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

.

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

School leadership - initial reading

Have been doing lots of reading on organisational theory and leadership and its quite illuminating in terms of the leadership and follower behaviour in my own work environment. Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership (in Marzano, Walters and McNulty, 2005) was particularly interesting. In brief it describes the different leadership techniques you employ based on on the followers un/willingness and in/ability.

In brief:
Unable and Unwilling ---- telling
Unable but willing --------particpating
able but unwilling -------- selling
able and willing ---------- delegating

The other idea that has struck me this week was the notion of Instructional Leadership and Leadership for learning (Townsend, 2011). I appreciate the underlying philosophical difference in the terms and am inclined to favour the UK propensity to use leadership for learning which seems to sit much more comfortably with constructivist notions of learning and shifts in educational pedagogy. I also like the notion of distributed leadership in the sense that it alludes to the capacity for leadership in all members of the school.


Marzano, R. J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). Some theories 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 January, 2013 from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/lib/csuau/docDetail.action?docID=10089219


Townsend, T. (2011). School leadership in the twenty-first century: different approaches to common problems?. School Leadership and Management, 31(2), 93-103. Retrieved January 28, 2013, from. http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/13632434.2011.572419 

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.

Library information services

This week we reflect on library information services

I think of a reference interview as a first contact with a librarian about information needs. But is this changing? In my youth the school librarian was often a feared figure, the keeper of knowledge, arbiter of noise, a disapproving eye. I can remember trawling through the handwritten catalogue cards rather than asking this figure asking for help finding information. Thankfully those days have passed and a large portion of the librarians role is actually making sense of the information needs of the library users - both physically and digitally (Janes, 2008).
The digital reference service is an interesting idea, I was told recently (by a friend doing the TAFE library diploma) that in places like the UK this is becoming one of the main services provided by some libraries and that if you submit your info request after library hours it gets forwarded to the US so that it can be returned within a short period of time!

In terms of providing information services in school i think the 5 key areas for teacher librarians are as follows:
- selecting resources that support teaching and learning needs (after all that's our main purpose in a school)
- assistance in developing information skills (so students can use these resources effectively)
- ensuring maximum access to resources (this would also encompass the organisational and cataloguing aspects of resources for without these how can you maximise access?)
- focal point for learning (because we need libraries to be this to ensure their survival, this naturally would include ITC access and providing appropriate environment)
- information tools and services (including community networks and resources)

We were also asked to reflect on School Community Profiles. The notion of the school community profile is consistent with Bishop (2007) and others who discuss the need for resources to match the characteristics and needs of the users. In particular Bishop advocates such a community profile as a way of understanding needs and characteristics as well as developing an understanding of community resources and networks. This kind of information allows TLs to tailor the resources to meet the information needs of the school community they service


As for web learning, this is an increasing part of the TL role and when done well websites and wikis can provide a great tool for students to access information and resources and interact and collaborate. As for the argument of wikis vs web - i'm all web! I think Valenza's (2010) arguments being pro-wiki, are outdated. All her arguments for wikis are equally applicable to websites. Web host and design providers such as weebly and webs (as mentioned by Herring) mean that all those capabilities mentioned by Valenza can be done on a website without having the need to understand or write code - and I think websites have greater design flexibility than wikis.

Bishop, K. (2007). Community analysis and needs assessment. In The collection program in schools : concepts, practices and information sources (4th ed.) (pp. 19-24). Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.

Janes, J. (2008). An Informal History (and Possible Future) of Digital Reference.

Valenza, J. (2010) Ten reasons why your next pathfinder should be a wiki.

Students and web use

This week I am reminded of the need to teach information skills across curriculum and certainly not in isolation or just in the library, particularly as it appears that these skills are not necessarily as transferable as we might like (Herring 2010). It also reinforced that students rely on the capabilities of search engines more than they should (Chung and Neuman, 2007 and Kuiper et. al. 2008). Herring's question formulation paper also made me think that perhaps I haven't paid enough attention to the different tools and processes we can employ in defining our information needs.

The Kuiper et.al (2008) research also raised some interesting points about reading skills when seeking information on websites. For example, that less appropriate reading skills were employed when students were unsure if a site was relevant. I contemplating this, I wonder how much of an impact the perception of "speed' and "ease" of search engines and the pursuit "the right answer" affects this. Its interesting that our online patience appears to be shorter while our expectations, particularly in a search engine's ability to find what we want may be higher.

I am conscious of my own patterns of behaviour when searching for information of the distraction of following threads in pursuit of 'unique' information and the ahhh factor of those serendipitous finds. I am reminded of the value of planning searches and understanding your information needs.... I just need to remember this when it comes time for my next assignment.

Chung, J. and Neuman, D. (2007) High school students' information seeking and use for class projects. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(10), 1503-1517.

Herring, J. (2010) School students, question formulation and issues of transfer: a constructivist grounded analysis. Libri, 60(3) 218-229.

Kuiper, E., Volman, M. and Terwel, J. (2008) Students' use of Web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating Web information. Information Research, 13(3).

ETL 503 assignment 2 reflection

As the blog is a reflective process and tool, i thought i'd share an abridged version of PART C.

This exercise has proved a great focal tool for assessing and examining collecting practices and the way in which these can purposely or inadvertently affect the collection, its development and ability to adequately support teaching and learning in a specific school context.

My understanding of resource management and its facets has been widely extended and the interrelationship between the collection and a comprehensive policy that inherently links to the needs of the school was both developed and reinforced. Developing the purpose and goals of the collection forced me to consider the role, aims and priorities of the collection, and if, or how, these priorities aligned with the needs and expectations of the School and library users. This consolidated concepts raised in assessment 1 and Hughes-Hassell and Mancall (2005) and Bishop’s (2007, 2007a) approach and focusing on understanding the user and their needs.

The importance of gaining a thorough understanding the collection and its strengths and weaknesses was reinforced as essential to assessing what the collection priorities need to be. This is linked to an increased understanding of the relationship between evaluation, priorities for the collection and learning and teaching outcomes and the way in which knowledge of these are imperative to writing effective policy, without which the policy simply reflects the current status rather than providing a framework for the future.

Perhaps the most profound outcome of undertaking the assessment of the School collection and policy (or lack thereof) was the absolute necessity to weed the collection and the importance of having this as a key element of collection management (Baumbach and Miller, 2006) which again highlighted the need to evaluate the collection, an area of collection management that until completing this task I had neither adequately considered nor assigned the central role in collection management it deserves.

REFERENCES

Baumbach,D & Miller, L. (2006). Less is More: A Practical Guide to Weeding School Library Collections. Chicago: ALA Editions.

Bishop, K. (2007). Community analysis and needs assessment. In The collection program in schools : concepts, practices and information sources (4th ed.) (pp. 19-24). Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.

Bishop, K. (2007a). Evaluation of the collection. In The collection program in schools :

concepts, practices and information sources (4th ed.) (pp. 141-159). Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited.

Hughes-Hassell, S., & Mancall, J. (2005). Collection Management for Youth: Responding to the needs of Learners. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.