I had a chance to do a little bit of lots of different things last week, including the following:
1) A few more pesky Nook contracts (like I said, the glamorous stuff!)
2) Search for a missing book (even more glamorous, no?)
3) Compiled a student-submitted "cheat sheet" of what to do and not do when taking notes based on their own notes that they turned in after a lesson on notetaking (a crucial lesson to deliver just before they start research for their final research paper). Some good takeaways in here - nice to see that many of them were actually listening during the lesson! - and having it in a concise format that they can refer to throughout their research process.
4) Some initial research into interesting ways to present Summer Reading for all the incoming 6th-graders. In the past, the LMS has book-talked the books which hasn't been ineffective, but she was wondering if there were any resources out there that might liven up the presentation so that she's not just talking the whole time. Ran short on time a bit, but found a few interesting trailer-type videos that I included in this working file.
Our class discussion this week was around Project-Based Learning (PBL) which is some pretty interesting stuff. What is Project-Based Learning?
I was able to make some real-library applications in talking with the LMS that I've been working with during my pre-practicum. Simply put, while I think PBL is a worthwhile endeavor, and perhaps where education should be going, it's a fundamental change that can't just happen overnight. There have been some PBL-inspired projects I've been able to observe in the library (one example: The Egyptian Virtual Museum) and while there was enthusiasm on the part of the content-area teacher, snow days and other time constraints required that he move on with other parts of the curriculum before the project actually finished, leaving library personnel to tie up the loose ends and get the virtual museum up and running. Not the end of the world, of course, but it does leave out the 6th step of PBL (Presenting the Results and Reflecting on the Process). Does this matter? At the end of the day, students learned more about Egypt than previous classes did when they just worked on creating one artifact, they had exposure to information literacy skills while they created the hierarchy for their museum rooms, and the LMS and history teacher had a chance to collaborate on a truly new way of teaching the unit on Ancient Egypt. So while maybe it's not a "true" PBL example, it helped pave the way (hopefully) for future collaborations with other teachers.
Today's Hours: 3
Total Hours: 18
Monday, April 6, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
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
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
Thursday, March 19, 2015
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
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
Thursday, March 5, 2015
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
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
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Pre-practicum Musings: Part 2
This week in my pre-practicum I got to observe two 7th grade history classes in the library as they worked on their ancient Egypt "virtual library" project (in case you want to keep up as this project progresses, see the public link).
We have been reading about Media Literacy, Information Literacy, and in what is kind of a merge of the two, Information Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy in my class and there were some interesting parallels that I was able observe in practice as students worked on this project. From some of our reading on ICT Literacy, five competencies comprise ICT Literacy, including: Access, Manage, Integrate, Evaluate, and Create.
Students came to class with 4 artifacts that they had found online (Access) and got into teams of 4-5 each. Within each team, they then started to work on a classification system (Integrate and Evaluate) based on the 16-20 artifacts they had to choose from. Eventually, all the classes working on this project will need to come to some agreement on the classification system, as this will become the rooms or exhibits in their virtual museum, but it was a great first step to have everyone actively engaged in finding ways to classify their team's collection of disparate objects.
They will have to continue to evaluate the objects they come across as they narrow down which one or two they will contribute to the museum, and of course, the final part of the project will be to create their contribution (either physically or in some digital form). As the LMS said to me, her hope is that in the end, they will end learning much more about Ancient Egypt than they would have doing a more traditional project. They'll definitely learn much more than I did in the old school "read the chapter in the textbook and take a quiz" model that many of my teachers relied upon in middle school!
Today's hours: 2
Total hours: 5
We have been reading about Media Literacy, Information Literacy, and in what is kind of a merge of the two, Information Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy in my class and there were some interesting parallels that I was able observe in practice as students worked on this project. From some of our reading on ICT Literacy, five competencies comprise ICT Literacy, including: Access, Manage, Integrate, Evaluate, and Create.
Students came to class with 4 artifacts that they had found online (Access) and got into teams of 4-5 each. Within each team, they then started to work on a classification system (Integrate and Evaluate) based on the 16-20 artifacts they had to choose from. Eventually, all the classes working on this project will need to come to some agreement on the classification system, as this will become the rooms or exhibits in their virtual museum, but it was a great first step to have everyone actively engaged in finding ways to classify their team's collection of disparate objects.
They will have to continue to evaluate the objects they come across as they narrow down which one or two they will contribute to the museum, and of course, the final part of the project will be to create their contribution (either physically or in some digital form). As the LMS said to me, her hope is that in the end, they will end learning much more about Ancient Egypt than they would have doing a more traditional project. They'll definitely learn much more than I did in the old school "read the chapter in the textbook and take a quiz" model that many of my teachers relied upon in middle school!
Today's hours: 2
Total hours: 5
Friday, January 30, 2015
What I'm Reading: January 2015
Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Quite the opposite, actually! Here's a snapshot of my Goodreads for since my last update and a quick rundown (in case you care!)
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Pre-practicum Musings: Part 1
New year, new semester, 2 new courses towards my LMS degree.
It's hard to believe I'll be about 2/3 done with the program after this semester!
The two classes I am taking this semester are Sheltering Content for English Language Learners (an EDU course) and Information Literacy and School Curriculum (an LBS course). For the Info Literacy one, I am also required to do a 25 hour pre-practicum in conjunction with the course, and so I humbly present to you a new feature on my blog as I record my experience (and let's be honest, track my hours) in my pre-practicum.
I'll be doing my pre-practicum at my local middle school, which is also where I have been volunteering for the last 18 months or so. It was a slow day today - first day back to school after 2 snow days (have you heard about this 'lil storm called #juno?), but a good one to get my feet wet again.
Although most of my classes so far have focused on the more thoughtful (and in my opinion, interesting) parts of the profession, there are simply nuts and bolts that have to be taken care of in the administration of a library and today it was overdue notices. That took the bulk of my time - running the reports, printing the notices to go home, and alphabetizing by Team and Homeroom. Who said being a librarian wasn't glamorous?
I did have some time to informally chat with the LMS about some of things coming up in my class, including how Information Literacy is taught in the school and where there are gaps. Lots of good info to add into my class discussion board.
Today's hours: 3
Total hours: 3
It's hard to believe I'll be about 2/3 done with the program after this semester!
The two classes I am taking this semester are Sheltering Content for English Language Learners (an EDU course) and Information Literacy and School Curriculum (an LBS course). For the Info Literacy one, I am also required to do a 25 hour pre-practicum in conjunction with the course, and so I humbly present to you a new feature on my blog as I record my experience (and let's be honest, track my hours) in my pre-practicum.
I'll be doing my pre-practicum at my local middle school, which is also where I have been volunteering for the last 18 months or so. It was a slow day today - first day back to school after 2 snow days (have you heard about this 'lil storm called #juno?), but a good one to get my feet wet again.
Although most of my classes so far have focused on the more thoughtful (and in my opinion, interesting) parts of the profession, there are simply nuts and bolts that have to be taken care of in the administration of a library and today it was overdue notices. That took the bulk of my time - running the reports, printing the notices to go home, and alphabetizing by Team and Homeroom. Who said being a librarian wasn't glamorous?
I did have some time to informally chat with the LMS about some of things coming up in my class, including how Information Literacy is taught in the school and where there are gaps. Lots of good info to add into my class discussion board.
Today's hours: 3
Total hours: 3
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