The library teaching program was selected to represent Michigan on Dr. Nancy Everhart’s AASL Vision Tour.
Learn more about Jeanna, her work at Portage Northern High School and a busy professional life at
http://eduscapes.com/..walker.html
The startup question asked of all the blog-guests this year is: "What is the most important issue or activity facing you in your school library this fall?"
Jeanna Walker
ReplyDeleteHello!
I am so honored to be joining your “Building Theory and Practice” class as a guest blogger. I am the teacher media specialist at Portage Northern High School in Portage, Michigan. We have a diverse student population and curriculum. We include meeting the needs of all students as our mission; in doing so we offer such diverse course offering as Education for the Arts and Education for Employment programs to AP classes, while at the same time being an International Baccalaureate School. Our school has undergone a major remodelling project in the past 3 years, including updating the Library Learning Commons. We were privileged to be chosen as Michigan’s representative on Dr. Nancy Everhart’s AASL Vision Tour.
This is my 8th year at PNHS, previously spending 6 years as a teacher media specialist at Angling Road Elementary in the same district. My family has lived in Ohio, Colorado, California, and Ontario, Canada and I have been a teacher media specialist in all those areas (running my own information business while in Canada). I received my MLS Degree from the University of Denver and have a secondary teaching certificate in social studies.
I inherited a program at PNHS that had grown complacent in its role. Teachers were not encouraged to use the either the expertise of the teacher media specialist, nor were students made to feel welcome. I knew that the best way to change this school culture was to involve the faculty and students in authentic research projects and learning. I also knew that the collection was not meeting either the curricular needs of our school community nor the reading interests of our students. It was a daunting task, but an invigorating one! I initiated Google Apps for our school in a pilot project with the Western Michigan School of Business and our American History classes 5 years ago, with the result being last year our school district adopted Google Apps for Education for all students and staff. Rolling that out to each and every high school student in one hour class sessions in 4 weeks last year made me never want to hear the word Google again;), but I am a firm believer in the benefits of collaborative learning and it has been well worth it. I would be happy to answer any of your questions about the journey from library to Library Learning Commons. Our LCC now averages 800-900 students a day - 4000-5000 a week! Our remodeled LCC includes 4 separate teaching areas, complete with what we call a “TEC - Technology Enhanced Classroom” model. We have one Library Media classroom with desktop computers; laptops and netbooks are provided for the other areas. I use the word “classroom” loosely, as our LCC is one big open space. We divide the classroom areas with our new book shelving that is on wheels - makes it easy to re-design classroom spaces. We also have an attractive soft-seating area to give the LCC more of a “bookstore” feel. We have access to subscription research databases, as well as our print collection. I am fortunate to have one library media secretary. We have a great working partnership and honor each others roles in providing what is best for our students and staff. I have a very supportive principal who recognizes the benefits of the teaching library program to our students and staff. We do not have any student assistants or volunteers. Michigan passed a regulation that student assistants in any class would only be allowed if it were a formal course. That regulation basically eliminated student assistants in our school district.
I have been "officially" been informed by Blogger that I am too wordy, so I am continuing our conversation in a second post;)
Jeanna
Hello, Mrs. Walker,
DeleteI was born and raised in Michigan (Holland is my hometown). I found it quite interesting that Michigan legislation enacted a law prohibiting student volunteering. I can only assume that something happened to precipitate that law being created. Since you have the IB and other classes in place have you thought about creating a course for the students on learning the library procedures and so forth. Personally, I would have loved to have taken a class like that when I was in high school because I loved to read as well as visit the library.
Jeanna Walker continued
ReplyDeleteNow for the “big question”: "What is the most important issue or activity facing you in your school library this fall?
