LLED 462 Learning Curation #2

Learning Curation # 2:

Module 3: Supporting Learners Through the Library: Cultivating Life-long Reading Habits
      The scenario in Module 3 of the dejected second-grader being told he had to read only certain books really struck a chord with me, as I have seen countless reluctant readers at the secondary level claim that they "don't like reading because it's boring." Having never taught elementary before last year, I often wondered what had happened between K-2, when most children are beyond excited to get their hands on books, and early secondary, when these same students would only come to the library twice a year to get a book for an assigned novel study for English (in essence, the grade 10 student in scenario 2.) What had suddenly changed for them to make reading "boring?" Now that I work at the elementary level, I can see how crucial those first years are in fostering a life-long love of reading and making sure that children are not inadvertently turned off of it. As an individual who has always loved reading and was lucky enough to have grown up in an encouraging, "reader's" household, I feel that I must constantly foster my skills in enticing those students who do not have this same passion for it. As pointed out in Reading in the Wild (2013), "When parents don’t model reading, teachers grade and control everything kids read, and communities and schools close or defund libraries, we communicate to children that reading isn't something that our culture values as a life activity." If students don't have practice in reading for pleasure, and aren't allowed to actually explore what interests them, then of course they will not find it enjoyable. In that sense, I am the type of librarian that is happy to see a child reading, no matter what the medium, especially in the youngest grades. Indeed, one of the standards of an emerging learning commons is that students are able to self-select from the collection and read for pleasure (CLA, 2014). I connected with many of Neil Gaiman's comments in his article, particularly that "fiction is the gateway drug to reading" (2013). However, I was reminded in the discussion module by one of my colleagues that for some children, non-fiction is their gateway drug to reading. 

      

      As discussed in my post for this Module, I have often noticed how interested children are in non-fiction as they are naturally so curious about the world around them. I can remember my 4 year old self wanting to learn everything I could about animals and dinosaurs. I enjoyed reading chapter books as well and escaping into a world of fiction, but there was something about discovering a new fact about something tangible in my real life (why my cat Tigger had whiskers, for example) that was so exciting, and also made me want to SHARE that information with others. (Perhaps if I had attended elementary school in 2015, I would have been given the opportunity to do just that in a digital way!)

        For this situation, I would certainly wish to talk to the parent and try to seek a solution that would make both the child and the parent happy. Perhaps the student could take out a fiction and a non-fiction book. However, I wouldn't want the child to think, "oh, I guess I have to put away my fun book and read my boring book now." I would definitely want to find some realistic fiction for the student with topics that interested him. I would also wish to explain to the parent that non-fiction reading is an important skill indeed, and that neither is better than the other. I found a great article that outlined the benefits of reading non-fiction, so sharing some literature like that with both the parent and the child's teacher would be a good way to advocate encouraging children to discover their own passions. For example, "informational text offers the potential for increased engagement by students. [By] adding these books to the menu of reading opportunities in a classroom is a simple means of addressing individual interests to foster active, engaged readers. This increases the amount of time spent reading, which ultimately contributes to comprehension" (Barnatt, 2010). The article also has some great videos showing how engaged students become when reading non-fiction, and also points out the importance of developing students' critical thinking skills in reading informational text; for example, if it's written down as history, does that mean that it is true or actually happened?

                                    

Video courtesy of:
Learn NC. (2015, March 10). The elements of informational text. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brrRYfKMmFY

I knew that I wanted to explore this prompt further because the situation speaks to why I became a teacher-librarian in the first place (fostering life-long learning and a love of reading); however, I wondered how I could connect it to my tentative essential question of "how can we ensure our students become 21st century learners?" After channeling my thoughts and investigating the topic of reader identity further, I realized that of course these two issues are connected. Because the world is changing at such a rapid rate, students must be self-motivated to learn the skills to mirror those changes if they are to be successful post-school. Being able to comprehend informational text and find the answers they need is a basic life skill that apparently many of our students lack (Barnatt, 2010).   Therefore, being able to read multiple types of text, as outlined in the above article, is definitely essential to being a 21st century learner.  In addition, and perhaps most pertinent to this prompt, is that students have to want to read to learn and have that sense of curiosity that comes so naturally to young children. Looking ahead to Module 4, I am interested to continue this thread of inquiry into 21st century learning by further investigating multi-modal literacy.


