LIBE 467-Assignment #3:
Evaluation plan to improve reference services
When examining our reference services as a way to help develop information literacy skills, I found these areas as unsatisfactory:
A.Use of print and online reference resources:
After evaluating the present conditions at my school, I realized that the majority of students have little knowledge in terms of information literacy skills. They do not know how to effectively research, pull out key ideas from information, select a variety of resources, and understanding the differences between credible versus unreliable resources. The students themselves say they don’t know where to begin with research, they often feel overwhelmed. They don’t know print reference material could be used for research. For example, when I recently had my students work on a research project for an Ancient Civilizations unit, their first and often primary source of information was Google and Wikipedia. Not only that, they often “copy/pasted” the information into their work, didn’t understand how to find reliable sources, and often said they didn’t know how to organize their information as there was “too much of it”. As many students have access to the internet, it is difficult to get them away from sites such as Wikipedia. As Harris (2007) stated, “To be quite frank, continually bad-mouthing Wikipedia to the very people who use it—successfully—makes us look a bit daft. It would be much more productive to teach colleagues, students, and parents how to best use Wikipedia” I agree with this in that instead of complaining about the website, it would be beneficial to teach students how to use this website as a tool (as a starting point) and then find information that is reliable.
B. Minimal collaboration between teacher-librarian and classroom teachers
Through my experiences and in conversations with my colleagues, there is little to no communication with the TL in terms of developing information literacy skills and thus, there is no consistency or confidence in building these skills for our students among the classes. Although this is understandable in that she is new to the job and has had the great task of transforming the LLC from its outdated and minimally used condition (due to a revolving door of TLs year after after and lack of funding) to one that is appealing and used, it is an area that should be developed. As of right now, the library schedule consists of primarily class drop off sessions (to provide prep times for 30-40 minutes) and three 40-minute blocks of time where the TL has made herself available for collaboration and co-teaching. This collaborative time is being underutilized and the time classes have in the library are spent primarily searching for and checking out books with lessons that develop book appreciation (which is important too), whilst little is being done with regard to the development of information literacy and how to use reference materials to support this learning.
2. Rationale for change: How this is affecting student learning:
Even though students enjoy researching and know how to use the internet, they do not have a good grasp of the following research methods:
-using a variety of reference resources, both print and digital
-distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources of information
-knowing how to organize (and not become overwhelmed by) the plethora of information that comes up when “google” searching
-using a dictionary to know how to spell words correctly and look up definitions of words they do not know that come up when researching
-using atlases effectively to create and label maps for projects
-putting research into their own words.
Through the onset of technological advances, “Inquiring minds want to know the correct information quickly” (Reidling, 3). Our students though, need to develop the skills to effectively navigate such sources. We need to teach our students how to be information literate so that they can effectively determine what information best fits their needs at any point in time.
“...Schools are responsible for teaching children how to adapt to change and how to make decisions and solve problems based on accurate and authentic information. Critical thinking skills are essential to evaluate information and to apply information creatively and responsibly to solve problems” (Achieving Information Literacy, 2003). In order to do this, we need to work as a collective unit in supporting our students. Some other factors that need to be considered in developing the reference services at my school are:
-many teachers do not know about the databases available to them and the students
-many teachers are uncomfortable with the use of technology
-due to the overhaul of the LLC recently, many teachers and students do not know what print reference resources are available to them.
-there are so many expectations of teachers and new methods, some newer teachers may not know how to effectively teach research-based learning.
Creating and encouraging the time to collaborate with teachers to develop lessons that support the learning of information literacy skills is essential to student success. Through my discussions, teachers are becoming more interested in learning more about developing lessons to help students with this. Using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), many of the teachers at my school are under the ‘Informational’ and ‘Consequence’ “stages of concern.” In addition, the majority of teachers are in the ‘Refinement,’ ‘Integration,’ and ‘Renewal’ stages for the ‘Levels of Use”. These ‘Expressions of Concern’ and ‘Typical Behaviours’ demonstrate that the teachers at my school are willing to collaborate with the TL in order to enhance students’ information literacy skills.
Evaluation plan to improve reference services
1.Background and present conditions
The above statement from Reidling, led me to my guwqiding question in terms of evaluating my current school’s reference services “How are the reference services supporting students and staff to effectively search for information?” Researching/inquiry skills are a focus in our BC Curriculum. In my many years as an upper intermediate teacher, I have noticed again and again, when developing research skills, students are often turning to the method of “Googling it”. In talking to our teacher librarian, fellow colleagues and students, I discovered that this is the case in most classes. With more access to digital tools, students are:
-turning to Google and Wikipedia as their primary sources for
information
-not using the print reference materials that are available in our library learning commons
-do not utilize the available databases
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This led me to examine how the current library services at my school could be developed to help support researching skills for our students.
