Graphic Inquiry and Differentiation

Lauren Besich

ET- Differentiation

Johnson, L. & Lamb, A. (2012). Graphic inquiry: dyniamic differentiation and digital age learning.  Teacher Librarain, 39(4), 61-67. Retrieved from http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=8cd67d4c-5f33-4525-91db-9287de63151b

This article discusses how teacher librarians can incorporate different types of graphics to help differentiate instruction when working with teachers to meet the needs of all students.  Graphic inquiry gives students a chance to further explore information and content standards through the use of various visual technologies.  Authors Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson outlined six types of graphic teacher librarians can use for differentiation: data sets, illustrations, infographics, maps, organizers, and photos.  Multiple Web resources are provided in the articles for each graphic type. 

Data sets, or collections of facts, help students understand data, and give them an opportunity to visually report their work.   Graphs, charts, surveys, and inventories are data set examples discussed in the article. 

Illustrations support students’ visualizations of concepts taught in class.  Through analyzing others’ illustrations or creating their own, student thinking is challenged.  The authors suggest various sources where teacher librarians can find illustration for students to use, and Web tools that allow them to create their own illustrations and comics. 

Infographics are visual forms of information, and are becoming pretty trendy.  They can be used to jump start learning through evaluation of the information, or they can be used as a synthesis of new information they have learned.  If using infographics in the classroom is a new concept for teacher librarians, they can read the article series about teaching with infographics presented by The Learning Network at the New York Times.  Articles cover using infographics in the Social Studies, English, and Science and Health content areas.

Maps help students identify information about a geographical area.  They can analyze a specific location, make predictions based on the information in the map, or create their own maps.

Organizers help students visually organize information as an alternative to writing activities, or as a guide for writing.  Different graphic organizers include timelines, Venn Diagrams, comparison charts, and many others.  The authors suggest organizers reduces plagiarism by requiring the students to share what they visualize, not what they copied and pasted. 

Photos can be used to document a process and opposed to writing about a process.  Much like illustrations, students can analyze photos, and also how the use of photo editing tools affects the message of a photo. 

This article is a rich resource for teacher librarians and teachers who want to incorporate graphic inquiry into their curriculum.  The ideas and examples they outline provide a good starting point to those new to graphic inquiry. 

Open Source Learning

Anna Taylor

CA

Troutner, Joanne, (2011). Open source learning. Teacher Librarian, 38(4), 48-50. Retrieved http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=642c1289-bd2b-4778-946a-e2233627efca

What is “open curriculum”? Troutner’s article explains that this innovative way of teaching is basically “a curriculum based on open educational resources”. With this teaching structure, both the student and teacher roles change. Students are now more in charge of their learning. Just as in this class, (LIBR 250), students are encouraged to find information that they want to learn. This forces students to be more involved with their learning while also creating more responsibility for them. The role of the teacher changes because they are now a “gatherer” of information rather than a giver. Just as students become more informed on their subject, so much the teacher. Both teacher and student are learning together with the teacher as a guider. 

If you are interested in learning more about open source learning, Troutner gives some great open educational resources to explore with your students. Most of these sites are free while others are very affordable:

• Khan Academy- Over 1,800 free videos on math, science, social studies, etc. 
• WatchKnow.org- Over 22,000 free and educational panel approved video clips in over 3,000 categories
• Open Culture- Find textbooks, ebooks, films, online courses, audio books, and language classes.
• MIT OpenCourseWare- Free online course for college students are explored through notes, exams, videos and even complete courses.
• iTunesU- Find recordings and videos of college course and  K-12 lessons from all over the world.
• JFK Library- Find audio speeches, digital images, speech texts, etc for social studies. 
• Wikispaces- Search for other classroom’s open source curriculum for ideas of your own.
• Take 2 Videos- For $75, students are able to create their own documentary with the help of National Geographic 

All in all, I believe open source learning is a great idea. While it may not be for all students or teachers, it is a process that should be encouraged for all classrooms. Those who may be skeptical could take one unit and test it out to see the outcome. The article also suggests to discuss your learning progress among other staff members at lunch and faculty meetings. With multiple classrooms using this way of teaching, the entire school can becomes involved with one another’s learning. 

Virtual Collaboration

Chambers, Julia

Jones, S. A., & Green, L. S., (2012). Transforming collaboration. Teacher Librarian, 40(2), 26-31. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=84415738&site=ehost-live

The central idea of this article is that teacher librarians should broaden their collaboration with teachers to include designing, developing, and executing online learning units that stand alone as information literacy units or are integrated with curriculum that is accessed by students online. This type of collaboration is especially suited for flipped classrooms, in which students are getting instruction at home, online, followed by teacher-guided experiential learning in the classroom.

The advantages to virtual information/media literacy instruction are that the lessons can be delivered when the students need it most; students will no longer be limited to the librarian’s schedule for face-to-face instruction. The authors also point out that that developing learning units such as these serve as evidence of the librarian’s expertise and role in students’ learning.