Common Core State Standards are on the minds of everyone. We are currently aligning our K-12 Library Media Curriculum to the ELA CCSS. But in Michigan, particularly in our district, the big issue this Fall is teacher evaluations. This year 20% of our teacher evaluations are being tied to student achievement and we are being evaluated on the new GoObserve software, which profiles your teaching on a minute by minute basis, graphing it as it goes. This new system, as with all new systems, has all created some anxiety. I worked last year with our K-12 Library Media Department to develop an alternative evaluation, based on SL21 Michigan's Evaluation Tool for School Library Programs and our K-12 Library Media Curriculum. We are hoping we will get approval to use this alternative form, which, by the way, does include student achievement. I feel it is important that our administrators evaluate the teacher media specialist not only as a teacher (I do love that part), but also on our ability to run a highly effective library media program. Our Library Media Team is still grappling with what “measuring student achievement” will look like for us. I am currently on the State of Michigan Team to re-evaluate that document and update it. It has been a pleasure working with top teacher media specialists, State of Michigan Department of Education staff, and this year, a representative from the Michigan Association of School Principals (hooray!) as we tackle what would be in the best interest of all school library programs. We are constantly faced with the elimination of school media specialists positions in Michigan and we want to to be sure we are clearly stating the roles and benefits of an active teaching school library program with certified school library media specialists.
I am off to International Baccalaureate Extended Essay training this week for 4 days. I may become the Extended Essay Coordinator for our school. This would be a perfect fit for our research based library media curriculum. The Michigan Association for Media in Education (MAME) is at the end of the month. Will Richardson will be the keynote speaker and will hold 3 hour morning session on “Bold Learning for Bold Schools: from Concept to Practice.” As this is my first time being on the Executive Board of MAME, I am sure it will a much busier conference time than in that past.
I love being with my family, including my husband, Joe, children John (he lives in Chicago and works for a logistics company) and daughter, Katie (she lives in Detroit and works for the Detroit Tigers). Both of them graduated from the University of Michigan; we are a “house divided” - I did undergrad and grad work at Ohio State University:). My husband and I spend a lot of time talking about and to our chocolate lab, Blue - ha!
Mrs. Walker: I was wondering why teacher evaluation was 20%? What was the percentage prior to this year? How does the GoObserve software work? When you have a class to teach, do you just put it on? Was training required to implement it? Who picked it out? what is different about the alternative evaluation? Does this new type of evaluation have anything to do with the No Child Left Behind Act?
DeleteThank you in advance.
Jeanna,
DeleteGreat questions! The percentage tied to teacher evaluations is set by the State of Michigan Legislature in the School Code. This year our school district has selected that 20% of a teacher's evaluation be tied to student achievement, with that target being 40% in the near future. This link is an interesting article on Michigan teacher evaluation and how these decision are tied to federal funding, including NCLB. http://michigan.gov/documents/mde/teacher_evaluation_11nov21_FINAL_378152_7.PDF
GoObserve is a software system the administrator uses while watching you teach. It was selected by our administrators in our district. Here is a link that explains if more thoroughly. http://www.goknow.com/products_education.html#GoObserve. In looking at the product website I discovered something I did not know - Dr. Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan School of Information, School of Education and College of Engineering is the CEO and founder! you may have seen Dr. Soloway at a conference - he had been a big proponent of using cell phones in classrooms for quite some time. I didn't know he was in the teacher evaluation business, too;)One of his partners in this venture is Dr. Cathy Norris, co-president of ISTE. Very interesting, indeed!
Mrs Walker,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for allowing my classmates and I to ask you questions. I would like to know how is maintaing and enhancing a high school library different from maintaining and enhancing an elementary school library? Also, I read that your school has an IB program. Does your library meet the needs of all learning levels?
I began my career as a high school media specialist and then,because of a relocation (family), became an elementary media specialist. I will tell you that at first I was scared:) One of the biggest differences i saw was the scheduling of classes. Even though I was on a "flexible" schedule, I saw every elementary class every week. In high school, the schedule is totally flexible. It is a different mindset to know that you do not have a built-in audience. You must be proactive and advocate for teachers and students to schedule time with you. It is actually more difficult as you constantly are putting yourself "out there" to show how you can help engage the students and teachers in learning. We absolutely meet the needs of all students. Although the IB program is open to all students, the majority of our students do not take the full IB diploma route. Some take only a class or two, some take none. We have a very full curriculum for all students. Here is a link to our program of studies, so you can get a better idea of our course offerings. http://www.portageps.org/departments/curriculum/programofstudies/pps_pos_9th-12thgrade_20122013.pdf
DeleteJeanna
Your media center sounds like a great place to learn and provides a welcoming, comfortable and flexible environment for students and staff. I was wondering what, if any, other funding sources you used to finish the remodel; I know that you mentioned a bond but did that cover all of your expenses? If so, what other funding sources did you use and how did you go about finding them?