Our LLC and school currently has several reference materials available to staff and students, including:
-student-friendly encyclopedias (Discovery World Book; encyclopedias on specific topics, such as animals, sports, DK encyclopedias, etc.)
-many Guinness Book of World Records and other fact books
-almanacs (National Geographic for Kids)
-atlases, dictionaries, thesauri (in the LLC and in classrooms)
As for digital resources (both district and school-based), we offer the following databases:
A.Use of print and online reference resources:
After evaluating the present conditions at my school, I realized that the majority of students have little knowledge in terms of information literacy skills. They do not know how to effectively research, pull out key ideas from information, select a variety of resources, and understanding the differences between credible versus unreliable resources. The students themselves say they don’t know where to begin with research, they often feel overwhelmed. They don’t know print reference material could be used for research. For example, when I recently had my students work on a research project for an Ancient Civilizations unit, their first and often primary source of information was Google and Wikipedia. Not only that, they often “copy/pasted” the information into their work, didn’t understand how to find reliable sources, and often said they didn’t know how to organize their information as there was “too much of it”. As many students have access to the internet, it is difficult to get them away from sites such as Wikipedia. As Harris (2007) stated, “To be quite frank, continually bad-mouthing Wikipedia to the very people who use it—successfully—makes us look a bit daft. It would be much more productive to teach colleagues, students, and parents how to best use Wikipedia” I agree with this in that instead of complaining about the website, it would be beneficial to teach students how to use this website as a tool (as a starting point) and then find information that is reliable.
B. Minimal collaboration between teacher-librarian and classroom teachers
Through my experiences and in conversations with my colleagues, there is little to no communication with the TL in terms of developing information literacy skills and thus, there is no consistency or confidence in building these skills for our students among the classes. Although this is understandable in that she is new to the job and has had the great task of transforming the LLC from its outdated and minimally used condition (due to a revolving door of TLs year after after and lack of funding) to one that is appealing and used, it is an area that should be developed. As of right now, the library schedule consists of primarily class drop off sessions (to provide prep times for 30-40 minutes) and three 40-minute blocks of time where the TL has made herself available for collaboration and co-teaching. This collaborative time is being underutilized and the time classes have in the library are spent primarily searching for and checking out books with lessons that develop book appreciation (which is important too), whilst little is being done with regard to the development of information literacy and how to use reference materials to support this learning.
2. Rationale for change: How this is affecting student learning:
Even though students enjoy researching and know how to use the internet, they do not have a good grasp of the following research methods:
-using a variety of reference resources, both print and digital
-distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources of information
-knowing how to organize (and not become overwhelmed by) the plethora of information that comes up when “google” searching
-using a dictionary to know how to spell words correctly and look up definitions of words they do not know that come up when researching
-using atlases effectively to create and label maps for projects
-putting research into their own words.
 |
| Image courtesy of: studyinswedenblog.com |
Through the onset of technological advances, “Inquiring minds want to know the correct information quickly” (Reidling, 3). Our students though, need to develop the skills to effectively navigate such sources. We need to teach our students how to be information literate so that they can effectively determine what information best fits their needs at any point in time.
“...Schools are responsible for teaching children how to adapt to change and how to make decisions and solve problems based on accurate and authentic information. Critical thinking skills are essential to evaluate information and to apply information creatively and responsibly to solve problems” (Achieving Information Literacy, 2003). In order to do this, we need to work as a collective unit in supporting our students. Some other factors that need to be considered in developing the reference services at my school are:
-many teachers do not know about the databases available to them and the students
-many teachers are uncomfortable with the use of technology
-due to the overhaul of the LLC recently, many teachers and students do not know what print reference resources are available to them.
-there are so many expectations of teachers and new methods, some newer teachers may not know how to effectively teach research-based learning.
Creating and encouraging the time to collaborate with teachers to develop lessons that support the learning of information literacy skills is essential to student success. Through my discussions, teachers are becoming more interested in learning more about developing lessons to help students with this. Using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), many of the teachers at my school are under the ‘Informational’ and ‘Consequence’ “stages of concern.” In addition, the majority of teachers are in the ‘Refinement,’ ‘Integration,’ and ‘Renewal’ stages for the ‘Levels of Use”. These ‘Expressions of Concern’ and ‘Typical Behaviours’ demonstrate that the teachers at my school are willing to collaborate with the TL in order to enhance students’ information literacy skills.
