ETL 501 - resource provision

This week kicks off our exploration of information environments. We begin by revisiting teaching and learning - and of course the constructivist approach to learning which appears to be the current dominant educational pedagogy. Key to these conversations is the notion of what is information provision and what constitutes an information resource and the role/s of a T and or TL in its provision and how this relates to information literacy skills.

One of the tasks for this week included thinking about the key types of information a new and inexperienced geography teacher would need to teach a year 7 about rainforests and a source of information for this person. I confess I was so focused on the needs of the teacher and content information needs that I neglected the students needs, because of course one of the key bits of information the teacher would need would be about the students themselves. Given the constant reminders of the need for collaboration one would have to suggest that another more experienced geography teacher with a knowledge of the school would be an excellent source of information. I was reading a report recently that compared the differences in performances of countries on standardised testing (PISA). One interesting point was that in those countries/provinces who are improving (Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore) much more time was allocated to non face-to-face teaching and collaboration, (including in some places providing 2 or 3 mentors for new teachers) than in Australia - which, incidentally, has been dropping at a faster rate than these place are improving!

But back to resources, in another activity we were provided with objectives (based on Blooms taxonomy), questions (based on unit learning needs) and a had to add the relevant resources to the final column. In this I think it's useful to add in another column to identify the appropriate tasks for the question to make resource provision clearer - it also slightly changes the focus of the resource question. For example, (objective) Evaluation (question) Is it reasonable that people pollute our waterways? Defend your answer; By adding a column for an appropriate task/tool, one can focus resources needs. Eg, an appropriate task for this outcome may be a debate, then the question would be what types of resources would students need to effectively conduct a debate, rather than simply what resources will allow the students to answer the question effectively.

In considering resources in light of student learning outcomes, it did also occur to me that the usefulness of resources are sometimes determined by teacher effectiveness and the way in which the resource is utlised - even the best resource can be ineffective if inappropriately or unimaginatively used.

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.