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When looking at the title of this post, most readers probably think I am referring to connecting with students. Although connecting with students is obviously incredibly important – that is not what this post is about.
I need to connect with classroom teachers and my current setup is just not working.
I am a Teacher-Librarian. I work at a school that supports students that are 18 months old to 18 years old. The majority of my time is spent at our Lower School and a K-6 audience.
Right now, I am not connected with classroom teachers. I am not involved in creating research assignments, but I think I should be. I have asked, at the minimum, that I receive a copy of the assignment, so I can make sure I have the resources to support the students. This doesn’t happen. I get it. Everyone is busy, everyone is trying to meet curriculum expectations, foster the whole child, communicate with parents, etc. etc. the list is neverending.
BUT research skills are more important than they ever were. People say “we don’t need librarians anymore, we have the internet”, but in my opinion, the internet is just a massive library. Students still need to know how to find information, how to evaluate sources, look for bias, synthesize what they find, acknowledge sources, and use what they find to inform their work. And what about the Librarian’s role in fostering a love of reading? This is also at the heart of what I try and do.
I want to make research meaningful for students. I want to use technology to support student inquiry. I want to make sure assumed research skills are explicitly taught. I want to connect with classroom teachers and integrate research skills.
But HOW?
I find a lot of my emails don’t get read by classroom teachers. And what if they did start to read them? Like most people, I wonder how I would find the time to even do all of the things that I would like to do!
So I am looking for advice!
Classroom teachers–
What would you like to see from your Librarian?
How would you like him/her to connect with you?
In what ways do you connect/collaborate with your Librarian?
How do you make it work?
Librarian friends —
What do you do to collaborate/connect with classroom teachers?
I appreciate all secrets and suggestions
And thanks!
PS anyone else find blog writing hard?!
Image sources:
https://www.eurodiaconia.org/2016/03/moving-from-what-to-how/
@NBrooksbank, what a great first post! You are in an amazing place heading into our second F2F having identified some very clear challenges. It seems to me you’re confronting some very noble ‘how might I questions’ around both research skills and a love of reading, with “obstacles” particular to the 21st Century. And at the core of this, is a challenge that many of us leading/pushing program, in some form, continually face. Among the many facets of their jobs, the often insanity of their lives, how do we help teachers truly prioritize “one more thing”? I hear you!
Nicole, I think what’s potentially powerful about this post is that you’ve identified core cultural issues that are likely relevant in some way to virtually everyone in the cohort. I’m excited to see how this will affect your course of action.
Hey, I’ve taken on a similar challenge in my 9/10 Program this year: ‘how might we better ensure we’re better preparing our students for IB specific skills and rigour’?Research and research skills are at the heart of this. Are we being intentional in our school about how we ask our students to conduct research, to produce research-based work? I’ve had some success working within departments – identifying department-specific skills and designing department-specific projects at each level that will allow students to foster those skills. This approach has allowed me to cut through the email (a problem, I imagine in every school!). I’ve even created a “major assessment calendar” that ensures priority, throughout the year and over a two week period, for each department. This is an ongoing process that will have limited success in year one. But, at least we’ve created a clear framework that acknowledges these concerns.
Another thought: This whole endeavour began with me imagining the day to day from the students’ perspective. The ‘day to day’, as we know, is INSANE for our students. I began to think that something like research is barely acknowledged by the students as a skill – it is yet another task among the blurr of a day, a life. What is the power of isolating the skill? Of taking away as many other distractions as possible and providing something like a lived experience with the potential to resonate well-beyond the experience itself? I only say this because it can be powerful to approach your teachers from the perspective of your students.
Holy Nicloe, you sure got my wheels spinning. Again, I”m really excited to see where this takes you!
@tfaucher @nbendle @lwoom @jdykerman @jsweetman @dduguay @lwoon @jmedved @gnichols @ddoucet
Thanks @gvogt – your post got my head spinning!
Do you think you could share with me the department specific skill / department specific projects – thingy-ma-jig – that you mention above. Seems like an enormous amount of work to compile something so specific – but completely worth it.
Hi @nbrooksbank! Blogging writing is hard — congrats on hitting “publish” on your first one!
I love your honest account of what is it like to be a librarian in a busy school. As an English teacher, I lean on my librarian, Shelagh a lot. https://twitter.com/sstraughan1?lang=en
I am trying to reflect on how our relationship started and honestly, I think I just took the lead from my English colleagues. I do know that Shelagh makes at effort (plea?) at the beginning of the School year for teachers to come to the library and she goes to department meetings to showcase/collaborate on what she might be able to in the library for different classes.
In grade 9 and 10, we go to the library for book talks when starting an independent novel. I find her energy (and new voice) has the students excited to read – she does an awesome job of showing the students many different types of texts. I also bring my classes to the library when we work on research presentations/speeches. She walks us through the databases, how to effectively search and will pull a variety of texts for students that will help them with their work.
I would be happy to connect you two if that seems like something that would be helpful (maybe you already know her?).
I am looking forward to chatting with you about this on Saturday!
Thanks for your response @nbendle !
I do know Shelagh! We have met at our CIS Librarian meetings – which I absolutely love.
