Part C: Critical Synthesis for Assignment 2 ETL401

It was interesting to see the changes in my thinking when I started reading over my blog about my role as a teacher librarian (TL), whether it was new ideas, expanding on what I already knew or consolidating my own knowledge for clarity. Initially my thoughts were centred on the limited time I had in my schools - one day a week and that this was a draw back to doing what was required (King, 2010). As the unit progressed I realised that I could still manage to achieve goals in my schools even with the limited time I was there, in fact I could advocate for more time. The first time I started to realise this was with Covey (1990) where I started to see that saying 'no' was a positive attribute to have (King, 2010). Being able to say 'no' and prioritising tasks allowed me to see beyond the day-to-day management to the school's need for a focused teacher librarian. This was further cemented through Anne Randall's forum comment (Randall, 2010) about the complexity of TL expectations and Catherine Desanti's reply (Desanti, 2010) about the need to prioritise. Suddently I could reflect on my own practices and my understanding of the role I was in, the complex nature of the position (King, 2010a) and that I was the specialist (King, 2010b). Finally the confidence emerged and I could focus on the TL position of collaborating and teaching.

This confidence continued to grow as I started to read more on the TL as a leader and then had the realisation that I was not just a librarian, I was the specialist and I was a leader in my schools (King, 2010). I was being inspired by the readings and by what other TLs were doing and saying what could be achieved, such as Martineau (2009) who reinforced this view of leadership through examples. This merged with my understanding of prioritising and how being clear about my role, my time and expectations I too could be a leader within my schools. This was a turning point for me after one year of flailing about in the unknown land of teacher librarianship, I started to open my eyes to the possibilities in my schools' libraries. This awakening continued when reading about principals and their support of our role in the school and I started to consider how my principals acknowledged the role of the library. This lead to even further understanding of my role as a leader, especially after reading Hartzell (2002), where I could inform the principal of the latest research, I could promote my role to the principal and could, as Haycock (1999) pointed out, enhance the principal's position through what I did in the library. I thought to myself, this is where it starts - really getting into the idea of the TL in the school and what we can do but I thought with my limited time, where do I start? This is when I read Page (1999) and suddenly I could see my pathway, finally a specific look at a development approach to developing a school library, my light bulb went off! It was Kim Carter's (2010) response to Page's article that resonated within me about the views of starting small and that it takes time. I think I had stagnated, jumping from one task to another that I forgot to step back and look at the big picture (King, 2010) and it was this article that ignited the passion for moving forward that I needed.

Finally, entertwining this response with an information literate school community has been a major point of contention and one that I am still wrapping my head around. I think that the clearest point for me was Wolf's (2006) article about the view of using an information process as a scaffolding pathway, which links to a metacognitive tool. I realised the potential of the TL in the school context to be a driving force behind establishing a clear information literacy program across the school into the wider community and it is with this in mind that I am currently discussing literature with one of my principals and the current information literacy program (or lack of one), a proposal for increasing literacy through the library to be linked with our reading schemes within the classrooms. I have also planned to discuss the standards expected of me by using ALIA/ASLA (2004) professional standards and will definitely be having a large copy on display in the library. It is utilising my increased confidence in the specialist nature of this role that I feel I can work with the principal to create a future pathway for the library to be the central learning environment to all members of the school community. This is the first step in working towards a collaborative system within my schools and I know, but feel confident, that there will be many more to come.





References:

ALIA/ASLA. (2004). Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians. Retrieved from Australian School Library Association: http://www.asla.org.au/

Carter, K. (2010, April 15). Reflection on Page's article. Message posted to ETL401 Module 5 sub-forum.

Covey, S. (1990). Principles of personal management. In The seven habits of highly effective people : restoring the character ethic (pp. 145-164). NY : Simon & Schuster.

Desanti, C. (2010, March 20). Re: Henri (2005). Message posted to ETL401 Module 2 sub-forum

Hartzell, G. (2002). Why should principals support school libraries? Eric Digest, November (EDO-IR-2002-06).

Haycock, K. (1999). Fostering collaboration, leadership and inforamtion literacy: Common behaviors of uncommon principals and faculties. NASSP Bulletin, 83(605), 82-87.

King, A. (2010, February 27). Covey reading. Message posted to http://tlliterate.blogspot.com/

King, A. (2010a, March 6). In the beginning.... Message posted to http://tlliterate.blogspot.com/

King, A. (2010b, March 6). Thoughts on being a TL. Message posted to http://tlliterate.blogspot.com/

King, A. (2010, March 20). Own role statement vs. National role statement. Message posted to http://tlliterate.blogspot.com/

King, A. (2010, April 26). My Journey. Message posted to http://tlliterate.blogspot.com/

King, A. (2010, April 26). Re: Reflection on Page's article. Message posted to ETL401 Module 5 sub-forum.

Martineau, P. (2009). School librarians: Vital educational leaders. In California School Boards Authority. Retrieved from www.csba.org/CASchoolNews.aspx

Randall, A. (2010, March 20). Henri (2005). Message posted to ETL401 Module 2 sub-forum

Wolf, S. (2003). The Big Six information skills as a metacognitive scaffold: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/

Professional Standards

I was just reading over the TL standards from ASLA/ALIA last night in bed and thought how my views on them had changed. The first time I truly read them slowly and thought about them I thought to myself, 'how does anyone get to this standard?', 'these are impossible standards to meet' and so forth. But last night I thought, what great points to try and meet, I would love to work more diligently towards these standards and attain the level of professional excellence set before me. And I thought, I can do this, it is not instantaneous, just like setting up an ILSC or a Collaborative partnership it is something that takes time and whether I work on one standard, or set of standards, or work across the board on them I know it is something I can strive for. It also allows me to have this framework to base my thoughts to future jobs, as I can use these to guide me to where I would like to be.

