Education survey 2013 - technology and teacher librarians

Australian teacher magazine conducted their annual EducationSurvey asking school staff across Australia for their views on the issues affecting the sector.

In part four is some of the comments received on the topics of technology in the classroom, and teacher librarians.

here are 2 comments from the article....

“Of great concern to me is the reduction in the number of Australian primary schools with a qualified teacher-librarian on staff. At a time when so much Federal BER funding has been put into primary school libraries, it is indeed a contradiction that primary school principals are allowed to continue down this road. I believe that deteriorating literacy levels are related to this current trend.”

'Teachers in specialist positions (e.g. Teacher Librarians and Careers Advisers) play a very important role in overall outcomes for students, but do not seem to be considered in most of the discussion about ‘teacher effectiveness’.”

Click on the link below for the full article.

EducationSurvey 2013: Your comments – technology, teacher librarians

ETL 504 Reflective Journal Blog task - Teacher-Librarian as Leader

This post is part of ETL504 Assessment 1 and is designed as a way to reflect on emerging thoughts on the leadership role and practices of the Teacher-Librarian (TL) in the context of recent modules on organisational theory and school leadership.

In order to do this, I’ve chosen to link the TL role to some ideas raised in my concept map depicting school leadership.

Vision and Purpose – this closely links to the practice of developing a vision statement and library goals as articulated in the library policy. This can shape and inform practical things such as resource management and the types of services and engagement that the library can offer the school. Having a vision and purpose can also provide the TL with ammunition to argue funding and direction and increase motivation, commitment and enthusiasm (Sergiovanni, 1984). If developed well it will also link into broader school vision and allow the TL s voice in direction setting. 

The TL like any leader needs to develop communication skills and build relationships.

Communication binds leadership (Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005) this is particularly important as chances to informally interact with colleagues can be hampered by staffing the library during break times. Developing ways of communicating about what and how the library can help with resources and skills will raise the library profile and provide more engagement opportunities for TLs. 

Likewise TL relationships can focus on member-leader exchange (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009) and the outcomes of these interactions (Townsend, 2011) can provide opportunities for co-teaching, engagement and sharing expertise.    

These are linked with notions of openness and trust which communication and relationships will facilitate and the TL can utilise to argue and lead for greater participation – of students and colleagues in their library use and of the TL in broader school issues. Likewise TLs need to share expertise with colleagues and welcome the expertise of others into the library to build a learning community (Orridge, 2009) and positively impact change management (Cameron and Green, 2004). 

TLs also need to engage in enabling/empowering colleagues through professional development and learning opportunities which will support change (Orridge 2009) garner support in realising goals (Belbin, 2010).

Information gathering and monitoring is import to TLs – in practice this can mean using data about library use or evaluating and reporting on programs and their impacts as a way of increase effectiveness (Knapp, Copland  & Swinnerton, 200,7  Marzano et al, 2005) and arguing for resources and increased participation. 

Data, problem solving and decision making in can be linked to resource management, developing relationships, enabling and participation (Adair 2010). Resource management is a large part of the TL role where the library, its resources and access to these are fundamental responsibilities.

In undertaking all these leadership aspects a range of leaderships styles including transformational leadership as way of inspiring and activating higher order values (Avolio et al,2009,p.428) transactional leadership and authenticity and empathy (Cameron and Green 2004) along with problem solving techniques and change management (Schifter, 2008)must be employed with an aim to effect leadership for learning (Townsend, 2011) and build a knowledge organisation (Hargreaves, 2007) – which will, in turn require great communication and relationships and a fair amount of perseverance and dedication.

References 

Adair, J. E. (2010). Decision making and problem solvingstrategies (pp. 45-53). London: Kogan Page. Retrieved March 30, 2013 Charles Sturt University website

 Avolio, B., Walumbwa, F., & Weber, T. J. (2009, September 14). Leadership: CurrentTheories, Research, and Future Directions. DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Retrieved March 21, 2013

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Belbin, R. M. (2010). Chapter 9. The art of building a team. Teamroles at work (2nd ed., pp. 97-106). Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. Retrieved March 28, 2013 from Charles Sturt University website. 

Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2004). Individual change. Making sense of change management a complete guide to the models, tools & techniques of organizational change (pp. 12-61). London: Kogan Page. Retrieved March 27 from Charles Sturt University website. 

Hargreaves, A. (2007). Sustainable Leadership and Development in Education: creating thefuture, conserving the past.. European Journal of Education, 42(2), 223-233. Retrieved January 24, 2013.

Knapp, M. S., Copland, M. A., & Swinnerton, J. A. (2007). Chapter 4 Understanding thePromise and Dynamics of Data-Informed Leadership.. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 106(1), 74-104. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from Charles Sturt University website. 

KotterMarzano, R. J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). Sometheories and theorists on leadership. School leadership that works: from research to results (pp. 13-27). Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved 27 March, 2013 from Charles Sturt University website.

Orridge, M. (2009). 75 ways to help sustainorganisational transformation. Change leadership developing a change-adept organization (pp. 35-52). Farnham, England: Gower . Retrieved March 28 from Charles Sturt University website. 

Schifter, C. (2008). Effecting Change in the Classroom Through Professional Development. In C. Schifter (Ed.), Infusing Technology into the Classroom: Continuous Practice Improvement (pp. 259-274). Hershey, PA: . doi:10.4018/978-1-59904-765-2.ch014

Sergiovanni, T. (1984). Leadership and Excellence in Schooling. Educational Leadership, February, 4-13. Retrieved March 14, 2013.

