Frustrated With One-Shot Library Instruction?

Maricar Laudato

ET

Buchanan, Heidi E., & McDonough, Beth A. (2014). The one-shot library instruction survival guide. Chicago: American Library Association.

Summary:
In the introductory pages of this fairly short book, Buchanan and McDonough explain that they were pressed to write this book because of the great, and largely unmet need, for discussion on how librarians could improve "one-shot" library instruction sessions. This slim, 7-chapter book is only 124 pages, and it covers topics such as collaborating with teachers, classroom strategies to engage students' attention, how to make instruction student-centered rather than teacher-centered, and the importance of assessment.

Evaluation:
I think that this book is an excellent source for anyone working in school libraries. While I was thinking over what to classify this resource under (ET, CA, CO, or IL), it could have been all four! However, I deliberately chose ET because I feel that this book is a realistic response to the great amount of theory we have to absorb in our classes. Don't get me wrong, theory is great and is the reason for why school libraries are able to transform into innovative spheres of learning. However, this book was a reminder that "one-shot" library instruction is often the norm for most school librarians and we only get about 45-minutes to teach a class of 30 or so students. Also, we do not determine what the students learn, it is the teacher that provides librarians what they want the librarians to teach. It is a rare thing indeed for a teacher to want to collaborate with a librarian when it comes to planning lessons. Librarians are oftentimes not included in the curriculum planning process, thus making us less effective when we do teach such skills in a "one-shot" lesson. This book provides sample scripts on how to approach teachers so that librarians can gain insight into the lesson-planning process. It also gives tips on how to change traditional demo-like teacher-centered lesson plans into more collaborative student-centered learning experiences. Overall, I think that this "survival guide" does a good job of living up to its name.

Good article on differentiation

Morgan, H. (2014). Maximizing student success with differentiated learning. Clearing House, 87(1), 34-38. doi:10.1080/00098655.2013.832130

Morgan examines the benefits of differentiation in the modern classroom. She starts with a hypothetical situation in which an unruly student and a frustrated teacher find a way to work together to differentiate the content of the class and make everybody happy.

Despite the saccharine nature of the theoretical situation, this article makes a strong case for differentiation, but makes the point that this is hard to achieve, given the amount of students for each teacher, so this may be a good niche for librarians to fill.

Short and good article

Rycik, J. A. (2015). 21^st cenury skills in secondary schools. American Secondary Education, 43(2), 2-3.

Rycik identifies and spells out a brief summation of the skills needed in the 21^st century. He lists a set of earning areas and then summarizes what is being done in research in these areas.

This article is short and sweet—and very informative. Published in 2015, it is right on the leading edge of pedagogical theory.

Working with teachers

Kimmel, S. C. (2011). “Consider with whom you are working”: Discourse models of school librarianship in collaboration. School Library Media Research, 143 

In this article, Kimmel examines the language (her term is “discourse”) used in meetings between teachers and librarians belies teachers opinions about the identity of said librarians. Kimmel asserts that the identity as “gatekeepers, specialists and helpers” are difficult to escape.

Kimmel’s close analysis of her data is an excellent and her insights are fascinating. The methodology she employs is quite clever and, unlike the other article of hers I ousted, this is really straightforward. It is on the dens side, but worth the read.

Patterns in Chaos? One author believes so.

Kimmel, S. C. (2012). Collaboration as school reform: Are there patterns in the chaos of

planning with teachers?. School Library Research, 151-15.

Summary: Kimmel collected a year’s worth of notes on collaborative planning sessions and broke them down statement by statement to find patterns in the seemingly chaotic discussion. She then categorized these into five categories: making connections, orienting, coordinating, making sense, drifting. Then she broke down into percentages the amount of time spent on each category.  

Review: At first it was hard for me to make sense of this article, but when I did, it was very enlightening. I was impressed by the nature of what had to be painstaking research. The conclusion she draws is that librarians help the collaborative meetings because they contribute more to the productive ends of the meeting. Also that the meetings do a have a pattern amid the chaos.

Disney 'Connected Learning' Aims To Infuse Games with Learning

Posted by Darren Ng

ET

Corcoran, B. (2013). Disney 'Connected Learning' aims to infuse games with learning. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2013-02-06-disney-connected-learning-aims-to-infuse-games-with-learning


Summary:
Disney has been developing games with learning in mind. A marriage of entertainment and education. Game designers and educators are collaborating to produce games that can hopefully be both "fun" and support "learning".


Evaluation:
Unfortunately there is not any research provided in this article as to whether or not the efforts of Disney to "infuse games with learning" has been successful. As of the writing of this article it is still too soon to know if their efforts have had the impact that they intend. There are too few games at the moment designed with these teaching goals in mind, and the games that do exist have not incorporated all of the concepts that the game designers and educators hope to teach. This is a great idea and one that has gained a lot of STEAM.

Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Is Racial Bias Harmless? Derek Wing Sue

Faulk, M
Info 250                                                                                                                                              

Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Is Racial Bias Harmless? Derek Wing Sue
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201010/racial-microaggressions-in-everyday-life (Links to an external site.)

Summary:Space does not allow me to elaborate the harmful impact of racial microaggressions, but I summarize what the research literature reveals. Although they may appear like insignificant slights, or banal and trivial in nature, studies reveal that racial microaggressions have powerful detrimental consequences to people of color. They have been found to: (a) assail the mental health of recipients, (b) create a hostile and invalidating work or campus climate, (c) perpetuate stereotype threat, (d) create physical health problems, (e) saturate the broader society with cues that signal devaluation of social group identities, (f) lower work productivity and problem solving abilities, and (g) be partially responsible for creating inequities in education, employment and health care.

Evaluation: An eye-opening article about the "little" things (slights) that may happen each day in the classroom, possibly, to any student. The perspective is from an Asian American's viewpoint who speaks to what he sees going on around him and incidents that draw attention to this very real problem.