ReplyDeleteIt is a very welcoming Library Learning Commons. As it is a remodel and the pillars in the LCC held up the building, there was not a lot that structurally could be done. However, the LCC was gutted; new shelving, carpet, furniture, and lighting was added. Walls were removed to reconfigure the teacher space to be more open. Our entire school was remodeled - classrooms expanded, wall removed to make bigger hallways, a new cafeteria/commons area, etc. Our school community did pass a bond, which included building a new high school (our sister school across town was demolished), 2 new elementary schools (the existing schools were demolished) and major technological infrature upgrades to all 13 schools. All funding came through the bond issue. The school district administrative team decided where the money should be spend, with each building principal having some discretion. We did not receive any outside funding,other than our community's support of the bond issue.
ReplyDeleteSince this was a total remodel were you consulted on the redesign of the space or was there one particular element you wanted to see in the media center? Was the design based off of any research related to optimal learning environments in schools?
DeleteI did do lots of research on optimal learning environments, furniture, etc. - I had all my "ducks in a row", so to speak. However...the architect team had their own ideas and were pretty pre-set in their ways. I think you could encounter something like that if you are ever in a remodeling or building a library process. The things that don't work (the choice of tables/chairs) were things I knew would not work from the start. We have since traded some of those tables/chairs for brand new desks/chairs (another teacher wanted our round tables), so that has worked out fine. My favorite thing - shelves on wheels. Yes, it seems like a simple thing, but it really has made our space very flexible. I did get the wall removed to make "my" media classroom. It is open to the Library Learning Commons. they wanted to put a wall up, but I argued that if they did that, I would be seen as a "computer" teacher and have no access/contact with the rest of the LCC. I am so glad they listened to me on that suggestion. Another thing you might find is that you will be hampered by the bidding process. Low bid usually wins in these economic times and that means you don't always get the quality in furnishings that will last for the long haul.
DeleteMrs. Walker,
ReplyDeleteWhere did you start in learning what resources could be used to help both teachers and students? Where there any subject areas you chose to focus on more than others? I think it is wonderful that you took the initiative to seek out the teachers and provide some type of supplementary material for them.
Thank you! I began at looking at the course offerings in our school (I am speaking of the high school, but I did the same approach at the elementary level). I discovered which courses would lend themselves to technology integrated research "projects." (Now it goes without saying, that I did reach out to all the English classes to promote reading and the new books I selected that would be of interest to all students. To my surprise, my first opening into our staff and their students was in a class called Freshmen Focus Health. They had a big "disease" research project that had been done in the traditional report format. I approached one of the teachers and proposed we "change it up." We looked at the standards, benchmarks and turned the project into a tech integrated project, complete with a website for vetted sources and a final product as a Publisher custom poster. One teacher led to all teachers in the department adopting that project. I displayed the Publisher posters in the Library Learning Commons. I soon had other teachers saying "What's That"? I would like to do something like that in my curriculum. It was pretty amazing how fast the word spread. We continue to tweak that project and are now doing it in Google Docs as a collaborative project, but the premise remains the same. I always say, it only takes one teacher to open the doors to what you can offer to the others.
ReplyDeleteIn our school, I work with the Social Studies teachers the most. Their curriculum lends itself more to project-based learning and a collaborative approach to activities. Some of my colleagues in other schools are surprised by this - they assume it would be our Language Arts classes. But our LA curriculum is so "set" and "packed" that is difficult for them to go outside of it for extended projects. I I would be happy to tell you about other "success" stories, including a partnership with Western Michigan School of Business that really launched our Google Apps adoption for the school district.
Dear Mrs. Walker,
ReplyDeleteIt seemed that you came from a certified teacher and a certified media specialist. How did these two roles work together? I am a Mandarin teacher at the high school level and am currently working on my certificate of media specialist. It is sometimes confusing to hear that the administration has been eliminating the positions of media specialists.
