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InquiryGuide 3: Instructional Media Specialist

 

Introduction

Over the past few decades, educators have been inundated with pressure waves of initiatives and hot topics. Rather than gliding along comfortably, teachers have been overwhelmed by models and mandates. What do they all mean? What's "hype" and what's really helpful in creating an effective teaching and learning environment? The key to a postive atmosphere for learning is focusing on the best of elements of each new idea, concept, or strategy and developing an eclectic approach to teaching and learning that assimilates a wide range of ideas.

Be a Trail Blazer

Like a Trail Blazer, your job is to explore and experience new worlds of understanding. In this section, you'll be examining topics related to life-long learning, inquiry, and literacy. Each reading will provide the tools you need to complete the Trail Blazer activities. Note that the specific textbook readings are listed within the webpages. I've also listed them on the course calendar for quick reference.

Read A Community of Learners: Learning Leader, Teacher, Facilitator, Curriculum Developer, Parent, Collaboration for Inquiry, Classroom Teacher-Media Specialist Collaborative Planning.
Read BOOK BOOK: 131-169, 322-327, 378-380, 461-469
Read Information Power: Chapter 3
Read CC: Chapter 5, 6, 9, 10, 11

Read Instructional Models: Theory to Practice: Anchored Instruction, Authenic Learning and Assessment, Cognitive Apprenticeship, Cooperative Learning, Differentiated Instruction, Evidence-based Programs and Practices, Habits of Mind, Literature Circles, Project and Problem-based Learning, Situated Learning, Sustained Silent Reading, and Understanding by Design.
Read BLUE BOOK: p. 118-129, 292-302, 318-321, 344-348, 425-430 , 496-501, 527-530.

Trail Blazer 6: Collaboration and the Profession (3 Points)
[Complete ONE of the following options]

6.1: Approaches to Collaboration - Personalities can have a tremendous impact on the ability of the media specialist and teacher to work together. The relationship between a teacher and media specialist is critical to a successful program of information inquiry. There are many different approaches to collaboration. Interview an experienced library media specialist or teacher about their experiences with teacher-media specialist collaborations. Describe the characteristics of an effective collaborative relationship. Talk about the roles of inquiry, literacies, and standards. Also describe the common barriers. Use detailed examples from your interview. Then, brainstorm factors that can impact effective collaboration. Citing the professional literature, discuss ideas for developing an effective collaborative atmosphere in a library media program.

6.2: Address the Naysayers - You're a new library media specialist in a school district containing eight professionals. From the first department meeting, you notice that two of the media specialists are whiners. They think the department spends too much time discussing curriculum issues and collaborative teaching ideas and not enough time with the "real" concerns of librarians: books and other resources. Do you side with them or try to convince them to see the importance of the media specialist's role in teaching and learning? Justify your decision and provide at least 3 of examples from the literature to support your argument.

6.3: Changing Roles - How has the instructional role of the media specialist changed over the past 55+ years? Read the articles The Changing Instructional Role of the High School Library Media Specialist: 1950–84 by Kathleen Craver (SLMQ, 14(4), 1986), Current Themes Regarding Library and Information Skills Instruction: Research Supporting and Research Lacking by Michael B. Eisenberg and Michael Brown (SLMQ, 20(2), 1992), Instructional Consultant Role of the School Library Media Specialist by Patricia W. Pickard (SLMQ, 21(3), 1993), and The Instructional Consultant Role of the Elementary-School Library Media Specialist and the Effects of Program Scheduling on Its Practice by Eleonor Putman (SLMQ, 25(1), 1996). These articles are now more than ten years old. Are they still relevant? Provide specific examples and support from recent professional literature that would update these articles. Connect your new ideas to specific topics in the earlier articles. Draw some conclusions about the roles in our field.

Read Assignment: Analysis, Audience Analysis, Bias, Concept Map, Evidence, Figurative Language, Idea Strategies, Information Search Strategies, Interview, Note-Taking, Nonfiction Reading, Oral History,Organizers, Plagiarism, Primary Sources, Questioning, Story, Student Products, Student-Talk, Synthesis, Technology, Textbook, and Time on Task.
Read BLUE BOOK: p. 275-291, 303-306, 328-333, 369-394, 401-410, 442-460, 470-475, 480-488, 502-509, 531-535, 539-573

Read Assessment: Checklist, Conferencing, Student Journals, Portfolios, Rubrics, and Professional Assessment.
Read BLUE BOOK: p. 476-482, 489-495, 516-522, 536-538
Read Information Power: Appendix E
Read CC: Chapter 8

Read Scaffolding for Learning: Teaching and Learning Essentials, Modeling Inquiry with Early Nonfiction,
Problem Identifiers, Student Conferences, Mentoring Roles, Guides to Facilitating Information Use, and Tactile, Text, and Visual Techniques.
Read BLUE BOOK: p. 523-526
Read Information Power: Chapter 4

Read Teaching and Learning Strategies: Planning for Inquiry, Creating Teaching and Learning Material, Lesson Plan, Collaborative Planning, Learning Environment Management, Adapting Existing Materials, Teaching and Learning Materials on the Web, and Tutorials and Resources for Teaching.

