"The strength of the team
is each individual member.
The strength of each member
is the team."
~ Phil Jackson, former coach of the Chicago Bulls
ReflectionThe knowledge and experience of other media specialists is priceless, yet I also have a responsibility to make valuable contributions to the profession as well. I will continue learning throughout my career, remaining committed to personal learning. This won’t be hard because I am passionate about solving educational problems and searching for successful ways to engage students and staff.
During our library administration and leadership course, I realized that media specialists must continually upgrade their skills and knowledge, especially as technology changes so quickly. The media specialist faces a wide range of challenges that I never recognized before, including obstacles related to accessibility, instruction, and collection development. I want to be able to contribute to professional discussions about these problems to improve my own media center as well as help others as they have helped me. Staying relevant and current requires an action plan so I can continue to upgrade skills, increase visibility, learn new strategies and solve common problems. As part of our class, I closely examined my professional development needs and outlined my goals and numerous print, digital and multimedia resources. I developed my three goals using school-based data and personal leadership survey results. To increase my experience as a teacher librarian and build collaboration skills, I set two goals to impact student achievement. My third goal used the results of my leadership survey based on the work of management experts Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors who were new to me. Their insight and recommendations were powerful, but I was most interested in what they call “encouraging the heart.” Using the suggestions made by Kouzes and Posner, I plan to better recognize and appreciate the hard work of staff and students who work with me. This will help me develop stronger relationships. While I certainly understand the importance of celebrating what my students do, I also need to honor the achievements of adults. Before reading Kouzes and Posner, I didn’t do this very much. Now I recognize its importance, especially if I want to be seen as a leader. My plan also contains journals, books, blogs and other sources of ideas and information. Monitoring all of these resources can be daunting, but just knowing they are available has helped me develop lessons and understand important issues. I also include several professional organizations to join, most of which I am already a member, such as the American Library Association, American Association of School Librarians, International Reading Association, along with state and local organizations. Despite belonging to many of these groups, I now realize that I should be asking myself, “How am I contributing to these groups?” I have participated in conferences and local professional development sessions, including technology training for media specialists to learn new digital tools. After this inservice, I knew it was my responsibility to share my learning with fellow teaches. I also continued to serves as a school-based representative at our state Common Core State Standard Educator Effectiveness Academies and participated in curriculum writing workshops. Thinking not only as a teacher but also a future media specialist, I could examine how media centers and their resources can support these shifts in instruction and curriculum. The world of the media specialist constantly changes as curriculum, content, tools and methods evolve. The challenge to stay current can’t be tackled in isolation, but requires each of us to contribute and share the responsibility. By being committed to my own growth and learning, I can be a valuable team member of not only fellow media specialists but of our school community as well. |
4.2 Professional developmentCandidates plan for ongoing professional growth.
ARTIFACT |