Sunday, October 28, 2012

Knowledge Building Centers

Campbell, Margaret

Bereiter, C. & Scadarmalia, M. (2010)."Can children really create knowledge?" Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 36(1), 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/585/289

Summary

The authors examine what it really means for school children to create public knowledge, what real ideas and authentic problems are as opposed to copied ideas and problems that only add to learning (instead of contributing to community). This discussion is not focused on the cognitive aspects of learning, but on solving problems that bring value to people, have enduring value, have applications beyond the situations that sparked the problem, and show elements of creativity or unique approach. The authors also distinguish between productive knowledge and the knowledge that just lets students know how to answer prefab problems; productive knowledge is a concept that can replace the idea of "mastery," which has little practical meaning in current times when the increases in knowledge are so rapid. The article demonstrates how children at all ages and intellectual levels can participate in practical knowledge building, which moves them from simply preparing for life after school to actually contributing to life from the first year of school.

Evaluation

The Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology and these two authors in particular have written a series of detailed articles about knowledge building and knowledge building centers. The references for this article are a treasure trove of information for this new way of designing learning environments. Also, in addition to the theoretical discussions, the paper includes many examples from student work in order to explain the differences between the knowledge types.
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PS I originally found this article during a search through last semester's archive for ET. However, the article referenced in the archive had incorrect spellings for the authors names and no journal date, so I did not include the reference as it was written in the archive. The title was intriguing, and that is why I tried to find the article. I was able to locate it after a search through the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, which also turned up many more terrific articles on this and other topics. I highly recommend the journal.
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Below is the text of the review from the archive:


Posted by Elizabeth Goode - 
I wanted to include this article because I found that a lot of articles discussing Knowledge Building Centers referred back to works by Berieter and Scadamalia, but also because the article discusses what knowledge building is truthfully trying to attain, which is the creation of new knowledge and not the attainment of already established knowledge that students solely have to build on in a stepping stone fashion without any new insights. I also wanted to include it, because at the end of the article the authors include a number or different teaching methods or theories that are similar to knowledge building centers. I thought it made a nice introduction to these other theories and opened it up for more research. 

Friday, October 26, 2012

"Race to Nowhere"

Campbell, Margaret


Abeles, V. & Congdon, J. [Film]. "Race to Nowhere" http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film

Below is my review, and below this is a review from Nicole Chiodo 5-17-11. 

“Race to Nowhere” is ranked as top documentary film about education and a call for change in America’s schools. The 85-minute film features stories of students who are over-scheduled, over-tested and pressured to achieve at all costs. The film shows an educational system which creates situations that encourage cheating, where students are not engaged, stressed, depressed, and tired of classrooms. The learning environments portrayed in the film do not prepare students for college or the workplace.
“Race to Nowhere” has inspired a movement for change including: national speakers to bring the conversation to communities, online petitions, a discussion board, advocacy tools, Facebook and Twitter conversations, a National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing, and a tool kit for activists. http://www.racetonowhere.com/take-action

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Nicole Chiodo' review from 5-17-11 

I personally have not had an opportunity (yet) to view a screening of this film, but I wanted to share it in the hope that others will have an opportunity to see a screening. Interestingly, I heard about this film from my dentist who saw a screening of it at her son's high school. She raved about how enlightening it was and how interesting to see the current state of our public schools and the students therein. There haven't been any screenings near me in the last few months, but it touches on a lot of the subjects under discussion in this class. After hearing my dentist's glowing review and reading the website, I look forward to seeing it at some point, and I hope some of you will enjoy it as well!


Three Re-Design Approaches for Project-Based Learning


Campbell, Margaret

Kanter, D. E. (2010). Doing the project and learning the content: Designing project-based science curricula for meaningful understanding. Science Education, 94(3), 525-551.

Summary

Students do not often gain meaningful understanding when they are assigned projects to design or make something. The author reports on instructional solutions to this problem. 

