Guiding staff in locating and differentiating
content-literacy resources
ReflectionWhat is one of the most valuable commodities for an educator? Time. They need time to locate materials, implement new curriculum standards, grade papers, create engaging lessons and differentiate instruction. Time is that crushing boulder always hurtling down on us. Knowing this, I must consider all the many different ways I can save students and staff time. When staff and students realize that the librarian not only helps make their tasks easier, but also improves the quality of their products, I will have been successful at marketing my skills and resources as a media specialist.
During my internship, I conducted two professional development sessions with the feedback from the first one guiding the content of the second one. Teachers indicated that they wanted help locating differentiated reading material for their content area classes. After consulting with the media specialist, we determined that we would offer a training on using reading levels and the school databases to collect appropriate texts. I modeled and taught staff members how they could quickly search and sort content-area nonfiction texts using several variables, including reading level, text-to-speech functions and translation features. We examined the strengths and weaknesses of the most common databases and explored additional digital tools to help teachers locate texts and determine reading levels. Staff also had “hands-on time” to search and explore on their own while I circulated to assist. On their exit slip, participants evaluated the usefulness of the information and some teachers requested a follow-up meeting to explore these resources more deeply. While this inservice lasted only 40 minutes, it allowed me to promote the versatile digital resources in the media center. Many teachers have a basic understanding of the databases, but few have the time to practice tricks that will make their searching more efficient and effective. They also lack the time to browse and search with the media specialist right there to help. Although I set out to teach the staff how to locate and sort texts, I found that I learned a lot about the teachers, their curriculum and their individual needs. I had individual conversations with people I had never talked to before this session. I also found that I can’t immediately solve every problem. One teacher was looking for information about certain court cases, and we had difficulty finding articles written at a low enough level. I could take the article, paste it into a word document and revise it to meet the teacher’s needs. I was able to build connections that led to additional collaborations. For future inservices, however, teachers should be grouped by departments. This will allow them to support each other, and I can tailor my modeling on one content area at a time. I can highlight not just the databases, but multimedia, print and other resources. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Time is money.” As media specialists we must show how collaborating with staff and accessing resources is time well spent. By offering professional learning opportunities, the media specialist can help teachers realize this is a valuable investment, which may not only save time, but also increase student achievement. |
4.4 AdvocacyCandidates develop a plan to advocate for school library and information programs, resources and services.
ARTIFACTS |