able to provide meaningful, relevant, and current resources, that support what the teacher is already doing with their classes. Giphy Since nobody wants to be the teacher prolonging the meeting at the end of the day, my practice of sharing resources needs to go beyond the quick staff meeting blurb about what’s new in the library. I have come across a few tools that provide a framework for teachers to use in any subject area. These tools allow for the collection of resources and collaboration between collogues that does not require a significant time investment outside of already packed sched...