Information literacy

I think I had a little 'aha' moment when reading this information. I had always touched on information literacy models but had never had the time to sit and do some readings on them, or realise there were so many. I think it was Wolf's (2003?) article that gave me the moment. The idea of the model as a metacognitive scaffold, my 'aha' moment was two-fold. Firstly, just to comprehend the idea of the model as a scaffolding process made it all the more clearer to me the link between modelling this and students becoming the life long learner. Secondly, as a TL I think it clarified to me part of my position in finding out about this within my schools and working towards unity in the school on this process. I started to envisage conversations with the principal and then presenting at staff meetings, defining the information literate student as a school and leading to the model that we all should be using. I started to understand the TL as a leader at the beginning and felt more confident in that role but after this I see the TL as an initiator, enabler and leader to ensure the school has policies regarding this, that the library is a support to the curriculum and the student. I think I had a focus on student interests at the beginning of this course, and that may be due to one of my schools needing that for our library - for students to want to be there to read books that interested them. I think I remembered the library when I was a student, it wasn't really there for research for me it was there for reading. After doing the readings in this unit I now understand the complexity of my role - there is the part of making sure students have books to read but I now see that if I help consolidate the information process model in use in the school with teachers and help make it clear in their mind then students will be able to use the library effectively for themselves. There is so much more I could say but I think I want to try and pull some of my thoughts together.

It's been awhile...

Talk about going off line for a few days after my first assignment. I really had to think about my commitment to this course and what it meant for family and work. I am still not sure about a lot of it, especially my family time, I really feel like a part time parent at the moment. But after talking to Roy about Assignment 2 I feel a little better although the fact that there is 3 parts to the assignment has me in a little quandry. I have been focusing on Part A but then was thinking I didn't want to spend too much time on it due to the majority of the assignment being Part B. Then I started to think about my blog - had I been putting enough work into it - it is always something I put off until later as it seems so easy, and then time slips away as it has again, I didn't realise that I hadn't written in here since the 7th and now it being the 18th, that is nearly two weeks. Though I must say after pretty much being in bed the last 3 days recovering from tonsilitis doesn't help matters.

what to do now...

I can't say that the result of my first assignment has helped assuage my fears about the work load and my life being balanced. I can definitely say that I have become completely paranoid about my second assignment now. Asking for help will definitely be on the agenda, now I just have to refocus. I really thought I had a grasp on the underlying principles but .... Oh well, another day will come and I will be in front of the computer again.

Information Literacy - the beginning

Whist doing the initial readings for information literacy from Langford, L. (1998), Abilock, D. (2004), and Herring, J. and Tarter, A. (2007) I thought to myself it seems very familiar, fairly self-explanatory. I kept thinking back to teaching English and Science, having to write my assessment pieces from scratch, identifying what I wanted the students to achieve, did my task allow that? Then scaffolding it in steps so the students could see the different parts and when explaining it, working through the different phases as they did the task to make sure they were doing what was expected. Then I also remembered the students that had difficulty, that they required more scaffolding, more structure to achieve it and remembered the basic questions - what are you looking for? what do you know or need to know? Where do you need to be at the end?

Then I remembered doing this exactly with my Year 12 English group on Frankenstein. I think it seems that some students 'get' the process without being told the name of it, but as a teacher (or teacher librarian) we need to be aware of it for the students that don't know. Looking at my schools we have a large ESL population, a lot of these students wouldn't know the process, or where to start, even our learning support students would need to know the steps but we mustn't forget that other students will need the process when they do come up against something that is new and different and they think they don't know where to start. So explicit teaching of a process is important - what process? that is something that needs to be decided considering all the different ones out there. It is a process that needs all staff to be on board with and doing in all subjects across all year levels and not left to the TL to teach it during their library lessons.

Action Research and Collaboration

I am finding the information excellent in this subject and the readings are really inspiring to 'get motivated' in my schools. The problem I am finding is that being part time (and it feels like I harp on this all the time) I can't get into it effectively. One day a week in a school does not effectively allow relationships to form and true collaboration to occur - it takes a lot of hard work just to clarify to teachers what you can do for them but if you don't fall on a day that they have non-contact or if it is only in 1/2 hour blocks it is very difficult to find times to do it and do it right. I know there is the idea of principal support and I feel that technically the principals do support me but that there is so much else happening in the school and when others can work that sometimes it is not feasible to be changing the scheduling. Perhaps if I worked more frequently there it would be better. I do have that some teachers really don't see my potential in collaborating with them but see it as more work.

Harada (2004) really clarifed the Action Research side of things and I can see the benefit of it and hope to include it in my future lessons (at the schools where I have managed to talk to one teacher [starting small as Page (1999) indicated] and found some movement towards collaboration). But again it was with a kindergarten class where flexibility is able to occur quite easily but working to a curriculum where a number of Essential Learnings have to be achieved or where certain types of assessment need to be completed I still have doubts sometimes that it can work effectively across a school. Maybe it is the pessimist in me.

I will say that last week I did my first lesson with the Year 7s on a topic they were studying in class - basic collaboration at the planning level but a start. It seem to go well - it was mainly focused around refreshing students knowledge about our library database but I also introduced them to our Regional library online to look at different results. I will see how our lesson goes this week with some new pointers.