Article Highlight: Questions for the 21st Century Learner

This article[1] asks TL’s to be facilitators to student learning by posing essential questions.  The author notes 4 benefits of essential questions.  They encourage multiple perspectives when structured as open questions and answers can change over time as the student understands more about the topic illustrating the fluid and evolving nature of knowledge.    Second essential questions connect learning with personal experiences, so students share their background knowledge and experiences through social networking.  Thirdly essential questions address overarching themes helping students see the interconnectivity of disciplines.  And finally essential questions foster lifelong learning by promoting inquiry learning.  The author links open questions with the way young people take advantage of social network tools.  I am not sure of this link since much of social networking is about being aware of what is going on with your “friends” but not reflecting or critical thinking about what it means to you or the choices other make.

I appreciated that the author provided examples of essential questions so I could understand what they were.  One example was the student's would create a digital catalogue of their collection and the essential questions would include: What is a collection? Why do you collect these items? How do you organize your collection?  How do you know when someone has a good collection? etc.  Some of these questions appear simple but if a student answers other questions about their project and returns to reflect on the initial questions they will develop a more thoughtful answers.  Student will link their own knowledge to other student learning through social networking and to other disciplines where collections are made.  The essential questions I think require a student to return and reflect on the initial quickly answered questions to develop the benefits of essential questions.  I think for many students the review and refinement of answers will have to be taught so the students learn the steps of review, reflection and revision, just like in all writing activities.

The idea of essential questions is not new, nor is using students background knowledge to scaffold new learning but this article is trying to encourage the social learning (Vygotsky Theory[2]) through the use of social networking (new technology) to improve student learning and help with the steps of review, reflect and hopefully lead to student driven revision. 

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[1] Brown, Karen.  2009.  Questions for the 21^st Century Learner.  Knowledge Quest, The issue is questions.  Vol 38 (1) p. 25-27

[2] Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2010, September). Social Development Theory (Vygotsky) at Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved September 21st, 2010 from http://www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html

Article highlight ..."transforming Web2.0 thinking into real-time behaviour"

Article review “Rethinking Collaboration: transforming Web2.0 thinking into real-time behaviour”

This article was an interesting discussion on how TL’s can bring the ideas of social networking into collaborative teaching.  It talked about how TL’s are short of time and are overwhelmed by large numbers of students, a complaint which has been echoed in many of our classes online comments.  The author suggests TL’s need to delete “much-loved but out-dated library activities” so they can use the time to collaborative teach students.  The author suggests decreasing time spent on collecting resources, reading to children and/or maintaining a library webpage.  Instead the TL could create an online book club that is run mostly by students, have a classroom teacher read to younger students in the library setting, and/or have students manage the library webpage with the TL as a managing editor.  This last suggestions sounds like “Wikipedia” or Web2.0 doesn’t it.  I like the author’s idea that we have to look at time spent and prioritize it to achieve a maximum effect on student learning, however the replacement suggestions will require TL’s time to train students and frequently review websites so it will not be all “found” time.  The article’s intent is challenging TL’s to allow their students to construct school library services, socially shifting the library to a “creating” culture. 

The second solution identified by the article is for the TL to focus on staff requests for collaborative teaching on learning outcomes identified as school priorities.  The TL would create a “learning commons” where students would work using an inquiry model to answer an curriculum goal.  The article is challenging TL’s to use WEB 2.0 resources of blogs, wikis and discussion areas to create a “learning commons”.  The process would be assessed to evaluate student learning in research and information literacy.  Students not in collaborative classes would have short drop-in sessions to provide limited TL support.  It is not new to do collaborative teaching with interested staff members, however appropriate use of social networking for student learning is the challenge.  I have definitely heard of local TL’s using webquests and blogs to promote learning, this article has encouraged me to learn more about how to use other social network sites to meet curriculum objectives.

Cooper-Simon, Sheila.  (2008) Rethinking Collaboration: Transforming Web 2.0 thinking into real-time behaviour.  Teacher Librarian, Oct 2008, 36 (1). p34-38.  Accessed Sept 18, 2010.

Reflection on helping students with the Reference Process

I do not think it is unreasonable to help students formulate questions and help them locate resources since the primary role of the TL is to work with students[1], managing the collection is secondary.

I think that empowering students by teaching them the steps for finding references appropriate to their grade level will eventually reduce the time you individually help each student.  The reading talks about life-long learning (pg 6 text) and in our information age this is more about knowing where to find the answer (pg 8 text) than knowing the answer to a question.  By teaching the reference process in a content areas[2], either collaboratively or by the classroom teacher, students would practice the reference skills they are learning. If there isn't an opportunity to teach in content areas games could be used.  At a secondary school in my district the TL has a game to orienting students to the library, which the grade 8 students enjoy.  One study[3] found undergraduate students will play games that are integral to course curriculum and help them learn about library research. 

I think making the reference process more transparent helps students, such as the steps in Research Quest[4].  In an elementary library in my school district they have a laminated list of the Dewey decimal system with the topics listed beside the number series, students take a card look for the topic they want (animals, weather, cars) and proceed to the number to find research materials.  Carole[5] also supports early information literacy.  I also found a school library website[6] that provides links for students to a variety of online reference sources like “Ask Jeeves” and “FactMonster”, I can see by pre-selecting authoritative online references you can quickly direct young students to appropriate sites. 

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[1] Leigh Ann Jones Blog Post retrieved Sept 15, 2010 from http://www.shelfconsumed.com/2010/09/what-i-wish-id-known.html

[2] Pamela Puska Libe467Sept 13 noted teaching literacy within content areas can save teachers time

[3] Markey, K., Swanson, F. Jenkins, A. Jennings, B.. St. Jean, B. Rosenberg, V. Yao, X. and Frost, R. (2009) Will undergraduate students play games to learn how to conduct library research?  The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35 (4) 303-313.

[4] Annette Casper Libe467 Sept 13 notes Research Quest clearly lays out research steps which would be good for younger students.

[5] Carole Fleetham Libe467 Sept 15 talks about starting information literacy in K.

[6] Van Buskirk Elementary Library, Tuscan, Arizona, USA, Retrieved Sept 15, 2010 from http://sites.google.com/site/vanbuskirklibrary/research-help 

Library Services

I made a few interesting connections with the first few pages in Chapter 1 of our text on library services. One of the two basic functions of a library media specialist (pg4) is instruction or guidance in the use of information sources. This reminded me of the discussions I had in EDUC461 where collaborative teaching with classroom teachers was promoted – not just to have schools keep TL’s hired but to fulfil the intent of the TL job of teaching students on how to quickly, safely (not just a web issue) and effectively find answers to questions and to acknowledge sources to avoid plagiarism. With collaborative teaching students immediately apply their skills to a classroom research project.

I also was interested by the term bibliographic instruction, partly because I have just spent a week in a French immersion classroom where we visited the “bibliotheque”. It made me flip to the dictionary chapter’s webliography (p64) and look up the source of the word. From Wikipedia I found Biblio is greek meaning literally “book and from Encarta “small book”. I realize something that attracts people to libraries in the love of words and their meanings. Maybe as a teaching tool we can resurrect the old game version of “dictionary” to make learning words fun. Or how about teach word art such as the Wordle.com website.

The third item I noted was that we are teaching lifelong learning skills (pg.5). This line resonated in many of the introductions I read by my fellow students in this course. How do we capture that “elixir” and provide it in some form to the students we will communicate with in our libraries and computer labs? This is the challenge of being a good teacher in any class or group.