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/>