References:

Barnatt, Joan. (2010).  The Power of Non-Fiction: Using Informational Text to Support Literacy in Special Populations. LearnNC: K-12 Teaching and Learning from the UNC School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/every-learner/6554

Canadian Library Association. (2014). Leading learning: Standards of practice for school library learning commons in Canada. Ottawa: ON (p.17) (Book Excerpt).

Gaiman, N. (2013, October 15). Why our future depends on libraries, reading an daydreaming. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming?CMP=twt_gu

Kelley, S., & Miller, D. (2013) Reading in the wild: The book whisper’s keys to cultivating lifelong reading habits. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p.88-128.

Learn NC. (2015, March 10). The elements of informational text. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brrRYfKMmFY

Reading Review # 3

     When I last left this assignment, I was getting slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information and ideas for teaching students about digital citizenship and information literacy, as well as torn as to which of these topics I wished to explore further; for example, research skills versus online safety and ethics. I realized that although these are different facets of 21st century learning, they are certainly not mutually exclusive and can of course be taught alongside each other. For example, students need to be able to discern what is "real" as they attempt to research a topic, and that in turn spurs them to think critically about all of their activities on the web, whether it's for a research project for school or making an informed opinion about an issue before posting it on Facebook or Twitter for all to see.

     In that sense, I began to focus my research on teaching students what exactly digital citizenship is, as an introduction to the myriad of activities and exercises I found initially for my second blog post. Just as we teachers have to have a solid "why" for what we do, so too do students need a rationale for why they are learning something.

     For this particular focus, I started looking up different keywords and phrases, such "importance of digital citizenship" or "engaging students in digital citizenship." I love infographics and was looking for something simple that would be a good beginning to a discussion. Perhaps a good interactive assignment would be to get intermediate students to create their own infographic on what they believe is important in regards to digital citizenship and use them to teach the younger students.

    This article has some good suggestions on broaching the topic with the youngest students, such as starting by talking about respect and how the internet is a place to learn.  I loved the infographic, and was able to find it on another site through Pinterest (where I found even more great ideas for actual lessons.)

Photo Credit: 

http://thebookfairygoddess.blogspot.ca/2015/09/digital-citizenship-update.html

I also thought this one would appeal to intermediate students who might already have a device and use social media:

Photo Credit:

http://cohort21.com/blog/2014/02/04/guest-blogger-anthony-chuter-on-digital-citizenship/

      Overall, I found this inquiry to be very helpful, as I knew that I wanted to make teaching digital citizenship my focus for this year in the library but I wasn't quite sure where to start. I also found that many of the most practical resources appeared through more "informal" ways of searching, such as blogs, Twitter, Pinterest and simply networking with other TLs, rather than looking at academic articles through the UBC library.   Now that I have seen the multitude of ways that students can develop these skills, I feel more confident that I will be able to engage students and get them truly thinking about both their online presence and their ability to gather valid information.

LLED 462: Learning Curation #1

Learning Curation #1: The Essential Question

                One of the main reasons why I chose to become a teacher-librarian was my passion for helping students find what they need to succeed. Nothing would give me more satisfaction than showing a stressed-out student how to find that “golden nugget” that would help them in their research project, whether it was a website, a book or a presentation tool. As a result, teaching students to be media literate is one of the essential components of my library program and what I insist on including whenever a teacher wishes to use the library for a project.

                All teacher-librarians were given copies of the CLA document at last year’s September meeting to help guide their practice; I feel very fortunate to be part of a district that supports teacher-librarians and sees the value of transforming our libraries to be vibrant, relevant centers of learning. I am especially drawn to the section “Fostering Literacies to Empower Life-long Learners,” as the themes seem to speak directly to my goals as a teacher-librarian. I also highly agree with the standard of having the whole school community involved in the creation of the learning commons; after all, it is the ownership of the space by the entire school that makes a learning commons so vibrant and the “hub” of learning in the school.

                In my very first library position at Clayton Heights Secondary, we were successful applicants of a learning commons grant from the district, which was extremely exciting as a new teacher-librarian who was only recently introduced to the concept. The following year, the principal wanted to work together with all departments in creating inquiry questions that would ultimately become the school’s vision. After much thought, I decided on the following for the library’s inquiry question:

“How can we ensure our students are 21^st century learners?”