Townsend, T. (2011). School leadership in the twenty-first century:different approaches to common problems? School Leadership and Management, 31(2), 93-103. Retrieved March 22, 2013, from Charles Sturt University website

Leadership - random thoughts

Lots to do in terms of the assignment (due very soon - though not very far along) but thought i'd record some random thoughts that have come about while reading...

I've long been interested in the notion of the spaces in between things - the words unsaid or the gesture unrealised so when thinking about distributed leadership I felt drawn to the Youngs (2009) and the concept of the space that is required to allow leadership - not necessarily structural space but the ethos and personality of an organisation and the support (and trust/ openness) that is required to achieve this.
Likewise I appreciate the idea of leaders as navigating of expertise.

Have also been thinking of telling some bosses at work that leadership is more than management!

 Youngs, H. (2009). (Un)Critical times? Situating distributed leadership in the field . Journal of Educational Administration and History, 41(4), 377-389. Retrieved March 24, 2013, from Charles Sturt University website http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1080/00220620903211588

TL as leader

In trying to get into this new subject, teacher-Librarian as leader i thought i might try and inspire myself with a wordle. Not my best effort but is passable. Now to try and catch up on the reading I failed to do last week.... sigh

Teacher librarians as promoters of educational technology

Came across the article  "the Role of School Librarians in Promoting the Use of Educational Technologies" prepared by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Media Specialists SIG (SIGMS) Executive Advocacy Committee. It provides a nice overview of the role of the TL with a focus on technology.

edition 19 - immersion

School holidays are a blessing and a curse - am busier at work and have kids at home - which is normally ok but they have been quite sick and have spent most of the morning acting as a peace keeper and almost no time on uni but at least i don't have to worry about lunches and school hours!
Am drowning in information - well not exactly but have been reading an awful lot and am trying to link and weave in a lot of ideas from earlier materials into assignment 2. Have read some interesting articles about professional standards - am interested in the tension surrounding standard and accompanying performance assessment and ...

"the potential shortfalls associated with standards frameworks that regulate teachers’ work in ways that reduce their autonomy, or that assume that assessment of teachers’ work will necessarily lead to improved teaching and thus improved learning outcomes for students " (Mayer.D et. al. 2005, p. 163)

not that this is what i should be thinking about.... back to work and concentrating on clear writing and explicit answers to assignment questions.

Mayer, D., Mitchell, J., Macdonald, D and Bell, R. (2005) Professional standards for teachers: a case study of professional learning in Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33( 2), pp. 159–179

edition 12 - so far ....

I had just almost finished this post but stupidly closed the browser after searching for something else and lost it arghhhhh.. Here's take 2.

after a week of more emphasis on pleasure reading than uni reading, I am now back into the swing of things. Have looked to the next assignment requirements and, as part of it is taken from blog posts and forum discussions, I thought i might just review some thoughts ...

I think my view of the TL before starting this course was probably one typical of many Ts - the head teacher gives unit outlines and time frames, there's a little bit of sharing of ideas and resources but on the whole you go out to teach as an individual in control of the class. The TL was there to assist with resources and for assignments etc but you source a large proportion of the materials yourself. No induction or teacher training lead me to consider the TL in the way the literature i have now read suggests. Thank goodness i know better now.

IN terms of RBL, i think i have utilised this approach under the guise of inquiry learning. This approach is conducive to encouraging TL-T collaboration and technology, particularly computers in classrooms, have altered the potential for utilising RBL. Though it certainly does raise the idea that IF needs to be taught in context and I'm pretty sure i would be a better teacher of these ideas now than 6 weeks ago. Could you use it all the time? Not sure, although the students are engaged, it takes longer and there is still an awful lot of stuff to get through and not much time.

Pondering on the business of TLs, i feel overwhelmed sometimes: curriculum development and implementation, collaborative planning, policy writing, advocacy, leadership, evaluation and research all while maintaining resources and their intellectual and physical access is no small task. But i do believe that students and Ts are enriched through collaboration with TLs and that the library has much more to offer.

I have also wondered how far the literature is removed from practice. I have yet to see an ILSC in action or a TL that has the support (or a principal the knowledge/drive) to create one. It has made me consider again how important the overarching principles of a school are, particularly in terms of their pedagogical approach and their understanding and approaches to learning. Having said that i do think that principals would be wise to expect TL- T collaboration in planning units and from the research can see how students in schools could be missing resources and knowledge when the TL is excluded from curriculum issues. But i do also recognise that for this to occur adequate staffing and the perennial problem of scheduling needs to be addressed. And perhaps the biggest hindrance of all is the outmoded approach to schooling we have!!

Below you can find some great links on this issue from the inspiring Ken Robinson to 24 hour learning at Paramatta and some interesting videos on information for the future and what students at university are really like.

I hope you enjoy!

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://blip.tv/file/88216
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
http://fusionfinds.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/we-are-living-in-exponential-times/
http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/how-we-learn/

edition 8 - TLs?? ILSC??

So this week i have achieved a little - not the lot i was hoping for but, I have had some very interesting discussions with the library staff and managed to get at least 1/4 of my assignment finished and some sporadic drafty note type things for about 1/2 of the remainder - though am way behind in my readings if you go by the schedule. I have decided that the main problem for the TL is the rest of the teachers and i can't help thinking that this in part could/should be addressed in teacher training.
In fact I am struck by a couple of things - mainly how little i knew about the role and scope of the TL before embarking on this and the fact that so far none of the teachers i have spoken to have heard of the ILSC - I think this indicates that those readings that suggest that TL literature and research need to go beyond the TL profession to reach the broader teaching community are right. It is an uphill battle for any TL if no-one in the wider teaching community is aware of the vision and research that supports the ILSC. Apart from integration into T training courses i think that perhaps the TL community should be publishing in mainstream teaching journals.