Final Reflection

Final Reflection

            I came into this course completely green. I had made a somewhat rash decision to pursue this diploma and started the course three days late. While I had some idealistic notions about the possibilities for the Teacher-Librarian role, I didn’t understand its complexity and broad scope.  In terms of the organization of learning resources, I hadn’t though beyond Dewey and the online catalogue. I learned a lot in three months.  

Information Literacy

Lesson three led to an epiphany the importance and complexity of teaching information literacy. While playing around with the various search engines, I realized how much subconscious evaluating of websites I do while I’m researching.  Applying criteria like relevance and credibility to decide whether a website warrants further exploration and ultimately to judge the value of its information is an essential aspect of information literacy. Librarians need to explicitly, systematically and contextually teach such skills and work to transform them into deeply ingrained habits of mind.  For example, they need to teach kids to unpack ‘credibility’ by assessing indicators of care, sources of ideas, authorship and sponsorship. Since this example is only one aspect of information literacy, it made clear to me the enormous task librarians and teachers face in teaching information literacy and how essential it is. The task of creating a comprehensive interdisciplinary information literacy program that will produce graduates with, “the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand,” will be one of my first priorities as a teacher-librarian (National Forum on Information Literacy).

The Technical Stuff

The lessons on cataloguing were my least favorite. I found myself getting lost in the examples and generally struggling. I kept plodding along and did most of the real learning while doing assignment 2. Writing my first catalogue entry and marc record for that assignment took forever but by the end of that assignment I improved significantly. My understanding of cataloguing has gone from ‘has absolutely no clue’ to ‘gets the big ideas and a few of the finer points.’ I now understand that anything can be catalogued and given a marc record. I can create accurate and usefully descriptive catalogue and marc records given the actual item and access to the Library of Congress Subject headings. I’m also far better at searching with my new found understanding of how what I’m looking for was catalogued in the first place.

Access

My beginning understanding of cataloguing is connected to what I’ve learned about access. Library patrons do not have access to things they cannot locate making effective cataloguing crucial. I had never really thought of the importance and complexity of access before this class. Now I realize that access is connected to everything we’ve learned in this course: information literacy, cataloguing, library layout and the availability of resources. If items have catalogue entries or marc records that are not sufficiently descriptive, a patron may never know the resource exists and will therefore be denied access. If the natural flow of traffic leads patrons away from the fiction section, its access is diminished.  If the librarian lacks funds or allocates them unwisely, access will be compromised. And if students lack access for whatever reason, they’re chances of becoming information literate decrease. The more I think about these elements the clearer their interconnectedness and the scope of the challenge becomes. Teacher-Librarians have an incredible opportunity to make a difference and hence the attendant burden of responsibility.

My Participation

I’m proud of my participation in this class with respect to the posts I contributed and the assignments I completed. It thought deeply about the tasks at hand and found ways to apply them to my reality as a classroom teacher and a future Teacher-Librarian. I stopped writing blog posts about half way through the course. I felt like I was repeating what I’d already written in the original post to the class. It felt like a perfunctory exercise and helped me confirm that although I benefit from written reflection (like my posts on the discussion page), I do much of my reflecting internally.  I also didn’t consistently participate online with others in the class. Initially, I read others’ comments dutifully and tried to respond but I just didn’t find it meaningful. I was responding for the sake of responding. I also found myself being one of the early posters and not going back later to check out others’ posts. At first I told myself that this was because my preferred way to learn is to explore on my own. While there is truth in this, I’m beginning to realize that there’s something more going on here that’s potentially problematic for me as a future TL. I see collaboration as central to the TL role. I work well with others when I see immediate relevance in the work but at times I’m not patient enough to engage in something that doesn’t fit my ‘agenda’ even though it may lead me to unexpected good places in the long run. My focus is too much on task-oriented efficiency. I want to make clear measurable progress. I want to get it done. Reading other’s responses, most of which were from elementary teachers seemed tangential and therefore inefficient. I need to adjust this outlook because as a TL I have to be able to work with all staff not just those who share a similar task-orientation to mine. I have to take the time to build relationships which may involve going nowhere for a while. It reminds me of the saying “Go slow to go fast.” It’s not my natural way, but it’s essential that I learn to embrace that notion, at least to an extent. This realization is the most important learning for me as it partially explains why I work so well with some, and have trouble with others. Of course, the big challenge will be actually changing my behaviourJ

Works Cited

"National Forum on Information Literacy." National Forum on Information Literacy. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. <http://infolit.org/>

Descriptive Cataloguing

I found this section challenging and tedious. So many details and terms. For the most part it makes sense to me now but I'm terrified by the idea of actually having to create a correct record on my own. Hopefully the MARC records lesson will help.