Evidence from some studies points to project-based science (PBS) as the most effective way to teach standards-based science. However, the goal of science instruction, beyond standards accountability, is that students be able to positively transfer learned, science-based concepts in order to solve novel problems. The author presents a series of systematic experiment approaches that can be applied to any science instruction. The system of analysis used by the author to discover possible techniques to improve meaningful learning from PBS is very similar to the "understanding by design," backwards design, or reverse engineering concept.

Evaluation

Although the author does quite a bit of qualifying the encouraging research results in the discussion portion of the paper, many of the techniques can be incorporated into a science project curriculum and bring enough improvement to make experimenting with these techniques, worth the effort.

The first redesign, creating a demand (within the student) for unfamiliar content, addresses the problem of a student not understanding why they have to know certain content in order to do a project, before they do the project. The old way asks a student to trust that the instructor is steering them in the right direction. The recommended redesign uses three approaches (unpacking the task, highlighting the incongruity, and trying to apply) in order to stimulate student understanding of why they might need to know something. 

The second redesign, applying all the content, addresses the problem of a student realizing that the content they are required to study may be relevant to the project, but not necessary for the project to be successfully completed. The old way simply required the student to learn the target content, whether or not the content was essential for the project. The recommended redesign refocuses the project requirements from asking students to discover the solution to a problem through experimentation to asking students to reinvent a process. Reinvention seemed to apply more of the science content than other methods, and this surprised the author.

The third redesign, applying all the content in time, addresses the problem of overly heavy cognitive load when too much time elapses between content learning and content integration and application. The old way was to learn content and then participate in a project over time that led to a "capstone" event. The recommended redesign is to divide projects into pieces that successively build upon the knowledge and experience gained in each previous "piece."



Developing standards-based curricula and assessments

Espinoza, Maria 

Clarke, N. A., Stow, S., Ruebling, C., & Kayona, F. (2006). Developing standards-based curricula and assessments. Clearing House, 79(6), 258-261.

Summary: The article talks about a new model for curriculum development, which is called “Process Leads to Products.” It goes step by step as to how the teachers will go through this model and it also gives some advices like having defined goals, the types of assessments the teachers can use as well as having the instructional leaders (which are the ones that supervise the implementation of curriculum and assessments) to be involve in the development of the curriculum so they understand it and make sure it is being followed.

Evaluation: In my opinion, the article is very descriptive and gives most of the information needed (there is always something left out even if the authors tried their best). I also found it useful because I didn’t know how curriculum was planned or how the goals and objectives were selected so it gave me a better idea of how it’s done.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Free PDF - Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses...

Campbell, Margaret

Fink, L. D. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. [Report, Instructional Development Program, University of Oklahoma]. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://www.cccu.org/~/media/filefolder/A%2520Self-Directed%2520Guide%2520to%2520Designing%2520Courses%2520for%2520Significant%2520Learning.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3PnQ6Us81DArcG3tozUAMgtMKN3A&oi=scholarr

Summary

This is a 34-page report, published by the author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences in College Classrooms. (2003). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. This author's book and report were cited in one of the articles that I read on flipped classroom design as being instrumental in causing a desire to improve classroom design. The report is an outline of steps to take in order to design an effective class or course and includes backward design (understanding by design) and a strong focus on instructor reflection as part of the design process.

Evaluation

The step-by-step approach is helpful for getting "right to the point" of improving instruction. Because it was written in 2003, there are some aspects of the plans that do not take advantage of all the Web 2.0 collaborative possibilities that we enjoy in 2012. However, the basics for doing an analysis of one's practice and one's learning experience design are presented in both text and easy-to-follow charts. I found the report's style of asking questions in order to get the instructor thinking about topics particularly effective. Also, some of the charts are simple and are available elsewhere...but some of the charts, especially the charts for organizing structured sequences and flipped classroom activities, helped to make some of the complex processes of learning activity design much more practical.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Tiscornia, Chole'

Brown, A., & Meyers, M. (2008). Bringing in the Boys: Using the Theory of Multiple Intelligences to Plan Programs that Appeal to Boys. Children & Libraries, 6(1), 4-9.


