Librarians as Professional Developers

Abilock, D., Fontichiaro, K., and Harada, V., eds. (2012). Growing Schools: Librarians as Professional Developers. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.  ISBN 978-1-61069-041-6. 390 pages.

This book combines the visionary and the day-to-day in schools, offering advice to teacher librarians that is at once inspiring and practical. Full of big ideas and practical recommendations, it is a must-read for Teacher Librarians; arguably, it is a must-own.  The editors draw upon their considerable experience and expertise in school libraries and, more importantly, in school communities to position teacher librarians as crucial to quality professional development since they directly impact all stakeholders within a school.

The editors do an especially good job of explaining common pitfalls and the realities of the needs of adult learners.  They focus on communication basics, underlining the importance of strong interpersonal skills. In exactly the same way these skills are critical in reference interviews, they are equally if not more important in teacher librarians’ conversations with faculty and administrators within a school.  They extend a metaphor of a garden and show specific and varied examples of how teacher librarians have used a wide set of entry points and instructional tools in order to further not only professional development, but school-wide learning.  I found the case studies to be the most helpful part of this book, as best practices models are key for any teacher librarian, whether new or experienced. 

Working Together Is Working Smarter

Jack, Gordon

National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE). (2012, October). Working together is working smarter. National Survey of Collaborative Professional Learning Opportunities.  Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/researchandstatistics/NCLE_AASLinfographic_FINAL-download.pdf

Summary

This infographic summarizes the data compiled from the National Center for Literacy Education study of 2,404 educators nationally.  The data confirms that collaboration is a key component for teacher-librarians.  While schools do not always make time for collaboration, librarians are actively seeking professional networks at their site and beyond.  In this particular study, librarians are participating in greater numbers than traditional classroom teachers, with 51% reporting that they share ideas “at least weekly in online networks and communities, compared with 23% of educators overall.”

Evaluation

This data confirms that librarians are not isolated professionals, but engaged collaborators both with teachers at their site and external learning communities.  While most working librarians won’t see any surprises here, this information shows others how connected librarians are and how vital they are to school improvement.  This data should be shown to any person interested in becoming a librarian as a snapshot of the type of work we do.    

Google Apps for Education

Torbert, Nancy

Google Enterprise. (2010, November 19). Google Apps for Education K12 Demo [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAfzcYWh5Gg

An introduction to Google Apps for Education and produced by Google.  The Day in the Life of a K-12 teacher provides an overview of how a teacher can use the Google calendar, documents, forms, spreadsheets and how students can share a document with the teacher through a shared folder.

Although the narration can be condescending at times, the information provided packs a lot of information and “food for thought”. Although created as an overview of a teacher’s day, I can see a lot of applications that the teacher librarian can incorporate into “their day”—for example, the teacher librarian collaborating with a teacher through a shared Google docs folder; forms to create book request, or an equipment check out request form; calendar to share the library calendar and also have faculty share their calendar; or assist teachers to use sites to create a classroom web page.

Why Teachers Should Be Trained like Actors

Duncan, Laura

Schwartz, K. (2013, July 1).  Why teachers should be trained like actors.  [Web log comment]. Retrieved 
from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/teaching-as-acting-a-performance-profession/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

The author makes the argument that, although performance is an essential component of teaching, there is little professional training for teachers on this particular skill.  As school director Ken Lemov notes, "Knowing what you want to do is a long way from being able to do it."  Lemov has started providing teacher workshops in which beginner teachers can role play and practice teaching in front of one another, while the group acts like a class of students.  Lemov believes in encouraging teachers to respond in "real time," learning how to think on their feet, receive feedback and use that feedback immediately to adjust their approach.  He notes, however, that teachers often have trouble letting going of old habits.  He notes that there is an apparent correlation between the quality of instruction and the quality of content.  He says that a "A teacher who pays enough attention to make instructions clear is probably also paying close attention to how academic discussions and projects are structured."  

These points all rang true to me.  I've met many school librarians who say that their biggest complaint about their MLIS/school librarian education was the lack or limited amount of focus on behavioral and classroom management.  Being comfortable in front of a class of students, sometimes unruly, sometimes bored, sometimes confused, is one of the foundations of excellent teaching, and yet it's something that teachers - and school librarians, especially - have little training on.  This article is worth the read, as it encourages you to reflect on your own teaching style and presence in the classrom, and to keep an open mind about your approach.