Cataloguing

Lesson 4 on cataloguing made grateful at how far education has come. I can imagine that 30 years ago a course like this would have had tests which would have required us to memorize terms like metadata, MARC records, collocation and so on. Aside from being pointless, I would have found that exceedingly difficult without some practical experience. It's hard for me to distinguish the concept of metadata from MARC records (apparently MARC records are technically a form of metadata but that's not the common usage) without hands on experience working with these concepts. I think I get the basic concept and I know where to find the information when I forget a term. Too bad more of this enlightened view of education has not trickled down into high school where we ask kids to recall reams of facts on tests.

What to read?

When I was researching the various search engines for lesson 3, I got a bit sidetracked and was struck by a number of search tools I’d never heard of before. I spend all this time on the web sometimes looking for things in frustration, when 15 minutes making sense of the search engine could increase my efficiency and effectiveness considerably.  I think it’s about me wanting instant gratification. My father in law reads the entire manual of any new purchase before use, while I just plug and experiment. While that is effective in many ways, I miss out on things because of it. 

I wonder if part of the issue here is about the sheer volume of information and new things to learn we face today. If I took my father in law's approach for everything new, all I'd be doing is reading manuals. I came a across a 300 page book that tells you how to use your IPOD touch (which I just purchased). I'm sure I could learn things from it but is it worth the time invested? This question is a critical one we need to consider as teachers of information literacy. Weeding through all the information and deciding which is worth our valuable time is an essential aspect of information literacy. In fact, I think this is one of the greatest struggles for our students. Which criteria should they use to decide whether to read website A vs website B for their research project? The two key ones that come to mind are relevance and credibility but even they need to be unpacked. The Critical Thinking Consortium resource Tools for Thought lists indicators of care, sources of ideas, authorship and sponsorship as the key criteria to consider when assessing credibility of a source. Criteria for relevance include importance to the topic and significance tot he research question (Tools for Thought can be found at http://www.tc2.ca/wp/t4t/ ). I think developing habits of making these kinds of decisions based on criteria when doing research is an essential part of the TL's job and some thing I look forward to. Developing a comprehensive (yet simple) set of information literacy competencies  and finding ways to systematically teach the in Grades 8-12 will be one of my first priorities when I become a TL.

Digital World

Since I'm not a librarian yet, I've done little to "provide ongoing support for digital media including Internet sites, school or library websites, online encyclopedias and reference materials, social networks such as "Facebook", blogs, etc." My Co-op class website at www.coop2011.weebly.com is a beginning step that attempts to link students to additional resources. For example, the government section has a link to CPAC (which 4 of my students reported back on excitedly - really!). There are also links to CBC podcasts, youtube videos and websites. I found that this improved student engagement and a significant number of students (maybe around 2/3 of the class) took advantage of some of these extensions. It was also a great opportunity for students to share their discoveries, a few of which I posted on the site. A major challenge in maintaining that site was to keep it up to date and not to overwhelm kids with too much stuff.

The leverage of doing this kind of thing on a grand scale as a librarian strikes me as enormous. Thinking about it is exciting and daunting and brings to mind the article about Learning Commons. Although I had a few 'yeah, buts' as I read it, I see the need for the revolution they describe and that revolution is full of promise. It's also completely in line with the Ministry's new Education Plan which makes me hopeful that some of the barriers could be overcome. I look forward to discussions about Learning Commons and their implications for library organization.

The question about print based biases got me thinking about how often I've required students doing research to use at least one print book, as if that was somehow a better source. I need to remind myself that the issue is about the quality of the source and the kids ability to evaluate that quality rather than the medium. Jody's comment about print vs. non-print sources does remind me that important information is not available digitally so perhaps my 'book' requirement isn't completely unreasonable. I guess it depends on the type of research.

Blogging for kids

There is this small group students I've taught in the last few years (maybe 7 or 8) who come by my room regularly to ask what they should read next. I'm even supplying reading materials for one of their mothers. Presently this exchange is limited to the 150 or so books I have in my classroom. This seems like a great potential use for a blog, particularly as a librarian. I think it will be challenging to keep it simple and not overwhelming. Also, I don't want to lose those personal moments with kids to chat about the books they just read. Lots to think about.

Organization

I love to be organized but it's a constant struggle for me and I expect this will be my greatest challenge as a teacher librarian. When everything has its place based on a predictable system and I've actually managed to follow that system I feel empowered and in control. The mental stress of disorganization creates an opposite overwhelmed feeling with which I struggle frequently as my messes pile up at home and at school. This makes me feel like an imposter in LIBE 465. Ever the optimist, for now I'll try to believe that this course is precisely what I need to take the next step toward organizational nirvana.