Final Vision Project Submission: Challenges and Project Summary (LIBE 477B)

The End is Nigh

The end is here and I have to say, I am pretty excited.  I’ve learned a lot through this course and have been able to apply it directly to my role as a Teacher-Librarian, but I am excited for the break in course work.  It’s been a very busy fall and I am looking forward to some quieter evenings, especially with the holidays approaching. Additionally, we are expecting a new addition to our family in the New Year, so we are getting ready for that transition as well.  But, to get back to this project….

My Final Vision Project was to create a Teacher Collaboration website that met three goals.  I wanted to:

1)      Demonstrate how the MBS Library Learning Commons and Teacher-Librarians can act as a resource for staff

2)      To create an opportunity for staff collaboration and sharing of resources

3)      To highlight amazing things happening at our school

I see my Final Vision Project as something that will be ongoing for a while.   As such, my final artifact will be a bit of a living document.  I’ve built the frame work of a website that my co-librarian and I will continue to add to over the course of this year and next (and thereafter).   As we see how staff reacts to our website, we will adapt and change as necessary.   For this reason, I am quite pleased with how it has turned out so far.  But, before I get into how I feel about the final product, let’s focus on why this website is important.

The Why -- Purpose and Rationale Revisited

Our District has recently adopted Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School LibraryLearning Commons in Canada (2014) created by the Canadian Library Association as a key source for developing Library Learning Commons in our schools. They have formed a Library Learning Commons Network which meets during the year to discuss the different standards of practice in the document and to look at how we can implement ideas in our libraries.  The document itself identifies five standards of practice for school Library Learning Commons and has a performance scale to measure your Learning Commons’ growth with regards to the standards.  These are labeled the transitional growth stages of a Library Learning Commons.

The document itself is a bit overwhelming at first glance. It has so much information and so many suggestions about what a Library Learning Commons should look like that it takes a while to digest. However, I found that it was useful for guiding my Final Vision Project.  

Through our course we learned that a Teacher-Librarian is a facilitator – someone who has many roles within a school and who is often regarded as a leader in many areas. One of the standards within the document looks at “Facilitating Collaborative Engagement to Cultivate and Empower a Community of Learners” (Leading Learning, 2014).  One of the sub themes in this category is “Design for Collaboration” where an evolving “LLC is a gateway of information, literature, and communication supported by a technology infrastructure that advances collaboration” (Leading Learning 2014).  This is where I see my website coming into play.  Currently, my co-librarian has done a great job of collaborating with some departments in our school and co-teaching. But, we are a far cry from integrating with all departments in our school. My hope is that this website can be a “technology infrastructure that advances collaboration” in our school by educating our staff about how we can support them.   This connects with my first goal – making our staff aware of what we do.  Advocacy is a huge part of being a Teacher-Librarian and something that I hadn’t previously thought about.  

It also connects with my second goal as I hope my website will encourage collaboration among staff. By creating a Teachers Resource Section, it is my hope that people will share among each other.  We are stronger when we work together and are often doing the same thing, but in separate classrooms. By sharing resources within our staff, it is my hope that people will see the power of collaboration.  True collaboration involves working with someone to develop a product, but if we can start with sharing resources this is the first step down that road.

A second sub theme in this category is “Partners in Collaborative Learning” where an evolving “LLC leadership team and teacher-librarian/LLC teacher work with teachers to design learning experiences and to teach collaboration techniques and strategies” (Leading Learning, 2014). Again, we have done this well with some departments, but not all. The English department in particular has collaborated with my co-librarian numerous times over the years and has developed key lesson which are used year after year. It is my hope that our website can highlight some of the collaborative approaches we have taken with teachers and to encourage others jump in.  By showing different lessons that we have created with teachers, we hope that someone’s interest will be peeked.

I am a bit nervous to admit it, but before this year I haven’t previously collaborated with a Teacher-Librarian. I’ve taught at two schools in the role of English teacher and have never really utilized the library or Teacher-Librarians.  I recognize that this occurred for two reasons.   I did not seek out my Teacher-Librarian to see how they could support me and my Teacher-Librarians did not reach out to staff to demonstrate how they could support us. As I reflect on this in my new role as a Teacher-Librarian, I recognize how vital it is to advocate for the library as a resource.   Again, this is where the website comes into play. It is one step towards making what happens in the library visible to our school. 

