A Beautiful Example

Hyman, S. C. (2014). Planning and creating a library learning commons. Teacher Librarian, 41(3), 16-21.

This is a beautiful article; I am fighting the urge to copy it verbatim for my Vision assignment. Shannon Hyman details her district’s process of building a LEED-Certified Elementary School and creating a Learning Commons with great deliberateness. Intentionality, beauty, literacy, and connection run through this process and presumably the space itself. Hyman writes that “planning a center of teaching and learning means restructuring existing notions about libraries as storage spaces and constructing a vision of the space as a scaffold to support both formal and informal learning experiences simultaneously.” (Hyman, 2014, p.16). She offers specific examples of seating choices, marine-grade fabrics, foldable tables; she also shows clearly how students use the space and how this use is purposeful, readily adaptable to different learning purposes, and aligned with the school’s goals. This purposeful alignment shows in her statement that planning followed the 

“AASL Standards for the 21st-century Learner in Action (2009) and our school's inaugural initiatives, which include the precepts that learning is cooperative, empowering, active, and meaningful. Our planning team knows intuitively that in order to maintain the integrity of this vision and create a culture of readers, we must tend to the space, the furnishings, the collection, and most of all the people. We make every decision based on three distinct priorities-people, flexibility, and durability-knowing that the core of our learning community requires a learning commons. Our LLC is not a storage place for books and equipment with limited accessibility. Students are greeted with a series of posters that remind them that in this space we think deeply, speak gently, read widely, and work hard.” (Hyman, 2014, p. 17)”

Hyman goes on to describe the power of collaboration and the primacy of literacy in an elementary school library; she posits the Learning Commons as the center of a story that radiates through the school and offers a beautiful quotation by Mem Fox about how literacy sharing is collaborative in nature.  Love of story and careful attention to children’s needs—as evidenced by clear planning and ergonomically designed gliders, tables, and stools—make this library one I’d love to see in person.  She clearly explains the multiple roles that the LLC plays, saying that though its design, “our LLC is a curious balance of two worlds: cozy, restful spaces for overly stimulated minds and roomy areas that activate wonder, the exchange of ideas, and exploration” (Hyman, 2014, p. 21). I highly recommend this article. 

    

    

Design Thinking in the Classroom: From Ideas to Practices.

This blog post is about changing units of instruction to make them more engaging to students. These interactive and collaborative units are called “Design Thinking”. “Design thinking is used to solve design challenges, or units of study structured around real world problems linked with interdisciplinary academic studies”(2014). The units are broken into five parts that include Gather, Glean, Generate, Gauge and Go.  The blog describes each of these stages. Students collaborate all the way through the project and end up with a product that has real world applications.

While this blog post is geared toward classroom teachers, teacher librarians would find the information useful. These units would benefit from the collaboration with a teacher librarian. Students need a place to gather to brainstorm their assignment and the physical learning commons would be the perfect place. A virtual learning commons would allow them to gather their information in one place, for all to share.

Ott, L. & White, E. Design thinking in the classroom: From ideas to practice. Part I. P21Blogazine. Partnership for 21st Century Skills, April 24, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/news-events/p21blog/1403-design-thinking-in-the-classroom-from-ideas-to-practice-part-i

A Student-Designed School Library

Chambers, Julia

Hohenadel, Kristin. (2014, Feb. 26). Eighth-graders design and build a school library for the 21st century. Slate [Weblog]. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/02/26/eighth_graders_at_realm_charter_school_in_berkeley_design_and_build_their.html

This is the first example I've seen of a school library that was entirely designed (and built!) by the eight-grade students who use it. Students were given a space for a "library" and they came up with a space that greatly resembles the Learning Commons models we've been studying. Students were given free-reign as to what might go in this space, and the students chose openness, comfort, and hang-out space over stacks of books. They designed bookshelves using a "X"-shaped module theme (X as a functional shape, but also as metaphor for the algebraic unknown.)  The Berkeley charter school has run out of funding, but has plans to fundraise to realize the vision. (Watch the Kickstarter video.)

Evaluation: I love the student-driven nature of this project and am intrigued by how closely the ideas resemble what we've been talking about as a Learning Commons space. What is absent in this picture is a librarian or information specialist. Imagine what this space could do with an innovative school librarian at the helm!

Re-envisioning learning

Chambers, Julia

Faust, S. & Howland, J. (2013, June). Design thinking by accident and design: How one school developed a model for 21st-century learning (and a librarian and technology teacher led the way). Teacher Librarian 40(5). Retrieved from http://plc.quickmooc.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/07/Susan-Faust-and-Jenny-Howland.pdf

This is an inspiring article about one school’s journey into 21st century learning, led by the school librarian and technology teacher. The article describes the process, which was initiated by the head of school and then taken to its new level by the grassroots work of this team of educators. The article provides details of how this was done, the people involved, including board members, teachers, and students.

Evaluation: I was inspired to see that the school librarian/technology teacher were the ones to successfully initiate the head of school’s challenge to reimagine learning and change the paradigm from “teaching” to “learning”. Because their fingers are involved in every grade, every classroom, and every student’s learning, they are the natural choice for taking on this initiative successfully.

How to Apply Design Thinking in Class, Step by Step

Duncan, Laura

Stevens, A. (2013, June 26).  How to apply design thinking in class, step by step.  [Web log comment].  Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/how-to-use-design-thinking-in-class-step-by-step/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

This article walks the reader through the basic process of transforming the classroom environment into a design thinking classroom.  First, the author says that a space needs to be created that invites possibility, creativity, surprise and engagement from the students.  Typically, a gym is often a school's "space of possibility," since there is little imposing material in a gym that dictates its use.  The challenge is making the classroom environment produce the same effect.   The author recommends holding "studio time," in which students are invited to freely create and adjust to the new set of expectations for this more flexible time.  Further, teachers can engage students in creating a new design thinking curriculum, by encouraging them to brainstorm about design careers (e.g. interior design, architecture) and then start thinking like designers.  Students should be invited to contribute how they'd like to develop the new classroom and what tools they'd like to add.  Concept development is an important part of the process.  Teachers should help students through the creative process, giving them up to an hour to think, brainstorm and draft out their ideas.  At the end of studio time, it's important for teachers to engage students in reflection about their work and the experience of studio time.

This article is useful, though not as step by step as it claims, in my opinion.  Since the concept of design thinking and studio time is somewhat abstract and probably fairly unfamiliar to most readers, it would have been helpful if the author had spent more time elaborating on the concepts of design thinking and studio time themselves.  Nonetheless, it's a creative concept and inspires teachers to think outside the box and promote flexibility.