If you are a fan of the concept of multiple intelligences, yet have difficulty implementing the intelligences into library programming, then this article will help you. Youth librarians, Amy Brown &  Molly Meyers provide many program ideas to tie activities to reading that reach all learning intelligences. Building on Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Brown & Meyers offer a myriad of programming that not only encourages reading, but encourages reading in young boys. A helpful reference list for further exploration of the programs and multiple intelligence theory is included as well as this link: http://multipleintelligences.pbworks.com/w/page/21917987/FrontPage  to their personal Wiki. It includes multiple intelligence programming details and directions as well as other resources.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Flipped Classroom and Team-Based Learning

Campbell, Margaret


Demetry, C. (2010). Work in progress - An innovation merging "classroom flip" and team-based learning. 2010 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), T1E-1 - T1E-2. doi: 10.1109/FIE.2010.5673617 

Summary

This brief, two-page report describes two versions of a flipped classroom used in an introductory engineering classroom (~125 students). The engineering curriculum is typically heavy on content that, in the past, has not allowed for the use of classroom time for higher-order problem solving. This report describes two ways that the instructor transferred the foundation learning to outside-of-class activities by using pre-recorded multimedia lectures. In addition, the instructor includes reflections on the process of evaluating and improving upon instructional methods.

Evaluation

An extremely valuable part of this article is the reference section. In the article text, the instructor mentions that the inspiration for improving the instructional design and trying the flipped classroom came from the book, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses by L. Dee Fink. I include a summary and evaluation of a PDF from this book on another post.

The value of this article is the very clear and succinct description of exactly how the instructor redesigned the instruction, the table showing the goals and strategies, and the outline of the methods used to measure the effectiveness of the changes. 



Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Coteaching in High School Classrooms

Baugess, Sasha

Sheehy, K. (2012, September 26). High school notes: Two high school teachers may be better than one. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/09/26/two-high-school-teachers-may-be-better-than-one

Summary: Sheehy discusses the methods and benefits of collaboration within a high school classroom. In most cases, the team consists of a special education teacher and an instructor specializing in specific general education areas such as math or science. Within the classroom, students are grouped with others of similar learning paces, allowing the coaches to address each group at its own pace. This allows for students with learning disabilities to take the same classes as their peers, as well as for students who may have had difficulty understanding the main lesson and accelerated students all to excel within the same classroom. Moreover, having two teachers in the classroom eases the strain on both teachers and helps prevent burnout. Sheehy points out that some teachers have experienced difficulties giving up sole control of their classrooms, but that most overcome those difficulties when they see the benefits to be had.

Evaluation: Sheehy makes excellent arguments for the implementation of coteaching in high school classrooms. It makes perfect sense that students at all levels would perform better with more individualized attention. Additionally, it seems to me that students working more closely with their instructors--and in smaller groups--would feel more comfortable in their learning environment and therefore retain even more information. It's also nice that Sheehy addresses some of the problems associated with coteaching. However, the biggest question that comes to mind for me is how, in a time when most school districts are struggling to fill their schools with the bare minimum of teachers, can we implement this idea financially?

Teachers' perceptions on teacher and school librarian collaboration

Costa, Annie


Summary: Montiel-Overall and Jones’ study “Teacher and School Librarian Collaboration: A preliminary report of teachers’ perceptions about frequency and importance to student learning” indicates that teacher and school librarian collaboration is essential to teaching and student learning. 194 teachers participated in the study. “Teachers are more engaged with school librarians in the types of collaborative activities which are generally considered traditional practices than those considered high-level collaboration” (2005, p. 68).  School librarians help teachers by locating library resources and resources for lessons. But teachers do not perceive that “they frequently engage in collaborative endeavors, which school librarians consider to be integral to school librarians’ responsibilities” (2005, p. 68).   

Evaluation: I’m surprised with the findings.  It is interesting that teachers do not have the strong perception of teacher and school librarian partnership.  There should be more studies to investigate teacher perceptions as to why they do not frequently collaborate with school librarians that are essential to teaching and student learning. 