A few things I already have planned to take action with are attending more department, or what we would call – level meetings. In the past I have found it a little intimidating because I am a department of 1 – but I think I just need to suck it up! Another action item is defining my role a little bit more for the teachers. For example, what specific lessons / skills I can provide support on… like citation.
Looking forward to chatting with you on Friday !
@nbrooksbank, by reaching out for consensus, you are halfway towards a solution to this highly relevant issue in today’s schools.
Connection to colleagues in an overstuffed-agenda-filled workplace is not just a librarian issue— its an issue for all of us! How can we better communicate and leverage collegial help?
Have you tried “lunch n’ learns”? Inviting teachers into the library for mini-workshops of what you might offer? Have you asked one teacher if you could take over the areas mentioned in your blog (creating research assignments, etc.) and then promoting the results of this partnership to the rest of the teachers in the school?
I can’t wait to see what action quest arises from this often overlooked area in the modern workplace.
E.B. Daigle
@edaigle thanks for the suggestions!
I think step #1 is for me to have some more informal conversations with teachers about what research looks like in their classroom, as well as how they are assessing it. My plan was to schedule a few informal lunches where I can just chat with homeroom teachers but it’s amazing how many times I have put this off already 🙁 Looks like Wednesday is the new Someday – I’m going to email a teacher right now!
@nbrooksbank
You have come to the right place to answer some of these challenging questions.
I see part of your role changing and adding the role of “broker and connector” to the job description. I work with @saraspencer and together over the past few years we have worked hard on getting the right people into the room to eventually create this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR20qPkDuL7pandiP1CFhcLwr7JMSIiST_BCqrcrKO5h1GL1DRHPuWl2j_kL4fy1H065M82O7I_IxCL/pub
It has been a journey of collaboration and iteration as we have tried to get the entire school to rally around the shared responsibility behind this scope and sequence. Happy to share some of the strategies and tips that we developed along the way.
I’m also going to loop in all the other C21 librarian alumni on this thread so they might also shed some light and insight into your challenge. You are not alone!
@thutton @saraspencer @lmustard @chazzard @jweening @sneesham
@jmedved I love the idea of getting other teachers involved in creating a research/literacy/inquiry /academic honesty scope and sequence. I had always thought of it as a project I would take on by myself – but that doesn’t have to be the case and it really shouldn’t. I’ve chatted with @saraspencer about libraries on many occasions – she’s the best!
@nbrooksbank You are grappling with the big stuff! Congrats on your first courageous post. Here’s one small thing we did this year that really worked for us to start conversations with teachers: we moved our professional teaching and learning resources to the staff room. Hidden away on an upper shelf in the library, many teachers didn’t know about these beautiful books. They do now! People browse over lunch, “check out” materials using a good old fashioned sign-out sheet, and I’ve walked in on MANY great convos created by making this one small change. I so look forward to talking more this weekend.
@lmustard – great idea! I’ve always loved the idea of the library being a second “staff room” or a place where teachers come and gather independently of their students. At some schools – it is where staff each their lunch!
Unfortunately at our school, our staff room is not really used by staff to each lunch – so moving the PRO resources there won’t help us much.
I have successfully started a “Book of the Week” email that goes out on Mondays. It highlights 3-4 new (or sometimes old) titles that I want to remind teachers that we have in our collection. I should include some professional resources one time! Thanks for the idea 🙂
@nbrooksbank After reading your post I sent our librarian the syllabus to my course for the entire year, she was thrilled! Thank you for helping me to foster a connection I was letting go untapped!
You pose many excellent and challenging questions. I think of the struggles I watched many classroom teachers face when they were told they were expected to have at least one interdisciplinary unit. It is always hard to bring someone else into your planning when you are used to only having to worry about yourself. Obviously, the more they started to bring others into their planning the more amazing things started to erupt in their classrooms. If you can grab the attention of a few early adopters who then sing the praises of the quality of sources and research that their students displayed, it will start to create a shift.
You are certainly biting into some big questions, which is so exciting.
Tracy
@tfaucher I totally agree! It’s a lot easier to lesson plan/unit plan on our own sometimes as bringing someone into that loop is usually more work! But like you said, it is more often than not, worth it! I like the idea of starting small, connecting with one teacher on one research assignment and then showing others the amazing things we did! Hopefully I’ll find someone that is willing to be my guinea pig 🙂
Hi Nicole,
As a fellow teacher-librarian, I very much empathize with your post, and I echo @tfaucher in her suggestion of having a few early adopters be your advocates. That has actually worked for me–even though there is still a long way to go. What has also worked is the opportunity to present and offer workshops on information literacy related topics (e.g types of plagiarism, visible thinking routines, new resources in the library) in settings where I can reach the whole faculty (e.g. faculty meetings and PD days). Admin support was crucial in getting these opportunities and in the advocacy around the value I might add to research and interdisciplinary projects. Admin support and advocacy, in general, are crucial. 🙂
Thanks @sgupta !
What a great thread to be reading from everyone! Nicole, I think that you now have a lot of great places to start your action plan. What will be your next step? How will you know that it’s working? What will this look like, sound like and feel like for your students too?
I can’t wait to see what this looks like by our third F2F!
garth.