This brings me to my last goal where I hope to showcase amazing things happening at our school.  This fits in well with the sub theme of “Vision for Learning” where an evolving LLC is “evolving as a whole school approach to collaborative learning” (Leading Learning).  If we can encourage staff to share what they are doing in their classrooms and to celebrate these moments, it is my hope that we can create a community of learning with our school.  People who are willing to share their success (and their failures) will likely be more open to collaboration in the future.  By building a community of sharing we are taking our step first to a shared vision for learning.

Although there are other strands that connect with my Final Vision Project, this is the one that had the most gravity for me as I was reading through the document.  Starting with a collaborative vision and environment will allow the other strands to fall into place more easily.

Technological Speed bumps

Aside from the few small issues I addressed in my previous blog, I haven’t really run into many technological issues with my Final Vision Project.  So, I’m not going to re-hash those here. Instead, I’d like to reflect on the course as a whole and address some of the growth I’ve experienced as a result of challenges faced with the structure of the course.  I was fairly technically proficient coming into the course, so my growth hasn’t been so much with using technology but with the inquiry method of learning.

Final Reflection

As I reflect on our course and this project, I am thankful for the opportunity to focus on something that truly interests me and that I see value in.  My Final Vision Project is relevant to my role as a Teacher-Librarian and will be utilized. When we started this course, I was a little unsure as I felt that things were not as structured as I would like them. Although the method of learning was structured (blogging) no one was telling me exactly what to learn about in either our Reading Review Assignment or our Final Vision Project.  This worried me.  I like to know what I need to learn.  However, as we progressed through the course I became more comfortable with this format and began to appreciate its strengths.

Experiencing this first hand has given me some things to think about in relation to my students and how they might feel as I make changes to my classroom practices.  Traditionally, my classroom has been very structured, but inspired by this course I had my students undertake a research inquiry project this year.  Students had to choose a topic related to their novel, develop a research question and complete research on their topic.  Through this phase of the project I was able to teach important information literacy skills such as how to develop a good research question, how to evaluate websites, how to access academic sources at the library, how to take effective notes and how to create proper bibliographic citations. Students then needed to create a multi-media artifact which represents their learning.  So far we have completed the research portion and have just jumped into the creation phase.  There have been some speed bumps along the way, but for the most part I’m happy with our progress. Through the second phase of this project I am able to focus on effective principles of design (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) and more information literacy topics related to their artifact. For example, we will be discussing how to access copyright free images and music next week.

One of things that I’ve noticed with this project is that my students are actively engaged.  They are focused, on-task and for the most part making good progress. This is not to say that they are off-task when we do other things, but that their interest is more visible with this project. This is a good reminder for me that when students are authentically engaged in a task, they will be more invested.   This bring me back to Will Richardson and Why School and his quote from Stephen Dowes who claims “we have to stop thinking of education as something that is delivered to us and instead see it as something we create for ourselves” (Richardson, 2014).  While my students are not quite playing Mindcraft as exemplified in the book, they are creating their own learning journey by choosing both a topic and a digital method of presentation of their choice.   The design of their final product is not prescriptive and requires much thought about how to best organize their information.  We have discussed effective design principles, but the final product is solely up to them.   I am interested to see how these digital artifacts will develop and to compare them to past projects I have had students create where the method was far more rigid.

So, if I was to sum up a key take away from this course, I guess I’d like to say thank you for the opportunity to experience inquiry learning.  It’s been a profound learning journey and one that has impacted me in my role as Teacher-Librarian, but also a classroom teacher. Although I am excited to take a break from course work, I am also eager to see what the other courses in the Diploma will offer and how they will change my outlook.

To access my Final Vision Project, follow the link below.  Happy browsing and thanks for taking a look!

http://mbsteachers.weebly.com/

A Few Notes about My Website

-Some information is only accessible to teachers in my district as I’ve linked to our District Portal which requires our district login to access.  This shouldn’t impact your ability to understand what I am trying to achieve with my website; however, if you require further information, let me know.

-All images were taken from Pixabay and used under the CCO Creative Commons or personally taken, with the exception of one photo which is cited and taken from the Library Archives of Canada.

Bibliography

Leaning Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada. (2014). Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://llsop.canadianschoollibraries.ca/

Richardson, W. (2012). Why School?