Since many of the staff (myself included) had never done a true inquiry as a school before, we were encouraged to start slow and try one possibility at a time. For my initial step, I proposed working with the Humanities 8 department in a pilot Information Literacy “program,” in which I would work with classes throughout the year in various activities that would teach students how to find information in a variety of formats, use the Internet safely, and be introduced to some online tools that they could use in future years. Humanities 8 was the only linear course in our school, and seemed like the perfect platform for getting students off to a good start in their high school years. All grade 8s are always given a library orientation in September, but I felt that this was simply not sufficient to get students adept at these skills. By repeatedly coming to the library and practicing these skills when doing various projects throughout the year (as opposed to in a vacuum at the beginning of September), students are more likely to have success. Although I was starting small, my ultimate goal was to have the whole school community involved “in the design of information literacy learning strategies in order to empower independent learners” (CLA, p. 17, 2014).

Unfortunately, I was not able to truly continue exploring this inquiry as I did not have enough seniority to keep my job there with a continuing contract. I am now an elementary teacher-librarian at two schools, with minimal collaboration time. Nonetheless, I believe that the younger our students are taught these skills the better, so I feel I am in a good position to continue exploring this question at my new schools. I already work with all K-4 students for prep coverage, so I feel this is a great opportunity to begin employing strategies with our youngest students. I hope to be able to use collaboration time to work with the Grade 5-7 classes, although it is being very optimistic that I will get a chance to see all of them! Bear Creek and Port Kells are not “officially” learning commons schools according to the district, but I am reminded of a statement in Hayes’ article, in that it is “great staff, not great stuff” that makes an effective learning commons. In that sense, part of this inquiry will entail creating a school community to help it become a success. Indeed, when deciding on which direction to take with this inquiry, I had another question in my mind in addition to the one stated above, which is “How do we create an elementary learning commons?” All of my experience in building a learning commons has been in the secondary environment so far, but I feel that teaching students 21^st century life skills and collaborating as a school will put us on the right track to creating a learning commons at the elementary level. Getting teachers to come to the library and try collaborating on a project will also be part of this journey, as many are simply unaware of what a teacher-librarian can do to help. As a result, implementing some advocacy strategies will inevitably be part of this curation as well. I am reminded of an advocacy tool I made for another course, so being that it is September, this may be a good place to start!

 https://prezi.com/dfxu2sarujet/lled-469-advocacy-tool/

                My goals for this inquiry are similar to my goals for my previous school, in that I would like to employ different strategies in order to teach all students how to be self-motivated, responsible for their own learning and able to find quality information. I find that many students who demonstrate apathy toward their schoolwork (one of the problems all teachers felt needed to be addressed at Clayton Heights) were often simply just overwhelmed at where and how to start. If we can teach them effective strategies that make research less daunting, then they will ultimately be more motivated and thus engaged. I am looking forward to the next curation prompts and streamlining my dual-track essential question, as well implementing some new strategies in my schools as the course progresses!

Reading Review # 2 Literature Research and Data Collection

For this assignment, I had chosen to investigate the "access vs. ability" issue and look for resources on teaching elementary-aged students information literacy, critical thinking and digital citizenship skills. 

I began by searching some of the main blogs that I follow on the topic, as I find these to be the most practical in terms of providing links to things I can use right away with my students. 

Edutopia- Suggestions for online tools to teach "new" social skills

Edutopia- Teaching research skills to third-graders

Both of these posts, by Mary Beth Hertz, have practical suggestions for ways to introduce both social skills and research skills online to younger students. Since one of my main questions is how to effectively reach elementary-age students and engage them on the topic, I look forward to reading more posts by this author on what strategies worked for her. 

Edutopia- The Path to Digital Citizenship

This post also outlines some ways to start the conversation on digital citizenship with your students, which is an important first step before actually teaching it; students need to know what it is and why it is important. 

Edutopia is one of my top Twitter accounts to follow, as there are thousands of blog posts and articles on relevant and interesting ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. 

I soon realized that I could spend hours looking at different ideas just on Edutopia, but that is certainly encouraging for further research! After seeing how much great stuff is simply just online, I decided to open up my Delicious account (which I had forgotten about!) and start keeping track of the links I was finding. A bit of an "ah-ha!" moment as that is exactly what I have told students to do in the past- keep track of your links!