Four models of online instruction are introduced:

1. Split-Time Unit (in which a  curricular unit is taught both in the classroom and at home online with information literacy skills incorporated within)
2. Skills-Based Unit (developed to teach students how to use a specific technology)
3. Independent Unit (executed entirely online, focusing on information literacy skills independent of classroom assignments)
4. Professional Development Unit (meant for teachers)
5. Student Produced Tutorials (the idea being that students-teaching-students increases the learning of everyone involved)

The article ends with a list of potential collaboration tools, including Diigo, google sites, Learaist, Mentor Mob, PBWorks, Pearltrees, Screenshare, Scribd, Thinglink, Twiddla, Voicetheread, Voki.

In general, this article brings up an emerging solution to an age-old problem of the librarian not being able to be with students at the exact time they need assistance. The technology has offered a solution that school librarians should include in their outreach efforts for the reasons mentioned above. 

CO-Collaboration Strategies

The Flipping Librarian

Chambers, Julia

Valenza, J. K., (2012). The flipping librarian. Teacher Librarian, 40(2), 22-25. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=llf&AN=84415736&site=ehost-live

This article looks at the growing trend of flipped classrooms (in which teachers have students receive instruction on their own time through instructional videos, audio clips, slideshares, etc. and then devote classroom time to experiential learning activities that they facilitate). The author makes an argument that librarians have an untapped role in helping teachers experiment with and execute this form of learning in the following ways:

• Introduce the idea to teachers and help interested teachers experiment with the format
• Evaluate and locate existing open source educational content that teachers can use for the instructional component, including TED-ed, Google Apps Ed, OER (open educational resources), Curriki, Khan Academy, SolveforX, MIT Open Courseware, iTunes University)
• Support teachers in the development & publication of their own instructional content (videotaping their lectures, introducing screencasting tools, slideshares, interactive posters)
• Assist students in creating their own content to be shared with the classroom as instructional videos.

The article referenced a YouTube video that explains the concept of The Flipped Classroom:

The Flipped Classroom by Aaron Sams

This article raises some interesting ideas about how librarians can work within changing teaching practices, not only in collaborating with teachers in the online curriculum design/development, but also in a classroom that is now devoted to student-lead inquiry. Librarians can and should be available to assist in these classrooms to work with students directly on their research processes as needed.

ET-Inquiry and Problem-based Learning
ET-Flipped Classroom

Building Skills in the Interactive Schoolhouse

Vaile Fujikawa
IL
ET
CO
Thibodeaux, B. (2013, March 14). Building Skills in the Interactive Schoolhouse. Education Week. Retrieved from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2013/03/14/index.html?intc=EW-TC13-EWH

Summary: Very inspiring video about a new take on learning at a school in Texas. Lots of hands on, see how things work, do it yourself type learning in environments that differ from traditional learning spaces. Instead of a teacher telling a child how something works the student gets to look it up or build a model of it herself.
Evaluation: What a great place to go to school. I wish these kinds of opportunities were available for all kids everywhere. It seems like it's kind of the trifecta of learning: you get to hear it, you get to do it, and you get to see it.

The Object Formerly Known as the Textbook

Vaile Fujikawa
IL
Young, J.R. (2013, January 27). The object formally know as the textbook. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-Call-Them-Textbooks/136835/
Summary: What is the future of textbooks? Some publishers are creating an entire course worth of content with video, text and homework included in e-versions of their textbooks. How do these ebooks (or personalized learning experiences as some would call them) play into the future of education, especially MOOCs? Will MOOCs become the new textbook? How do these changes effect the publishing industry?

Evaluation: Reading this article really helped me see the value in these kind of interactive textbooks. The stuff that Young reports on in the article is a lot like what we have been doing in 250 and SLIS as a whole. I have a lot of questions about where we go from here and how these kinds of programs can be developed to help students who don't learn as well on their own. The move toward all "E" everything is slightly disconcerting to me, because I feel very strongly about the value of presenting materials in several ways to students. I just don't think that an ebook, even with a bunch of interactive software is going to appeal to all students. I guess that on some level it doesn't matter how far we've come, some students are still going have to learn in ways that are uncomfortable for them. 

How to Make Your Classroom a Thinking Space

Jessica Jones

ET

Boss, S. (2013, March 26). How to make your classroom a thinking space. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/thinking-through-project-based-learning-suzie-boss?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pos&utm_campaign=blog-thinkingspaces

Summary: Starting with an exert from Thinking Through Project-Based Learning: Guiding Deeper Inquiry, a new book by Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss, Boss asks readers to imagine a creative work environment. After readers come up with their image of a creative environment, Boss discuss how schools are a work environment for both teachers and student, therefore it should be a creative environment for problem-based learning. Boss then discusses how to make your classroom more creative, providing examples from schools around the country. A total of eleven suggestions are made, most of them a small adjustment that could easily be made in most classrooms.

Evaluation: After having read this article, I see how easy it is to incorporate creativity into the classroom space. Not working in a school presently, I am also trying to see how we can incorporate some of these ideas into the public library. While many suggestions, such as “Independent Work” and “Conversational Classroom” are strictly for classrooms, libraries can incorporate color, a video booth (for programming or Summer Reading Program), and new furniture. With suggestions easy enough and inexpensive enough for all teachers to incorporate, Boss is helping make it easier for students to do problem-based learning.