LLED 462: Learning Curation #1

Learning Curation #1: The Essential Question

                One of the main reasons why I chose to become a teacher-librarian was my passion for helping students find what they need to succeed. Nothing would give me more satisfaction than showing a stressed-out student how to find that “golden nugget” that would help them in their research project, whether it was a website, a book or a presentation tool. As a result, teaching students to be media literate is one of the essential components of my library program and what I insist on including whenever a teacher wishes to use the library for a project.

                All teacher-librarians were given copies of the CLA document at last year’s September meeting to help guide their practice; I feel very fortunate to be part of a district that supports teacher-librarians and sees the value of transforming our libraries to be vibrant, relevant centers of learning. I am especially drawn to the section “Fostering Literacies to Empower Life-long Learners,” as the themes seem to speak directly to my goals as a teacher-librarian. I also highly agree with the standard of having the whole school community involved in the creation of the learning commons; after all, it is the ownership of the space by the entire school that makes a learning commons so vibrant and the “hub” of learning in the school.

                In my very first library position at Clayton Heights Secondary, we were successful applicants of a learning commons grant from the district, which was extremely exciting as a new teacher-librarian who was only recently introduced to the concept. The following year, the principal wanted to work together with all departments in creating inquiry questions that would ultimately become the school’s vision. After much thought, I decided on the following for the library’s inquiry question:

“How can we ensure our students are 21^st century learners?”

Since many of the staff (myself included) had never done a true inquiry as a school before, we were encouraged to start slow and try one possibility at a time. For my initial step, I proposed working with the Humanities 8 department in a pilot Information Literacy “program,” in which I would work with classes throughout the year in various activities that would teach students how to find information in a variety of formats, use the Internet safely, and be introduced to some online tools that they could use in future years. Humanities 8 was the only linear course in our school, and seemed like the perfect platform for getting students off to a good start in their high school years. All grade 8s are always given a library orientation in September, but I felt that this was simply not sufficient to get students adept at these skills. By repeatedly coming to the library and practicing these skills when doing various projects throughout the year (as opposed to in a vacuum at the beginning of September), students are more likely to have success. Although I was starting small, my ultimate goal was to have the whole school community involved “in the design of information literacy learning strategies in order to empower independent learners” (CLA, p. 17, 2014).

Unfortunately, I was not able to truly continue exploring this inquiry as I did not have enough seniority to keep my job there with a continuing contract. I am now an elementary teacher-librarian at two schools, with minimal collaboration time. Nonetheless, I believe that the younger our students are taught these skills the better, so I feel I am in a good position to continue exploring this question at my new schools. I already work with all K-4 students for prep coverage, so I feel this is a great opportunity to begin employing strategies with our youngest students. I hope to be able to use collaboration time to work with the Grade 5-7 classes, although it is being very optimistic that I will get a chance to see all of them! Bear Creek and Port Kells are not “officially” learning commons schools according to the district, but I am reminded of a statement in Hayes’ article, in that it is “great staff, not great stuff” that makes an effective learning commons. In that sense, part of this inquiry will entail creating a school community to help it become a success. Indeed, when deciding on which direction to take with this inquiry, I had another question in my mind in addition to the one stated above, which is “How do we create an elementary learning commons?” All of my experience in building a learning commons has been in the secondary environment so far, but I feel that teaching students 21^st century life skills and collaborating as a school will put us on the right track to creating a learning commons at the elementary level. Getting teachers to come to the library and try collaborating on a project will also be part of this journey, as many are simply unaware of what a teacher-librarian can do to help. As a result, implementing some advocacy strategies will inevitably be part of this curation as well. I am reminded of an advocacy tool I made for another course, so being that it is September, this may be a good place to start!

 https://prezi.com/dfxu2sarujet/lled-469-advocacy-tool/

                My goals for this inquiry are similar to my goals for my previous school, in that I would like to employ different strategies in order to teach all students how to be self-motivated, responsible for their own learning and able to find quality information. I find that many students who demonstrate apathy toward their schoolwork (one of the problems all teachers felt needed to be addressed at Clayton Heights) were often simply just overwhelmed at where and how to start. If we can teach them effective strategies that make research less daunting, then they will ultimately be more motivated and thus engaged. I am looking forward to the next curation prompts and streamlining my dual-track essential question, as well implementing some new strategies in my schools as the course progresses!