Pre-Practicum Musings: Part 6

PARCC testing was going on at the middle school this week, so it was a light load of classes in the library during my shift this week, which meant I got to flex a little creative muscle.

Intrigued?

Throughout the year, the LMS creates displays that showcase some aspect of the library (but hopefully in an engaging, teen-friendly way). And, as you may or may not know, April is National Poetry Month, which is a way to celebrate the art of poetry with students, teachers, librarians, poets, and anyone who loves and appreciates poetry.

Enter the display for April...

 

The foundation for the display was a long sheet of butcher block on which students had written some of their favorite poetry verses. Accompanying the top were color printouts of the covers of several books poems in which some of these verses can be found. This "Poetry is..." mural is featured on a long wall to the left of the library doors.

Upon entering the library, was an easel with this year's winning poster along with a blank page for students to (hopefully) jot down a couple of lines of poetry as they think of them. Behind the easel is an easily accessible display of the poetry books that were featured in the outside mural.

Will students be inspired to check out a book of poetry? That remains to be seen, but if nothing else, they will surely be more aware of the wide variety of poetry out there, which is among the goals of National Poetry Month in the first place.

Weekly hours: 3 (all that scanning and printing took much longer than it looks!)

Total hours: 15

Pre-Practicum Musings: Part 5

Today was a quiet day class-wise in the library, so it meant a focus on some of the more administrative tasks in the library. In a nice juxtaposition of the old and the new, I helped in the weeding of more ancient library books and also prepared the contracts for this term's NOOK rentals. As part of a grant a few years ago, the library was gifted a number of NOOK e-readers and one of the History teachers has used them with one of his classes each term to read a companion novel to the time period they are studying. This is not my first go-around with the NOOKs but I haven't ever asked that many questions about how they are used. Stay tuned for a future blog post...

A quiet library meant a little time to chat with the LMS about how the virtual museum pilot worked out (See previous post). It didn't seem to be a slam dunk, per se, but she noted several strong positives that came out of the project. The major con was really just time. With 6 snow days that chopped up a part of 3 consecutive weeks, it just became too difficult to carry the project through to the end. Tthe final museum will be put together by the LMS and the Academic Facilitator, using the criteria and the artifacts agreed upon by the students. Although it's a little disappointing that the students won't be able to see it through, there's no doubt they'll feel a sense of pride and ownership when they see the final product online.

Among the many pros? Students created a much more robust set of artifacts than the LMS observed from the other classes who did a more traditional approach towards learning about Egyptian culture. She also felt the learning was much broader, as some of the group work and classifying exercises meant that students working on the virtual museum had greater exposure to a wider range of aspects of the culture. Another strong positive was a ripple effect throughout the teachers - word spread about the cool new thing she was working on with the History teacher and there are 2 other teachers who have now come to her with interesting ideas on how to improve some of their upcoming projects with the resources in the library.

Perhaps, this is the biggest win of them all. It's a tactic I used in my past professional life when part of my job entailed working with sales people to have them better use the research and marketing tools we had at our disposal. It's overwhelming to try to hit everyone at once with a new idea (and then it's a struggle to meet everyone's needs), but it can be very effective to find one person willing to be a trailblazer, do great work with them, and then watch how word spreads naturally from there. Very cool to see it in action, and I am interested to see what other projects come out of the library this year.

Today's hours: 2.5

Total hours: 12

Pre-Practicum Musings: Parts 3 and 4

Lots of snow days and February vacation prevented me from updating my last pre-practicum visit, so in the spirit of being concise, figured I'd give a two-for-one with today's blog post. 

Between the two visits, I had a good mix of library admin and classroom observation, so I'll organize my report along those same lines.

Library Admin

I had a few tasks related to processing donations, as well as making decisions on books to weed. From the donation standpoint, I will never just blindly drop off a box of books at a school library! It is actually a lot of work to process just one new book, let alone a whole box full. And, I hate to say it, but often times the books that are donated, while well-intentioned, are donated without thought to what a school or its population actually needs. I just did the initial processing - adding the barcode and entering it into the online catalog - I've already been promised that the next time I come, I'll get to complete the process, which includes adding the spine label and covering it for extra protection. Like I said earlier, not the most glamorous of jobs, but part of the job nonetheless!

I also had a chance to help weed through some books. Some of them are no-brainers - you know, solar system books that still list Pluto as a planet, or ancient fiction titles that have pages falling out of them - but some of them are harder to make the decision on. As a book lover, it's hard to take the hard line and say "this book is no good" but given the time it takes to get a new book in the shelves (see above), it's definitely something that needs to be done.

Classroom Observation

One of the challenges of being a 21st century LMS is not only keeping on top of all the new tools that come out, but figuring out which ones will be of greatest use to your students and teachers, and then effectively training them on how to use said tools. One of the new tools that is being introduced to students this year is NoodleTools, an online academic research platform. With successful integration of a tool like this, students have a handy place to access all their research (hello, no more note cards!), and teachers have a way to regularly check in to assess their progress and offer help or suggestions along the way. Plus, it's just pretty cool.

The LMS I am working with only purchased a trial subscription so she could test it with a few classes before committing the big bucks, but from my observation, it's working pretty well. There were a few hiccups with the first class that tried it, but the LMS and the content area teacher were able to tweak their approach the next time they introduced it to a new class. Today, I was able to witness the same assignment being conducted in both the "old school" (read: notecards) and "new school" (read: NoodleTools) methods. While both classes seemed to be similarly focused and productive in the research process, I give a slight edge to the NoodleTools method, primarily for the ease with which teachers can provide feedback and the less paper students need to keep track of. Having the ability to check in on individual students prior to them coming to class certainly helps class time be more productive.

Weeks 3 and 4 hours: 4.5

Total hours: 9.5