Montiel-Overall , P. & Jones, P. (2011, March). Teacher and School Librarian Collaboration: A Preliminary Report of Teachers' Perceptions about Frequency and Importance to Student Learning. Canadian Journal of Information & Library Sciences, 35(1), 49-76. Retrieved from http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=71930607&site=ehost-live

Integration of Students with learning difficulties

Espinoza, Maria


Dube, F., Bessette, L., & Dorval, C. (2011). Differentiation and explicit teaching: Integration of students with learning difficulties. US-China Education Review B, 2, 167-184. doi: 1548-6613

Summary: Using flexible grouping and explicit teaching, the school divided all six years into three cycles and then into subgroups before implementing the program.  All three cycles showed a reduction of errors in activity 1 and 2 but on activity 3 it went up (however, it was still lower than the errors they got in activity 1.  After seeing the results, it seems that using these two approaches can benefit students with difficulties.

Evaluation: I found this article very informative because it not only looks into differentiation but also explains flexible grouping (which makes subgroups to compliment the students’ needs) and explicit teaching (which helps the student know more about their difficulties and get self-confidence through modeling, guided practice and independent practice).  It also very descriptive about how these approaches were used and allows the reader to duplicate their study

Literacy Through Collaboration


Ringwood, Jessica

Bishop, K. & Larimer, N. (1999). Collaboration: Literacy through collaboration. Teacher
Librarian: 27(1), 15-20.

Summary: This article provided multiple collaboration ideas appropriate for all levels of school-aged children.   The methods, activities and goals of most projects are explained briefly.  All the projects had the shared goal of increasing student information literacy, and all projects explained outlined the steps that teachers and librarians took to collaborate.
 
Evaluation: This article serves as a strong reminder that a librarian at the high school level must extend themselves and reach out to high school teachers if the goal is collaboration because many teachers at the high school level struggle to make time for collaboration (there is no time for collaboration structured into their day), or they do not know what the library has to offer.  The librarian may be surprised by the amount of time collaboration takes, but in cases shared in the article, collaboration resulted in faculty that were more willing to collaborate and use the library in the future.  

Toward a Theory of Collaboration for Teachers and Librarians

McMullen, Shaun

Montiel-Overall, P. (2005). Toward a theory of collaboration for teachers and librarians. Retrieved from

Here the author defines collaboration between teachers and librarians and distinguishes it from other co-operative activities. A very interesting article that posits that co-operation between teachers and librarians has to be deeper in order for it to be truly collaboration.

Collaboration between Special Education Teachers and Teacher-Librarians


Justice, Ashley

Canter, L., Voytecki, K., Zambone, A., & Jones, J. (2011). School librarians: The forgotten partners. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(3), 14-20.

Summary: Collaboration between special education teachers and teacher librarians is encouraged because of the similarities between the standards each group is responsible for teaching in a school year. Special educators’ responsibilities can be organized into three groups: managing educational environments, teaching and learning, and program administration. For each of the standards within these three broad categories, teacher librarians are responsible for a similar standard, but because of a lack of collaboration, these two groups are generally not aware of this overlap. To begin this relationship, special educators should work to create a foundation for mutual respect and understanding. Then, a focused purpose for collaboration should be decided upon, with a written plan to follow. Collaborative activities of mutual responsibility should then take place. The final step of a successfully collaborative relationship between a special education teacher and a teacher librarian is to record, document, and celebrate the collaboration.

Evaluation/OpinionThis action plan is beneficial for all teachers, not just special education teachers. I also think the teacher librarian could be the professional to initiate the relationship.

It’s hard to break old habits and work with someone who does things differently than you, but the current educational trend definitely stresses collaboration based on the benefits related to student success. My school is currently trying to develop collaborative relationships between content classes, and this article will be helpful in evaluating where we may have fallen short this year.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration - Higher Education

Campbell, Margaret

Mazella, D., Heidel, L., & Ke, I. (2011). Integrating reading, information literacy, and literary studies instruction in a three-way collaboration. Learning Assistance Review (TLAR). 16(2) 41-53.

