Teacher-Librarians as Professional Educators: Supporting Teacher's ICT Development
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“To be a librarian is not to be neutral, or passive, or waiting for a question. It is to be a radical positive change agent within your community.” ― R. David Lankes
Just like the quote states, we as Teacher-Librarians need to be active in our roles. We need to seek out new information, collaborate, teach, share, inspire and continually develop our knowledge and skills. We need to be valued as an irreplaceable source. We need to advocate to our school community the valuable skills and roles that we can provide.
How can Teacher-Librarians support Teachers?
The first thing we as teacher-librarians need to do is develop a positive working relationship with teachers. We need teachers to feel comfortable working and collaborating with us and we need to feel comfortable working with them.
Next, we need to be able to collaborate with teachers. Collaborating on a unit or lesson is a great way to support teachers. Dambruoso states in her blog titled 10 things classroom teachers need to know about modern school librarians that librarians "love collaboration" and that "we can even build new lesson plans with teachers." Again, if you have a positive working relationship with teachers, you can approach them and suggest collaborating on a unit or lesson. Also, suggest ways to help with a project the class may be working on. Make yourself available to help teachers wherever you can. After all, the more the teacher-librarian is seen actively engaged in collaboration with teachers, the more other teachers in the school will want to have the same kind of support (Cooper & Bray, 49).
Ideas / Solutions / Suggestions for meeting the ICT development needs of teachers at my school:
- Offer brief workshops after school or during the lunch hour on new web tools that can be beneficial and enhance student work.
- With support from principal, during staff meetings introduce a new resource to teachers.
- Email teachers links to new resources. Offer to help with the new resource in their classroom.
- COLLABORATE using a new resource.
- Integrate a new web resource into a unit or lesson.
- Continually research and find new ideas and resources.
- Share ideas and resources.
- Create a PLN among teachers and students.
- Create a Library Blog with access to resources for teachers, students and parents.
- Use Symbaloo to bookmark valuable resources for teachers. Create a tile for different units, grades, or teachers.
References:
Cooper, O.P., & Bray, M. (2011). School Library Media Specialist-Teacher Collaboration: Characteristics, Challenges, Opportunities. TechTrends, 55(4), 45-55.Dambruoso, A. (2014, July 18). 10 things classroom teachers need to know about modern school librarians. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://libraryallegra.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/10-things-classroom-teachers-need-to-know-about-modern-school-librarians/
Teacher, Computer Ms. (2013, April 9). Using Symbaloo (a bookmarking service) in Education. [youtube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbp2CSS7cnk
Some good ideas here, coupled with a great discussion of why its important for TLs to be supportive of their staff and community. We essentially can become help-desk support for just-in-time learning for our colleagues and peers. When they see us role-modeling learning and professional development in our own realm, they can feel that it is possible for them to join in and stretch their own thinking and use of ICT. Good linking, tagging and embedding!
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of TLs as 'agents of change'. Your 10 ideas are succinct and inspiring! I'm starting to use Symbaloo more as well and can see the possibilities for collaboration and continuous curating. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI love Symbaloo too. Such a great way to share information. You can also create pages that support units that your staff use every year. Our primary teachers study frogs and butterflies every year so I have created a Symbaloo page for each of these, I go in to check all the links each year before they start their units to make sure they are all active and up to date. I also add to these pages as I find new and wonderful links.
ReplyDeleteI've seen lists of links on library websites before, but Symbaloo definitely makes it more visually appealing. Great points about advocacy, and making ourselves irreplaceable. I also agree that positive relationships with staff are important. I've worked in schools where some staff had little to no interaction with their librarian/library, and it's such a loss. I think maintaining a positive, open-minded attitude is probably key to building those relationships. I also like the idea of offering workshops or even just emailing out links, if time during staff meetings is hard to come by.
ReplyDeleteRosie
ReplyDeleteReally like the quote at the beginning of your blog. You are right! We need to be viewed as an "irreplaceable source." Of course, we need to prove to our staff that we are. Your list is a great way to start showing our staff how we can help lessen their load.