How does Common Core State Standards impact the way you work with the teaching faculty? Common Core Standards do not specifically address the need for language teachers. How do your library help those teachers who are in the same boat? Thank you very much. My name is Huei-Ru Shiu.
Hello Huei-Ru,
DeleteYes, I am a certified teacher and have a MLS Degree that prepared me to work not only in school libraries, but also all kinds of libraries, from public to special to corporate. I recognize my value as a media specialist in my school district is first of all that of a teacher. I teach 7 out of 7 periods most days, team teaching with the classroom teachers to incorporate information literacy into their curriculum. Yes, that is also in our K-12 Library Media Curriculum, but I do not teach those skills in isolation.I have found that for students to truly embrace 21st Century Skills they must be taught within the school curriculum. In other words, they must be relevant to the task at hand. I, too, am disheartened to learn of many school administrations eliminating the positions of library media specialists in this time of information "overload" and availability. My school administration has made it clear that they value my role as a teacher. I have learned that I am valued in my school community as a teacher, also. That does mean that I have had to put some of the "tasks" that traditionally belong to the library media specialist as a second priority. I also do all of my lesson planning, professional reading, book selection, etc. at home during the evenings and weekends.I do all of my professional committee work during after-school hours. I am rarely in my office. I am always out in the Library Learning Commons, always available for every student and teacher. As one administrator so bluntly told me our our Library Media Deparment: "Prove your worth." While he was not speaking to me directly (thank goodness), it is a phrase I have not forgotten. We must constantly strive to make ourselves relevant to our school community.
As a side note, I notice that you are a teacher of Mandarin Chinese. I think that is wonderful! Our school district has a partnership with the Confucius Institute, through Western Michigan University. We have guest teachers from China teaching Mandarin Chinese to 1st and 2nd graders in two of our elementary schools in a pilot program. We have a guest teacher from China at both high schools teaching with our social studies teachers in the IB History and Contemporary International Issues classes. I was privileged to go with 8 other staff members to China for a month to learn about the culture of the Chinese people. It was an amazing experience.
Jeanna
I now align my project-based learning activities with the classroom teachers to the ELA or History, Science, and Technical Literacy CCSS, while at the same time incorporating the standards of the subject-area curriculum and our K-12 Library Media Curriculum. It is amazing how much of what we do as teacher media specialists aligns with the CCSS, particularly in the areas of research, informational text, and collaborative authentic learning. I do find the language of the CCSS to hard to define, in some cases. Our school district purchased every teacher the following resources: The Common Core Clarifying Expectations for Teachers and Students. We have a spiral flip book for each CCSS subject and grade level. What I like is that each standard is defined with enduring understanding and essential questions, plus suggested learning targets or the "I can" statements for students. I am sure there are different companies doing the same type of unpacking of the standards, but we have found these books particularly helpful. http://qualityinstruction.org/common-core-and-formative-assessment-products/common-core-books
DeleteI am sure you have examined the AASL CrossWalk for aligning the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner with the CCSS. Also, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages has done a similar correlation between their standards and the ELA CCSS.
I believe that as teacher media specialists we must take the initiative to show our teachers and administrators the correlation between the CCSS and our Library Media Curriculum.We cannot sit back and wait for them to come to us.
Common Core State Standards and our Role:
DeleteWe must not be complacent about our role in the CCSS. For example, The CCSS stress the importance of research throughout the continuum of reading, writing, speaking and listening. I am now incorporating the CCSS into my project-based learning activities. It is amazing how well the CCSS fit. In our school district, we are continuing the process to align our K-12 Library Media Curriculum to the CCSS, using the AASL CrossWalk as a guide. http://www.ala.org/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/commoncorecrosswalk. The National Council on the Teaching of Foreign languages have done the same thing. http://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Aligning_CCSS_Language_Standards_v6.pdf
The vague language of some of the CCSS can be problematic - what really is the learning outcome? Many companies are publishing books to help unpack the standards and the language. Our school district has purchased The Common Core, Claifying Expectatons for Teachers and Students by Algin, Assess, Achieve, LLC http://qualityinstruction.org/common-core-and-formative-assessment-products/common-core-books Why do I like these books? They come in a manageable format - small, spiral flip books. Each grade level and subject area has its own book. The CCSS is stated, and enduring understanding and essential questions are included. I particularly like the “Suggested Learning Targets.” These are “I can” statements for the students and have really helped me clarify exactly what the learner can be expected “to do.”