Below is my review of the article, and below my review is Telia Sherwood's review from Spring, 2012.

This article describes a successful three-way collaboration among professors from three separate disciplines to solve the problem of students not being able to master the skills needed to create an annotated bibliography. It is interesting that this successful collaboration resulted from solving a specific problem with a specific set of students. This was not a fuzzy, "let's get together to collaborate and make the class better" situation. In addition, the instructors became aware of the shortcomings of their own instruction, instead of thinking there was something wrong with the learners.

Because of this self-reflection, the instructors came to a "double-loop learning" process that can show specialists where they may have limitations in their own isolated approaches. In the article, the authors describe a typical vertical flow of information within a university discipline that compartmentalizes knowledge and inhibits the flow of ideas and insights from outside. This vertical structuring of "idea flow" inhibits a cross-discipline, and potentially extremely fruitful, horizontal "idea flow."

Once again, as in other readings on collaboration, space or the environment is mentioned as a support or barrier. In universities, the physical separation of one discipline from another, creates chasms across which it is difficult for in-real-world professors to cross. One would think that with the presence of virtual worlds and virtual campuses, these chasms would disappear. But collaboration within virtual spaces is not yet common in higher education. The authors identify a problem with in-virtual-world experiences: an academic bias against out-of-classroom, out-of-university "informal" learning which is associated with anything that happens within a virtual space.

The article includes a detailed explanation of the techniques used to teach the annotated bibliography skill and attributes the success of the class to collaboration. "We believe that this teaching model helped to achieve results that could not have been accomplished using the traditional, one-shot presentation" (p. 52).

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Telia Sherwood's Review (Spring, 2012) 
This article explores how three professionals came together to help college students through the in depth process of an annotated bibliography. An English teacher, a librarian and a learning strategies counselor came together to create a series of presentations to help the students. This article is unique because it uses a three way collaboration model in higher education. Many of the disciplines do not collaborate with each other, and when they do, rarely more than two individuals are involved. What I found interesting was the element of team teaching in this scenario. All three teachers had something to bring to the table, so the meshed their skills to give the best education to the students.
 -- Telia Sherwood, Spring, 2012

Collaboration Traps and Benefits

Campbell, Margaret

Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How leaders avoid the traps, create unity, and reap big results. [Internet-delivered summary: Summaries.Com]. Harvard Business Press: Boston. Retrieved from http://www.summaries.com/Platinum/Collaboration.pdf

Sometimes it is beneficial to step outside the realms of education and librarianship and take a peak into research being done in economics and business. Hansen's impressive biography as a Stanford graduate, a former professor at Harvard Business School, a current professor of management in the School of Information at UC Berkeley, and his ten years of specifically studying collaboration, influenced me to take a close look at his research and ideas.

In the summary, Hansen suggests that it may not always be profitable to collaborate, and in true economic fashion, he supplies an equation for determining collaboration profitability. Although much of the information and detailed instructions for creating collaborative processes may be stringent for some, it is a clear guideline that may be helpful, especially in situations where collaboration is not clearly understood.


There are many diagrams and flow chart explanations that may appeal to administrators or school system "time-keepers" that can be repurposed to make a solid business case for collaboration, when simple requests and pleas for collaborative time do not work.

The barriers to collaboration, the strategies, and the tools presented are extremely well-outlined, making this summary more like an essential collaboration "how-to" than like a research-based article.

Hansen concludes that disciplined collaboration is essential, and that the primary barriers to the practice of collaboration are personal shortcomings that must be overcome.

Collaboration and Comparative Advantage

Campbell, Margaret

Ridley, M. (2010). When ideas have sex. Proceedings of TED Global 2010. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLHh9E5ilZ4

Summary

After reading about the unwillingness of some teachers to spend time with librarians in order to design lessons that incorporate 21st Century learning standards, I realized that the problem is very similar to the different groups of chimpanzees described in Ridley's TED Talk. The problem with groups of chimpanzees keeping out of each other's way is that they cannot reap the collective benefits of comparative advantage. It seems that, in many areas, even modern humans have not yet come to realize the evolutionary leap that comparative advantage provides.

