A late addition to the last blog is that when stage 3 did have a planning meeting, they did discuss what I could do in the library (without me of course) and they decided that this term, I could concentrate on information skills process (DET one of course), In isolation of course, as that is what has been done before and what is expected. I can see that my first job is to inform the staff at a staff or a stage meeting, the value of collaborative planning and linking the acquisition of information skills to the curriculum and to what they are studying in the classroom. Ass 1 has been sent via EASTS both for 503 and 401. A quarter of the way there and loving it! 503 was more time consuming than expected but it was very valuable examining and using the different selection criteria in a relevant fashion. Ass 1 for 401 was a very timely assignment and gave me great insight into the role of the TL in creating the ILSC. I now have a clear idea of where I am with it and some strategies that I can use to help to address the obstacle at my school, that is the lack of commitment to and total vision for the creation of an ILSC at my school. It will be a slow path , But if I can get there step by step with a vision in mind, starting with getting one open teacher at a time to collaboratively plan, then to show or display the results to other interested non- threatened parties , I will slowly achieve the task of getting the rest of staff on board. the principal and the executive should also bed my first port of call.

Blog On and a set back

I started a TL Blog for our school as we dont have a School webpage to put pertinent educational links on it. My tech expert at school had a brilliant idea and decided my School TL blog , would be easily accessed by teachers if we could put it as a link on My Library. Guess what you can and we did! You now go to my particular school's "My Library " page thru the portal and click an educational link, which will take you to my Blog without having to type in a website for a blog page. Another amazing step for woman (librarian ) Kind. ....... ...A step back on another note however is that all of the stages had a planning day at the end of the term. I was not invited to one stages planning day as I guess my job is not seen as in conjunction with but superfluous to and outside the curriculum and it would have cost money to replace me as I do RF F and would have to be replaced. My role is a classic textbook case and my work is cut out for me to change things and make people aware, starting with the principal, of just what the TL can do for you !

School Library Blog

Wow today I actually followed through with my urge to fulfill a need at our school. I made a library blog with pertinent educational links which I will add to as we go along. Many teachers don't have time to surf the net and I intend to show everyone at a staff meeting how to use the Blog and what sites are linked to the blog. A very positive outcome from something I have learnt at the course.

Quality Teaching and RBL

The QT strategies are very useful in implementing an RBL approach. QT encourages deep thinking on a planning and learning level. Modelling a quality piece of work is a fantastic way of showing students what a good quality piece of work looks like and what is expected. Explicit assessment criteria clearly shows what is also expected. Encouraging the students to work together, supports each other in their learning through conversation about required tasks. Goal setting, teaching strategies to encourage students to actively participate and learn, and identifying and supporting special learning needsare some of the useful QT strategies

Ideas for new TL to develop a collaborative planning culture

I am working in a non-collaborative environment,meaning we dont have any extra planning time apart from stage meetings and incidental staffroom discussions. I can see that my work is cut out for me to advocate for the library so that it can evolve into a collaborative resource based learning laboratory. This will take time and I will need to take advantage of opportunites as they present themselves eg with the new govt money on offer to improve schools we have put in for a new media centre to be added to the library. The role of the TL will necessarily change as infrastructure like this is added to schools. Oberg (06) suggests that TLs need to know and promote the schools goals and the principal needs to see that the TLs have valuable resources to share with principals so that together they can form a strong team. Gaining the principals support and respect is the first step for a new TL in beginning a planned approach to developing a collaborative school culture.

Thoughts on topic 2

Thoughts on Topic 2 by Caitlin White,18/03/09

I found the readings regarding the involvement of principals very interesting. I had never thought about the need for their involvement beyond funding. However the literature really highlighted to me the key role they can have in shaping the library and teacher librarians place in the school. While I am not in a school yet when that time comes I want to promote the idea of instructional teams. That is teacher, teacher librarian and principal working together and taking responsibility for students learning.

I think the way to get principals involved is to provide them with information that shows them the impact this service provides to all members of the school. Teacher librarians need to have open lines of communication with their principals so they can work together to achieve school outcomes. I think teacher librarians need to show principals what they are achieving with students. They need to make their role known so people don’t think of them as the traditional librarian who borrows, returns and files books as well as taking classes for relief.

The readings regrading evidence-based practice show that teacher librarians can have significant impacts on student achievement. It’s therefore important to work out the priorities of this role. I think the following may be ways of making priorities clear and palatable to the school community:
- provide people with a timetable of what you do to show how these priorities take up your time
- provide information in an appropriate form that shows evidence of benefits of these priorities eg overviews of literature, brochure, write up in newsletter about focuses for the week, etc
- provide the school community with the results from your own research with the school or portfolio to show these priorities are working
I think if people see the benefits to the school and students of these priorities that won’t question the teacher librarian. I think people often have queries from being uninformed. |I like what Caitlin Says, so Ditto

Collaboration

topic 4 .I love Mcgregors section on collaborating and what it looks like. After reading up on all of the learning theories, she says 1. to meet with teachers and emphasise the act that to share learning goals that go beyond content-based goals, learning activities will have more meaning. 2.Plan authentic learning activities that engage learners and get them to think creatively and generate discussion through brainstorming and discussion. 3.Integrate coaching, questioning and guiding into thoughtful teaching activities.. teaching alongside the teacher gives the student more access to more experts. 4. Make everyone aware of why are we doing this? As well as what are we supposed to do? 5. Finally talk to them as they learn. Have conversations that help them make sense of the info. Let them know their ideas are interesting and questions are of consequence. Encourage talking on the topic. show them that doubt and uncertainty are often necessary precursors to learning. (Just as applicable to me really).