John Dewey says that we learn not from experience but from reflecting on our experiences. After all this exploration, I do have a few things to reflect on, leading me to one major takeaway that will guide my professional development and practice moving forward. First, throughout this course I have been repeatedly reminded that communication and connecting with others is important to my development. It is not only an informative piece, but I think more importantly, it is an inspirational piece. Reading other peoples' recommendations, trial and errors, and successes has been a great benefit to me in developing my knowledge but what I enjoyed the most is the excitement in their posts. It reminds me of when children find a book or a series that they just love. They're animated, excited, and insatiable! That kind of energy and enthusiasm for reading is inspiring! I will make it part of my professional goals to maintain communication and find ways to share ideas and resources with other teacher-librarians.Second, explorations throughout this course have solidified even more so my belief that learning experiences integrating technology need to be authentic and clearly purposeful. Our new curriculum (drafts) is deeply rooted in 21st C competencies and skills and I strongly believe that one of our best avenues for supporting students in these acquisitions is the school library program. Being innovative and "tech-savvy" in the elementary school library helps everyone - the students and the staff! It's the perfect avenue to model and implement technology experiences that are meaningful and support student learning as well as teacher professional development.
My major takeaway from Phase 2 ties both of my reflective pieces into my vision for the future and is quite simply that my library program needs a major overhaul! The current library program is severely outdated and to be honest, it drives me crazy! I will need to find a way to "sell" the staff on the idea of the library being a Learning Commons instead of the traditional read-aloud-exchange-your-books model that it currently is. Obviously this is going to take some time, resources, and will-power! That's where I need inspiration from my communications with others as well as the foundation of 21st Century skills to support this change. It's a challenge that I know I will enjoy and that I will gain a wealth of experiences from. Moving forward, I will focus on proving to my staff how the library program can be an authentic technological experience that deepens learning for their students...now I just need to get my hands on some technology for my library!! It was completely embarrassing today when I had a guest speaker in the library and we had to use a stand alone screen with wood paneling (circa. 1970) on it to project her website onto! Not only that, the top of the stand was broken so we had to stand the screen on top of a table so that it would be high enough for students to see...sigh...one step at a time!
1. http://www.style-n-naina.com/storage/post-images/reflect-pink.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1365193361991
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A very passionate and inspired reflective blog post. You've identified some of the key learning, takeaways and connections you've made. You've also highlighted some of the challenges and struggles you face in achieving your goals and transformation. I firmly believe with your PLN you are building and the ideas you've developed and collected that you will be able to convince your staff and begin transforming your space and program. A great post, full of energy, positivity and purpose.
ReplyDeleteIt is very challenging to make changes when everything is so well entrenched - library time in our district means teacher prep time. As such, teachers do not get involved in the happenings in the library- it is their time to get stuff done! I also think the library programs have included a lot of health and career focus rather than focusing on research skills. Maybe you could have a teacher start a project that they can come into the library to work on. You could teach them some research skills and carry over the classroom learning and extend it into the library. Take advantage of having the students dropped off every week!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly - at our school it isn't prep BUT people definitely view it as a "break". I really want to introduce team teaching for library time but as this was my first year in there, I wanted to get a sense of how it worked first. At this point in the year, I can definitely see a number of ways that the library time could be utilized differently (I won't say better, just differently...for now...). I agree completely about the student projects - I would LOVE to have inquiry projects happening in the library!
DeleteHi Colline,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like we are in similar situations where our libraries are in need of a major overhaul. I have spent so much of my year just weeding and rearranging the space. I found the best thing for me was to immediately get rid of things that are really not useful to help try to open up the space. Sometimes having someone else come in (a colleague or a friend) with a fresh set of eyes, can offer a new idea for how to arrange things to make the room more spacious. Also, maybe talking to the PAC about the positive changes that you want to make might encourage them to invest in the library if they don't do so already. Even just some bean bag chairs or large pillows on those interconnecting mats can make a great space to lounge and read. I think that it's amazing that you are taking this on and I am sure that your staff and students will appreciate the fresh new twist you bring to the library. I would love to see some "before" pictures if you are able to post them. Good luck and I hope all goes well for you. :)
Hello Harpreet - I have been "purging" the library like crazy this year...sometimes I feel guilty for getting rid of so much, BUT it was necessary! I am looking forward to continuing to refresh the library image in our school - thank you for your ideas!
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