Evaluation

Ridley describes it like this: 
1) Exchange (of talents, expertise) creates a momentum that creates more development of talents and expertise, that in turn, creates a momentum for more exchange...if there is the investment in and valuation for exchange to begin with.
2) When we work for each other, we are able to draw upon the benefits of specialization.
3) Through sharing specializations, we have, as a society, created the ability to do things that we do not even understand... to go beyond individual capabilities.
4) Individual intelligence has little relevance...what is relevant is how well individuals collaborate... we are at a point where our contribution is as "nodes in the network" of a collective brain.

Case Study: Teacher/Librarian Collaboration (3rd-5th Grades)

Campbell, Margaret

Montiel-Overall, P. (2010). Further understanding of collaboration: A case study of how it works with teachers and librarians. School Libraries Worldwide, 16(2), 31-54.

Below is my review of the article, and below my review, is Katherine Halpern"s review from 4/24/11.

This article has significant ramifications for librarians seeking to collaborate with teacher/educators in a school system. Although the study was conducted in the 2007-2008 academic year, and more educators and school administrators may now be familiar with collaborative processes and the idea of including librarians in curricula design, it is a warning that schools may not be enthusiastic about spending time on collaborations that involve the school librarian. Librarians are generally perceived to be outside the teacher-principal relationship.

The stated goal of this study to was to "gain insight into collaboration among teachers/educators and librarians and to examine teachers'/educators' understanding of teacher and librarian collaboration…" (p. 35). 

Several factors affected the successful and less successful attempts at collaboration. Relationship building and becoming comfortable with others in the group was essential for sharing ideas. Cultural differences required long deliberations to work out. Preconceptions about "roles" of teachers and "roles" of librarians interfered with the progression of meetings and projects. Administrative concerns involving time, scope, and interference with keeping to dictated local, state, and federal standards, limited teachers' willingness to collaborate on new ideas with librarians. Unfamiliarity with the idea of collaboration, collaborative tools, and collaborative processes resulted in time having to be spend educating participants about the basic idea and its benefits.

Collaboration is perceived as having a payoff of more ideas, but, in practice, is extremely difficult, with a large cost in time and "pain."

However, one interesting finding is that the space for collaboration is important—the environment is important for collaborative success. This ties in with some of the other readings I have found related to collaboration, including the Steve Johnson TED Talk "Where Good Ideas Come From"  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html that was noted by Jennifer Gulassa on 10/31/10 and the Matt Ridley TED Talk "When Ideas Have Sex" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLHh9E5ilZ4 (see my blog post on Matt Ridley's TED Talk).

This study shows that during the 2007-2008 academic year, the role of librarians as collaborators was not well understood by teachers and that teachers do not value adding skills taught by librarians (citing sources, understanding a research process) into the curriculum. The article also mentions a study by the MetLife Foundation (2010) on collaboration in schools that reports interest by teachers about collaboration with each other and with principals. However, the 131-page report does not mention librarians at all.

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Katherine Halpern's Review (4-24-11) 
Montiel-Overall begins by explaining that even though school librarians recognize that collaborating with teachers is one of the central tenets of their job description, teachers do not yet seem to recognize this new role for school librarians. Teachers also do not have much experience with the type of 21st-century collaboration that teacher librarians want to engage in. Montiel-Overall conducted a study about teacher-librarian collaboration and its effect on science informational literacy among Latino 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. A team of experts planned workshops for their teachers and librarians that were “designed to improve instruction through teacher and librarian collaboration” (p. 34).

The model the experts used was the TLC model which discusses collaboration on all levels from low (coordinating schedules) to high (integrating library instruction into the teaching of the subject material). At the start of the study, the teachers generally did not understand what the role of the school librarian was or what collaboration between a teacher and librarian could look like.

