This was another week of delays and one snow day. I replied to Dr. Berg's comment from week two about how I used a discarded lesson because our Public Librarians cancelled. The lesson was an introduction to World Book on Infohio. (AASL 1.3 & 2.3) I was encouraged to have participation from the teachers during these lessons. Three teachers wanted to interject and I believe they felt that I was making the lesson relevant to their classroom content.
I have been thinking alot about teacher collaboration. I studied David Loertscher's taxonomy for the Praxis and took some time to decide where our library fit into his idea for school libraries. Libraries at the bottome level have no involvement and the ones a step above that are a "self-help warehouse". I feel that the library I work in falls somewhere between spontaneous, cursory, and planned gathering depending on the occasion. Near the top of Loertscher's taxonomy is instruction and instructional design which means formal planning occurs and the LMS is involoved in every step and the entire teaching unit may depend on the LMC program. Sometimes I feel that my library is very close to these two, but it only happens with one or two teachers. I wonder to myself, "How do I get teachers to understand our role and allow us to be included in their units?". When I have suggested to an English teacher that I could teach a lesson based on the Trails results we created earlier this year, she acted like it was her responsibility to teach these things, not mine. Most teachers seem to convey the idea that they are in complete charge or control of what is taught with their students. This is frustrating to me even though I understand why teachers feel this responsibility. I guess they just don't realize that there can be opportunities to co-teach with the librarian.
I find myself wondering when a social studies teacher uses the library, "how could I have collaborated with him on this unit? What do we have to offer here that he didn't think of using?" I usually don't have an answer. They have a set amount of time to get the paper or the research done and they don't want to spend too much time doing it. So how do we add lessons to there schedule?
Time seems to be another issue that I don't need to discuss right now.
Anyhow, there are glimmers of hope and I am just beginning to try and change how teachers may feel about the library and what we can offer. The Freshman English teacher that I spoke of came to me this week and said she would be willing to have her classes take the Trails assessment again. This is a new semester with a new set of students. I excitedly agreed but interjected that I would like to teach one lesson based on the assessment results. She said, "Sure, you can do it right when we start our research project". (AASL 2.2) This is positive and encouraging. Now lets hope I can tie it in with their research or at least make it relavant to them in some way.
One teacher, one class at a time.
It has been a new experience for me to be in charge of scheduling teachers (AASL 1.3) and knowing at the same time that I am responsible for anything that needs to be introduced or taught by the LMS. Before now as I have taken on more duties at the encouragement of our librarian, I would teach a lesson here or there and be responsible for pulling some books on occasions. Trying to keep on top of what is happening next week and what I need to do to prepare is a much larger responsibility. I really don't know how I will handle it if I am a LMS without an aide. But this is very good practice for me. (Let me interject that we typically introduce Infohio or other sources to classes beginning research projects if the teachers will agree. This is really all of the instruction that occurs concerning high school students. We will see if I can get this to change.)
On a final note, I got to do some copy cataloging this week. I thought I would be able to get the pile of books that needed cataloged completed in one day. Not true! I know I will get faster at this, but I don't see how people spend a lot of time on getting the perfect record. I also find it hard to fathom that librarians do this on their own when they don't have an aide to help them out during the day. Yes, we did just order books with their records to save time but these books were purchased by the Parent's Club for one of our elementary schools. It was fun to do something different and I have a new appreciation for how easy it is to make mistakes because of interruptions. (AASL 4.1)
Collaboration is difficult but you are correct in wanting to build it one teacher at a time. A culture needs to be developed where teachers understand that you add value to their instruction. Some teachers will have trouble adjusting to your new role. Actually I think you could use that to your advantage in some ways. Talk with sympathetic teachers about how you want to be a teaching librarian and ask them for their help and feedback as you continue to improve your instruction. Maybe as they assume more of a mentoring role with you, a partnership will develop.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll get quicker with copy cataloging as you gain experience.
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