Read Inquiry for All: Science and Inquiry and Social Sciences, Humanities, and Inquiry

Trail Blazer 7: Bridging Theory and Practice (3 Points)
[Complete ONE of the following options]

7.1: Assignments: Choose one of the Key Words (such as Note-taking, Interview, Figurative Language) in the Assignments area to explore in-depth. Provide examples of how you would approach this topic or strategy. Brainstorm activity ideas. Create a worksheet, handout, or other materials that could be used to scaffold student learning. ATTACH IT to your assignment. It's okay to adapt one you find online, but cite your source. What makes this approach particularly effective?

7.2: Assessments: Read the strategies identified in Appendix E of Information Power. Also, review Chpt 5 of the Harada book. Select a type of assessment tool (i.e., checklist, conferencing, journaling, rubric, portfolio) and describe why it is a good choice for a particular learning style, subject area project, and instructional situation. Be specific. Describe an instructional situation and how you might apply the assessment tool. Create an assessment tool to go with this activity and ATTACH IT to your assignment. It's okay to adapt one you find online, but cite your source. What makes this assessment particularly effective in this instructional situation?

7.3: Habits of Mind - Read the questions suggested in NoodleTools - Habits of Mind. Explore the Racial Privacy example (unfortunately some of the links no longer work). Create and share your own example on a specific topic such as another social issue, environmental focus or other subject using the Habits of Mind format (i.e., evidence, point of view, connection, what if? and significance). How do the ideas of "habits of mind" relate to "information fluency"? Provide professional citations to support your view.

 

Project 3: Information Age Inquiry Journal

Our class will be developed an issue of the online electronic journal.

Go to Bowriding: Key Ideas in Teaching, Learning, and Libraries to see examples from previous semesters.

Project Task

Your mission is to explore ten popular educational methods and/or strategies. Next, examine the ten Learning and Teaching Principles of School Library Media Programs found in Information Power (1998, p. 58). Then, focus on the most important "big ideas" that you feel are critical for today's library media specialists. Finally, write an article for the online journal.

Your product is a short article (1500-3000 words) or webpage(s) (1500-3000 words) that makes sense of the wide range of concepts related to information inquiry, teaching, learning, and libraries within the context of an interesting example. Your article should focus on a collaborative project that demonstrates positive relationships with members of the learning community such as teachers.

You could also build a PowerPoint presentation (30-60 slides) or digital video(s) (3-6 minutes total). However all aspects must be self-explanatory and built into the project, so a written project is much easier to create. In PowerPoint the Speakernotes can be used to provide clarification.

Project Elements

Audience. Your audience is not only this class, but also the larger audience of educators and library/media specialists who might be readers. As such, AVOID direct references to this course and instead focus on your role as an educator and library media specialist.

Examples. Your project should incorporate meaningful examples, scenarios, or analogies to help your audience visualize your ideas. For example, you might write about a science project that involves learning about hummingbirds and investigating why fewer birds are coming to your school each year. You might incorporate a website example (i.e., Journey North), classroom/library activities, or teacher/librarian collaborative projects as examples.

Use the following four examples of how you might incorporate a scenario into your project: Kristi Rennebohm Franz's Primary Classroom, WISE: Web-based Integrated Science Environment, Geometry in the Real World, and Electric Soup. Consider the role the library media specialist might play in a collaborative scenario.

Be sure to connect your project to information inquiry as well as the "big ideas" like the article by Rhonda Harris Taylor and Lotsee Patterson titled Getting the "Indian" out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking.

Professional Literature. Your project should cite professional literature (i.e., books, journals, web resources, etc.) in areas such as education, library science, and information inquiry.

Ten Principles. Your project must address ALL ten Learning and Teaching Principles of School Library Media Programs from Information Power. Rather than stating the principles, your document should reflect the ideas and intent of the principles. You should provide evidence that you understand and can incorporate the ideas and concepts. For example, your article might discuss how audiobooks can be used to address the information needs of non-readers. This would reflect Principle 7 dealing with diverse learners. You must indicate where each principle is addressed and also provide a short statement detailing how your actions addressed the principle.