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3. Plan for change
A. How the change will take place and who will be involved.
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In order for change to take place, more collaboration between staff and the TL will need to take place. This includes teaching staff, educational assistants, and principals. There needs to be a solid understanding of what skills students are lacking in order to become effective researchers. To start, this could be done by surveying the teachers about their observations of where student researching skills are at in the present moment. Students could also be asked where their confidence levels and knowledge are at with researching and use of a variety of reliable sources. In addition, the TL can use our schools’ PLC (Professional Learning Communities) time that happen bi-weekly, to start the conversation and share various resources and tools for reference research. This could then be expanded by encouraging co-teaching with staff to implement the use of these resources. The TL, in her schedule, has time set aside specifically for this. By frequently stating her desire and availability to collaborate and co-teach, teachers will more comfortably seek help from the TL when needed and utilize this time more effectively.
With students, the TL can start by giving a thorough library tour with a focus on where the print reference resources are in the space and different ways of using them at the beginning of the year. As we have a Chromebook lab adjacent to our LLC, the TL can do class demonstrations and exploration of the Destiny website which houses the databases our district subscribes to, as well as our library catalogue. Learning how to use the catalogue, students will become more independent in finding suitable print reference resources to begin answering their research questions and by using databases, they are learning the value of reliable and student-suitable online sources as ways to organize their research. Through our mobile Chromecarts, this can also be continued into the classroom by co-teaching with teachers and reiterating how the various print resources and digital sources (such as databases) can be used to support research projects. In the classroom or even in library time, this can be expanded to teach students (and teachers) how to pull out key information from sources and how to effectively develop dictionary and atlas skills to support research. Also during library lesson time, the TL can spend time doing lessons on C.R.A.P. detection to teach students how to determine whether websites are credible and reliable sources of information.
As students are inevitably drawn to digital resources, time spent teaching them how to use Wikipedia as a starting point effectively could be done during library lessons.
By supporting staff with examples of reference materials, demonstrations on how to use databases and how to navigate digital tools through meetings, PLC times, collaboration and co-teaching opportunities, not only do the teachers benefit from learning about these tools and techniques, the benefits will inevitably trickle down to the students in having competent support to develop their own information literacy/research skills.
B. A timeline for change
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There is a lot to learn, for both the TL, teachers and students, and progress will take some time. I would start the process at the end or beginning of every school year with the surveys to see where staff and students feel they are at. Then through communication and collaboration with administrators (by providing clear justification for the reasons why this time would be valuable and beneficial for staff and student learning alike), set out specific staff meeting and/or PLC times to “share out” and through one-on-one conversations, emails and notes to teachers, encourage collaboration and co-teaching. Some staff may still be hesitant to collaborate, but hopefully from word-of-mouth about successes from other teachers’ experiences with co-teaching, this may change their minds. The use of class library time, although short in time, needs to be strategically planned out so that students get mini-lessons to help with literacy based learning and learning about the reference resources available to them. I would give this about 1-2 years to comfortably implement.
4. Communication of change and follow up
Whatever is taught in the library times, will have to be communicated to staff so that they know what the students bring with them when researching during class time. The more library lessons and the more collaborating and co-teaching that occurs, the more progress in student confidence with researching will be seen. One would hope that they:
-are able to use a variety of reference resources, both print and digital
-turn to databases as one of their first choices for online searching
-are able to utilize the C.R.A.P. method to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources of information
-know how to use google searches as starting points to research
-are comfortable in using a dictionary to know how to spell words correctly and look up definitions of words they do not know that come up when researching
-utilize atlases effectively to create and label maps for projects
-are able to put research into their own words.
When future surveys/discussions are had with teachers and students, the improvements should become evident. In addition, through communication and sharing out, collaboration and co-teaching between the TL and classroom teachers should become a more regular occurrence. This can be celebrated by the TL and staff during sharing sessions in meetings and displays of student work. Parents could also be notified by email or newsletter, about the different online tools (databases) that their children have learned to support research/inquiry at home.
References:
Asselin, Marlene, Jennifer L. Branch, and Dianne Oberg. Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian School Library Association, 2003.
Building Student Success - BC's New Curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/.
Harris, C. (2007). Can we make peace with Wikipedia? School Library Journal, 53(6), 26.
Loucks-Horsley,S.(1996) The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM): A Model for Change in Individuals. Retrieved from http://www.nationalacademies.org/rise/backg4a.htm
Riedling,Ann. Reference Skills for the School Library Media Specialist: Tools and Tips (Third Edition). Santa Barbara, California. Linworth,2013.
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