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.

My Journey

It is interesting to look at how my view of my role is changing. I came into my TL positions from a Secondary teaching position not knowing much about the role of the TL. My experience of a TL in my school had not been positive although I knew I could look at sending students to get help from the TL in the library. At the time I was quite hesitant in sending small groups but after reading about flexible scheduling I see it as a component. This is quite apt as in my role as a TL I was not always positive about teachers sending a few students to search the library but I see now that I could be utilising this more effectively but I have to make the teachers aware of the best practice in doing this. I was also against flexible scheduling - I wanted classes there at specific times so I knew when the library was free and I could do my other work. Again as part of my learning curve I am coming around to the idea of flexible learning.

I also am more confident in my ability to be a leader in my schools in this position. I don't think I saw me as a TL as a leader but as an aide, which reduced my standing in the teachers' eyes. I think I am a stronger person with a better awareness of where I want my library to go in the school. I also think that with my teaching background I have that experience to help with collaborating with teachers and feel quite comfortable. My journey in this subject is continuing but it is nice to be consolidating information about my role and position in the school. I feel I have initiated some of these components but didn't feel that it was my place to make them a project in the school, now I do.

Page's Paper

I found Page's (1999) paper very enlightening,  I love the way they broke down the way to adopt a collaborative approach at a school. I could actually see myself implementing some of these applications at my schools, again the reinforcement of administrators being critical to the success of it was highlighted but I also liked how they indicated that teachers were critical to implement it. I found this a key aspect about teachers - in my schools if the teacher is not interested in collaborating then it doesn't happen. I even have it where a teacher is interested but as I am only there one day a week it makes it hard to set aside time - even our own. But back to Page (1999), the first Phase of "Establishing Systems and Structures" (p. 208) where it is important to identify the strengths and weakenesses of your own area then the other aspects of school and it identify the 'key' people. Then to look at what you have versus what you want it to be and define your role to the staff in a number of ways. The concept of the plan and using topic sheets was something that I could utilise in my schools, I had started it in a very informal way through email and mentioning it to staff at meetings but to actually have a sheet that identifies the topics for the term in the different key learning areas that all teachers fill in and then indicate if they want planning time for cooperative learning I thought was a great way to start. It also added to records to keep for referring to.

I also thought the communication aspect was vital in my position of only being very part time in my schools, it is something I am trying to improve upon and it was great seeing how important it is in establishing this collaborative plan. But the best thing I liked was the concept of starting small - it was something that most other papers didn't recognise (whether they thought it was implied or not needed due to a whole school approach) as in my position I can only work with one teacher in this detail and for the time required to begin with so to actually have a paper point this out and say it is where to start and not try to change everything at once was great.

This paper is something I can see my future plans revolving around, I am looking forward to outlining a plan using the different phases and components of the phases for my schools. Also to be discussing this with my principals - it gives me somewhere to start specifically. I feel more positive about implementing a collaborative approach now than I have with previous papers.

ETL401 Assignment

For something I was meant to do straight after the assignment, this is coming a little late. I have been thinking about it but trouble with the internet and kids make it difficult to find a quiet niche to write something but here I am finally.

The assignment was quite thought provoking - a number of the ideas I had made it difficult to narrow it down to what I wanted to write about. I did find it hard clarifying an ILSC, I think because I had all the pieces but couldn't see the overall picture [a bit like Senge (2007) was talking about I found]. So when I was researching about an ILSC I was thinking I know this but when it came to writing about it I came a bit unstuck. I think the main aspect I gathered from an ILSC was that everyone needs to be involved in creating and maintaining one. Not just the teachers and students but the parents and support staff as well. That it isn't just about having the information available but that an information process is being used by all in everything that happens in the school.

The role of the TL needs to be clear and outlined to all staff - fine detailed role descriptions need to be accessible and the TL needs to be seen as a specialist teacher with clear attributes that can be used by the staff in the school. Such as integrated units being created by teachers and TLs, including assessment and evaluation. The TL needs to be adequately trained to meet these requirements in a school - I have even found that by doing this subject I am trying to make some changes in the schools I work in. Little changes to begin with due to being at each school only one day a week, but changes nonetheless.

My obstacle I focused on was the principal's support in making the TL a leader in collaborative practices as I found in all my schools that this was not happening to the level it is required. The readings were quite clear on schools benefiting from having principal support but there was minimal literature on what was happening in schools that did not have this support and how TLs were achieving change. I used most of the readings in our course outline to support my solutions, which were mainly on the TL's role. The TL needs to be making the prinicpal aware of the possibilities in curriculum where the TL can benefit the school's vision. Through leadeship roles, ongoing PD and evaluation and some funding.

Overall I found the topic interesting and consolidating in its nature. A clarification of the place we have in our schools at this point and of where we want to go with our role in the future.