Link to my Delicious Page

Another blog that has been useful in the past is Richard Byrne's Free Teach for Teachers. He has numerous posts on ways to use online tools in the classroom. This one had a comprehensive list of resources for varying grade levels on teaching about ethical online behaviour:

 12 Good Resources for Teaching Digital Citizenship. If you are searching for a similar topic, I would recommend this post!

Another resource that I hope to explore and possibly use this year is Passport to the Internet, an online tutorial for digital citizenship for grades 4-8. A colleague used it with all intermediate classes at her school and she said it was quite successful in getting kids thinking more about their online presence. 

Academic Journal Search:

I then spent some time searching for journal articles through UBC library, in order to get some literature on the "why" we teach digital citizenship and perhaps see some in-depth case studies.

• Young, D. (2014). A 21st-century model for teaching digital citizenship. Educational Horizons, 92(3), 9-12.

The author of this article teaches an entire course on digital citizenship and discusses the issue of students being digital natives but not necessarily skilled how to use these tools properly. She offers an outline of her course and some links to teaching ideas.  

Landreau, J. (2011). Research: Why wait till high school? introducing elementary students to research skills makes their learning more active and pays off by deepening and improving their abilities over time. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(6), 55.

This article illustrates the benefits of starting to teach the research process as early as possible so that students are used to it and don't "dread" it by the time they reach high school. An article like this could certainly be used to encourage teachers to collaborate with the TL on that front. 

After this initial research session, I am seeing that my keywords are very broad- I have information literacy and research skills, in addition to digital citizenship and online safety. While these are all certainly connected, there are different issues related to both. I'll continue my research and see which aspects I lean toward investigating more...

Reading Review #1 LIBE 477B

     Students today are consistently bombarded with information everywhere they look. As teachers and teacher-librarians, I feel that it is a crucial part of our job to help students gain the skills they need to effectively navigate their way through various types of media in order to find what they are looking for. As I have discussed in other courses in this diploma, one of the main reasons I decided to enter the field of teacher-librarianship was the joy I felt in helping students become efficient researchers so that they can ultimately be self-directed, lifelong learners. Since that is essentially my goal when teaching any class or individual student, I am planning to explore the topics of information literacy and digital citizenship for this Reading Review. I am also delving into these areas further in LLED 462 for a Learning Curation project, so some of my research findings may overlap.  

Some key words and phrases that I will plan on researching for the next instalment will likely include:

Media literacy/Digital literacy/Information Literacy

Ethical online behavior

Digital natives

Critical thinking

                I already had these areas in mind for this assignment, but a statement in Why School really reiterated my beliefs and goals as a teacher-librarian: “Access doesn’t automatically come with an ability to use the Web well” (Loc. 171). Just because our students are digital natives and know how to use an iPhone and a computer from very early ages does not necessarily mean that they are using them efficiently, safely or ethically. The older our students get, the more complicated (and possibly dangerous) the web can really be, which is why I am hoping to use my position at the elementary level to try out some strategies to improve younger students’ skills in this area. I have also included critical thinking for a key phrase as well, as this is one of the most basic aspects of teaching students how to use the Web (or any kind of resource) properly. As I research these topics, I am hoping to find case studies and real, authentic exercises to use in the library with my students this year in order to improve their literacy skills and have success in the classroom. I also have a number of professional and pedagogical queries to explore, as much of my experience in teaching media literacy has been at the secondary level. For example, when and how does one start teaching these skills? How does one engage a kindergarten student who is just beginning to explore the world around him or her? How can I get more teachers on board? I’m sure I will end up having more questions than answers as I begin my research but I am looking forward to delving in!

References:

Richardson, Will (2012). Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information are Everywhere. Kindle Version. Retrieved from Amazon.ca

Hello and welcome to my course blog for LIBE 477B and LLED 462 of the UBC Teacher Librarian Diploma program.

My name is Jen McLean and I am a teacher-librarian in the Surrey, BC school district. I am currently working at two elementary schools, but much of my prior experience was in secondary. My passions include teaching students how to be information literate in a rapidly changing 21st century education system, as well as collaborating with teachers in resource-based learning projects.

I look forward to learning more about educational technology (including blogging!) and working with everyone!