You might provide a footnote in an article or web page, a speakernote in a presentation, or a short supplemental document with a video. You could also put them at the end of the article. For example, you might write [P1] to represent Principle 1 at the end of the paragraph where this idea is reflected.

... While students were not required to workshop their drafts with peers, those students who did were able to improve their poems and presentation skills through the suggestions and support of their fellow classmates.2

2 Learning and Teaching Principles of School Library Media Programs #8 (AASL 69-70) - The media specialist created an atmosphere that promoted collaboration and sharing by providing time for peer review. By modeling and sharing tips for peer review, she fostered collaborative inquiry.

Ten Key Ideas. Your project must incorporate 10 Key Words. You get to choose which 10 Key Words you'd like to incorporate. Again, you SHOULD NOT make direct reference to these ideas (i.e., DO NOT say, "in Key Idea 1"). Instead they should be reflected in the ideas that you discuss. For example, your article might talk about how and why a rubric might be used to evaluate your student inquiry project example. This would reflect your understanding of the Key Idea 1: Assessment. You simply need to indicate where each principle is addressed.

You might provide a footnote in an article or web page, a speakernote in a presentation, or a short supplemental document with a video. For example, you might write [K1] to represent Key Idea 1 at the end of the paragraph where this idea is reflected.

... The use of multiple formats enabled students of various learning abilities and styles to learn about free-verse poetry and the poetry slam.4

4 Differentiated Instruction, (Key Word: Class Website) - By allowing students to use different formats including text, photographs, and video, the teacher and media specialist were able to meet the diverse needs of the class.

 

Project Format

Your final product can be a word processed document (i.e., Microsoft Word), web page, presentation (i.e., PowerPoint), or digital video (i.e., Quicktime, Real Media). However, it must be uploaded to the web. The "articles" will be housed in Google Pages or on your own webspace. They will be linked to the Bowriding page.

Article Option. Articles can be VERY boring to write and to read. Make it interesting. You might create a "top ten" list, use alliteration, or incorporate a poem. You might also include photos from an activity at your school. If you take photos in your classroom you should get parent permission or use over-the-shoulder shots so students remain anonymous.

Webpage Option. Webpages can bring ideas to life by providing links to expand ideas or useful examples. However keep in mind that you should do a lot of the writing yourself. The links should only supplement your discussion.

PowerPoint Option. Rather than a traditional article, you're free to develop a PowerPoint presentation or video. These must also include quality examples and scenarios. For example, Suzanne Preate from Syracuse University Library has developed an excellent presentation on plagiarism, but it would NOT fit the requirements of this activity because it doesn't including specific examples or scenarios. In addition, it does a great job on a single topic, but doesn't meet the "concept" requirement. If you need to provide additional explanation for a presentation, you can use the "speaker notes in PowerPoint.

Digital Video Option. You could also create a digital video. This would be fun! For example, you could developed it as a series of 3 one-minute PSA (public service announcements) for information inquiry. Again, you'd need to incorporate the basic requirements. However, the "citations" in a video do not need to be complete. They can simply be references to the literature. Check out examples at the Ad Council such as the Library of Congress campaign.

Article Review

In addition to posting your own article, you must also write an "article review" as a reply in Oncourse. Many journals are "peer reviewed." In other words, professional colleagues are asked to review articles before they are published. Like a "book review" this article review should critique a classmate's article using specific examples and providing detailed feedback and suggestions. In other words, if you were the editor of the "Bowriding" journal, what feedback would you provide for this article's author? Although "warm fuzzies" are important, it's also helpful to provide constructive criticism that will provide ideas, options, and solutions for the author.

Writing a review isn't easy. It's also difficult for some people to accept constructive criticism. However this is an important part of being evolving as a professional.

Explore a few examples of reviews: Review 1, Review 2, Review 3, Review 4, Review 5.

Project Submission

Sharing is an important part of learning. Your project will be shared with your classmates and the world.

Upload it to your web space (personal, university, or Google Pages). This project would be a great addition to an online professional portfolio. Or, you can attach it to the Message area of Oncourse. However, I prefer if you make it available on the web.

Then, post a message in your SCOUT Discussion Area in Oncourse indicating that your project is ready to grade. Be sure to provide the web address or document(s) of your project.

You will have 1 WEEK after the initial posting is due to provide your "article review" as a reply in Oncourse.

Evaluation

The following checklist will be used to evaluate your project. - 15 Possible Points

Content Aspects

Technical Aspects

Article Review

Conclusion

We've created an online journal called Bowriding: Key Ideas in Teaching, Learning, and Libraries! Take some time and explore the journal. Email a personal message to one of your classmates commenting on their project.

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