Three key factors for success were: coming up with a common goal; building relationships with the other collaborators; and overcoming differences in working styles. For instance, the librarians in the study were very comfortable working in a group situation with no clear leader, whereas the teachers generally preferred to work with a clear plan and designated leader. Using the TLC Model for Collaboration, the researchers studied the level of collaboration attained by the teachers and librarians. Though it was much easier for them to attain low-level collaboration (such as scheduling or sharing responsibilties), eventually the groups (with much difficulty) did succeed in created an integrated lesson.

A major takeaway from the study was that teachers generally do not understand what librarians do and do not understand many of the terms (like integrated instruction or information literacy) used by librarians. The researchers suggest that librarians must take it upon themselves to educate their peers and build the relationships necessary to engage in true collaboration. -- Katherine Halpern, 4/24/11

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Communication "TImes are a changing"

Frederick, Lauren

Education "The times are a changing". Retrieved October 2, 2012.  http://youtu.be/wuyrP_HhWEg

This is just an interesting photo heavy video that looks at the progression of student communication and classroom settings from the past to the future.


Reading Workshops with a Teacher-Librarian

Frederick, Lauren

Beard, T. M., & Antrim, P. (2010). Reading Workshops are Most Effective with a Teacher-Librarian. Teacher Librarian, 37(5), 24-29.

-->The article discusses the benefits of reading workshops and the role of the teacher-librarian. With the help of a teacher-librarian, one teacher created a reading program and tracked her below grade level fifth-grade readers. She found that when consulting with the teacher-librarian to select the books that interested them, their scores and success increased.  Benefits of continued contact between students reading below their grade level and teacher-librarians are discussed, and the importance of the teacher-librarian/teacher collaboration is emphasized.  

Reading workshops are important to help promote a love of reading as well as the skills needed for future success. I think that this is a good article to help demonstrate that and how a teacher-librarian can collaborate successfully with a teacher.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Why Collaboration?

Guerrero, Hilda

Emerging trends in education: collaborative tools and education. retrieved October 2012.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuBfb7nxkQo

This seven minute video gives an overview of collaboration and its benefits in the 21st century.

Lesson Study

 Guerrero, Hilda

Bilyeu, L. (2009). Teachers and librarians collaborate in lesson study. Knowledge Quest ,38 (2), 14-19.

Lesson Study is a method common in Japanese schools that has been adopted by teachers and librarians who would like to improve their teaching skills as well as student achievement. During this lesson study, a group of teachers are " released" for the day in order to attend a sort of workshop where they meet with other teachers and librarians. The teachers then come up with up with  a lesson plan and teach it in the classroom. Other teachers and librarians observe and take objective notes on the teaching method as well as student reactions and participation. The teachers then receive feedback from colleagues and are able to reteach with improvements. This method really encourages collaboration between librarians and teachers and it has shown positive results. It does require a budget because substitute teachers must be brought in due to the fact that teachers use a portion of the day creating a lesson plan.  What do you all think?                                      

                                      

Teaching and Learning with Online Wikis

Mackey, Allison


Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with
wikis. Beyond the Comfort Zone. Paper presented at The 21st ASCILITE Conference, Perth,
5-8 December, Perth, Australia, 5-8 December (pp. 95-104). Retrieved from http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30005482/zhou-teachingandlearning-2004.pdf

Summary: This article outlines the collaborative use of online wikis, websites which can be edited by everyone. Examples of successful wiki projects are given to demonstrate the functionality of this kind of collaborative tool. The articles hows how wikis are especially useful in online learning environments, because they can help overcome barriers created by distance and the lack of face-to-face interaction.

Evaluation: The article is a very good description of wikis, and even people who have used wikis may benefit from reading it, because it does outline some uses of wikis that may be new. One example of this is using wikis as an icebreaker tool.  The authors describe another use of a wiki that I hadn't heard of-- in place of an online discussion forum, which is often lacking in student activity. This paper shows how wikis can bring together people in places all over the world to create a single, collaborative space for writing and piecing together a document. Even hundreds of people can be involved in one project--amazing!