We, as teacher media specialist, must take a proactive role in informing our teachers and administrators our value in implementing the CCSS.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteIn a previous post you mentioned that being a high school library media specialist means putting yourself "out there" more to show the school community that you're available to them. What are some of the ways you do this? I image you have to be creative and come up with different programs specifically tailored to high school students. What are some of the programs you've done with your high schoolers and how were they received? Any advice for creating programs for high schoolers?
Thanks so much for your time! :)
I always say that my successful program began with a bowl of chocolate! I am still known as the go-to person for chocolate and you would be surprised at the number of teachers who will travel all the way to the Library Learning Commons to chocolate and then I can have a conversation about what they are doing in their classroom;) . I am a strong advocate for our program. As the K-12 Department Chair for Instructional Media and Technology in our district, I am constantly promoting the value of a strong library media teaching program, staffed with certified teacher media specialists. with the school district administration and school board. I will say that my successful programming revolves around teaching. It is the reaching out to classroom teachers and developing creative ways to integrate information literacy and research skills, while incorporating technology, has been the key to my value in my district. For example, the wonderful Dr. Annette Lamb has been so generous in guiding me and my American History teachers and students in developing a digital scrapbook project on the U.S. Presidents. I cannot tell you how gracious she has been in personally sharing her expertise with us and even going so far as to evaluate the students scrapbooks! Another example would be the connection I made with the Western Michigan School of Business. They were interested in working with our business classes in teaching collaborative learning (Google Apps). My principal and I decided that our social studies curriculum would be a better fit for that type of learning. The WMU professors were so open to our project ideas, that they are doing a research study on engagement with students using technology. 2 years ago I approached our Forensic Science teacher about the live video-streamed autopsy that COSI (Center of Science and Industry) was offering. We were able to get funding for that and it was the beginning of a great collaborative partnership. Last year the teacher decided she wanted the students to read a forensic novel, but only ones written by experts in their field (Cornwell, Reichs, baden, Bass). We wrote a grant to fund the purchase of fetal pigs for autopsy and more forensic novels for the library. I took it a step further and we developed a unit using Blogger as a way for the students to reflect on their book and the ties to forensic science. The latest “idea” happened rather serendipitously in a morning conversation with a Language Arts teacher. One of our School Improvement goals is to “Increase time students spend reading.” We talked about teachers modeling reading and decided we should do a “Husky (our mascot) Read”, like a community read. I wrote a grant last weekend to purchase copies of The Fault in our Stars and Sunrise over Fallujah for our books choices. We are waiting to hear if we get the funding before launching our idea. Yes, we did ask the principal first;)
DeleteI continually inform my principal and the district administrators of the learning happening in our program. I teach technology classes to teachers in the district after school. Last year I offered a parent class on Google Apps - a big hit! And did I mention chocolate - ha!
Thank you for this! Chocolate - I will have to remember that, haha.
DeleteDo you have any good resources for anyone wanting to learn more about successful grant writing? Is there any one particular key to seeing that your grant stands out?
Personally, I'm more of a starter than I am one to hop on to other bandwagons, so my head is always swimming with new ideas. I feel like I'm going to need all the help I can get with grant writing considering that I'll probably be doing a lot of it!
Never forget the chocolate - it works:)
DeleteI will include a couple of links on grant writing. I will admit to being intimidated by the whole grant writing process - I figure if it was easy why would so many people write books on how to do it - ha! I have a lot of ideas, too, and it is frustrating to be dependent on outside funding to make them happen. But....that is the way it is. I have learned this year to tie in grant requests to the Curriculum standards and benchmarks and the Common core (if the state you are in has adopted them). Tie everything to the students. Add student achievement, if possible and any assessments you might do. I often find local grant sources are much more attainable than state or national ones.
