I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on my practice-- how to improve it and the quality of the instruction children obtain. This has brought me to struggle with certain physical limitations. How do you implement a program that strays from what is expected? The school library ought to provide access to a wide variety of services 24/7. At the elementary level this should include times for students to have regular book check-out and opportunities and to participate in ongoing inquiry based collaborative projects. Currently, the school budgets are not large enough to provide sufficient staffing to offer their school communities the breadth and depth of services they deserve. This is one of the challenges. I would like to improve the quality of the school media center's online presence that will allow for an increase in services at times I am not physically available. The VLC assignment gave me a number of ideas that I would like to think about implementing. It would be nice to have children be able to have access to so many of the tools that have been introduced to us.
I see so many ways that I would like the library lessons to evolve, and need to continue to think of small ways to try to help improve the quality of service. For example, I have decided to send teachers a weekly online survey asking what topics they are teaching that I could help find materials for. This would allow me to provide resources to classroom teachers, while also being able to teach information literacy skills relating to the content they are already studying.
I have also begun to think more critically about the types of experiences that I want to create for my students. This needs to extend beyond providing them experiences that introduce them to a variety of content-- I want to provide experiences that will help them to understand that content. As time and space constraints limit the ability to introduce concepts, allow students time to practice them, and to assess those ideas, it becomes easy to pass over the assessment phase. However, I am coming to see how that aspect of it can happen more easily than before. New ideas are presenting themselves to me. At the end of this class, I find I am more critical of the instruction I am providing to students.
I would like to continue to provide teacher in-services, and to try to design those based on input from the teachers. After reading The School Library Media Manager, I began to reflect on how to incorporate the ideas I was learning. "One of the most important services the media specialist can offer staff and students is training sessions that will keep them aware of and capable of participating in educational innovations and, most especially, using the new technologies as they evolve" (Woolls, 2008, p.174). The possibilities for ongoing teacher instruction could lead to powerful changes in the way that student instruction takes place within the school. If we all guide each other through the acquisition of new tools, we will all be more equipped to lead our students to the same possibilities.
Ultimately, I feel that at the end of this semester, I have come to envision a new evolution in my teaching style. I would like to push myself to embrace the uncomfortable unknown-- with a well-crafted plan that is guided by explicit goals, objectives. I am learning how to be more comfortable with uncomfortable learning processes-- to appreciate the evolution of understanding that would take place through collaborative inquiry.
The greatest challenge I face is a lack of time. I run two different elementary school libraries, which combined serve over one thousand patrons. Both of these school deserve to be able to afford a full-time librarian. Were I able to keep the school library open the entire school week, additional services would be easier to provide. With California's education budgets continuing to shrink, I worry about the effect on library funding.
Woolls, B. (2008). The School Library Media Manager. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.
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