I have been working as a Library assistant for 7.5 years. This week I dove right into instruction with twelve sixth and seventh grade classes. We reviewed a quiz over some simple library skills. I used the multimedia projector and screen to show the quiz and type in the correct answers. (AASL 2.1)A sixth grade teacher had suggested the students would be more engaged if they were to write in the correct answers for the questions that they missed. When I teach a lesson like this several times, I am always looking to improve upon the lesson before. Sometimes I belabor a point and realize that next time I must move more quickly. There is a reward when you see learning taking place. I had the students practice with 2 new questions after we discussed the correct answer to the original question. I walked around the room looking at their answers and discovered that most of the students understood and were now answering correctly.
I also placed two orders this week: one for Accelerated Reader tests and the other was a book order from Follett. (AASL 4.1) It is a time consuming thing to spend your budget wisely on materials to be circulated. There is a balance between spending too much time on deciding which books to order and not caring what you end up with. I utilized the "first choice" check box because there were certain titles that I felt were more important than others. I don't think the librarian I work for bothers with this. I think she just takes her chances. Since we were ordering $400 more than our do not exceed amount I felt like it was important to choose some first picks. It is sad to see how quickly the money flows out.
I also requested to be placed on a new committee being formed by our new superintendant. He wants one non-certified member from each building. I don't know if I will get selected but I showed interest anyway. (AASL 3.2)
Sounds like a busy week. What skills were you working on with the middle school students?
ReplyDeleteI always checked "first choice" because there always some books that are more important.
How much money gets spent on AR tests? Is this all out of the library budget?
What is the new committee? I'm glad you volunteered - being on committees is part of leadership.
The committee's acronym is COLT (the name of our mascot). It stands for Collaborative Organized Leadership Team. It will be a committee that will work on communication and district improvement.
ReplyDeleteWhen I decided to review skills with the middle school students it was because I was sure that teching something one time was not enough. I wanted to see how much they remembered from introductory library lessons. I wanted to see if they understood how books were organized in our library and then I wanted them to apply that info. to the call numbers on fiction books. I asked a few other basic questions as well, but when we went over the review, I focused on how they could go to the correct part of the fiction section if they knew what author they were looking for. Also, this is how we come up with the call numbers for fiction. I also asked them if they were still having trouble when trying to locate fiction or nonfiction books.
We had $250 budgeted for A.R. tests. We have an activity account that holds all of our profit from anything like box tops for education or donations. This is where our fine money goes as well. Last year the librarian didn't want to spend any extra out of the activity budget for A.R. tests so she was able to get some at the end of the year from the middle school student council.
I found that unless you had the tests for all of the new and interesting titles, the whole program really wasn't worth anything. BUT I hated to spend any library money on tests. A catch 22 unless you can find money from other sources...
ReplyDeleteI understand the need to review and I understand the desire to have students know how to use the library independently but I worry sometime that too many librarians don't get past "location" skills -especially if we don't have regular opportunities for instruction.
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