Here are a couple of resources that I have used:
http://librarygrants.blogspot.com/ plus their book
http://www.scholastic.com/librarians/programs/grants.htm
ALA list of Grants
http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/awards
Jeanna
Mrs. Walker,
ReplyDeleteWith the new teacher evaluations and the high level of anxiety, I was wondering if you have seen an increase, decrease, or if the amount of collaboration has remained the same.
Thank you,
Jennifer L. Cornelius
That is an interesting question. We might assume that teachers are so focused on evaluations and the pressure of being rated on student test scores, that a possible fall-out might be the reduction of collaborative projects with me, the teacher media specialist. I have not found that to be the case.I hope it does not come to that. I do become a sounding board and encourager. I think you will find that will be your role, also. I try not to engage a teacher on how much I work or the stress of my job. I keep that to myself and empathize with them. I think they appreciate having someone who will listen and understand (and hopefully help).
DeleteHello Mrs. Walker, thanks for joining our blog! It sounds like there is a lot going on this fall in your library. How has working with the teachers changed? Do you find that your time is taxed with the remodel, and if so how do you deal with that?
ReplyDeleteYou are so right - there is a lot going on. Fortunately, this is our first year with the remodel of the entire school completed. What a relief! This was a 3 year project, with entire teaching wings of the building shut down each year and then entire building shut down every summer. In a funny way, my summers were a bit “more relaxed” as I could not go into the school. I have a habit of working at school on and off throughout the summer - ha! During the remodeling process there were times when we were the “oasis” for some classrooms that were inundated with construction noise. It is hard to believe that construction continued throughout the school year for 3 years!
DeleteMrs. Walker,
DeleteIt seems as though you rely on technology quite a bit. I will be honest, I love technology and hate it at the same time. I'm currently typing this question on my iPhone because I can't get Internet at home. Verizon is down for my whole area code. So, my question is what do you do when the technology you were planning on using fails?
Thank you,
Jennifer L. Cornelius
Jennifer,
DeleteOh, the stories I could tell you about failed technology! Priceless word of advice (from my network administrator) - always log on as a student on a student computer and try out everything you want the students to do. It might work on my teacher workstation, but that doesn’t mean it will not be blocked in some way on the student computers.
I had so many issues when we first rolling out Google Apps because we couldn't download Chrome on the student computers. Last year Blogger (probably this year, too) thought we were spamming them when the students were registering for their Blog and would only let us do 4 students a day - now that was a nightmare, as I had 150 student bloggers. That issue was funny, in a way. I thought for a few minutes, looked at the students, and said "Get out your cell phones. Our district has a "no cell phone" policy (even though we have an open guest network for students to bring their own devices). The students were in shock. They signed up for their Blogger accounts on their cell phones. We do have a great technology support - we have a technician at our building and our network administrator is a big fan of Google Apps so he is "on call" for me. He will even come over and watch while I teach if I think there is going to be an issue. I have rolled out so many new projects involving technology, that our program is known to be the “guinea pig’ for all other schools. I always try to remain calm in front of the teachers and students - the teachers are usually very upset when the technology doesn't work and I try to keep it light-hearted. I laugh off a lot of things that if I were home I could be kicking the computer:).
Jeanna
Hello Mrs. Walker! Since technology is becoming such an important factor in schools, is there a backup plan of the technology fails? What if the power is off for a week (for whatever reason) and no one can use the computer?
ReplyDeleteHi Abigail,
ReplyDeleteThat actually did happen in our district - the entire network was down for 5 days. I am sorry to say it really did stop us dead in our tracks. Many projects had to be put on hold. It was only unhappy staff:( When the network/power, etc. is down for that long we all had to adapt. Some projects simply did not happen as there wasn't enough time to make up for the lost time. I do have supplemental print materials for most of our projects, so that is helpful.
Jeanna
Dear Mrs. Walker,
ReplyDeleteI understand what you meant by "prove your worth." As a language teacher, I spend lots of time working on projects in addtion to teaching so that I can provide parents and the community with opportunities to get to know the program better. I am planning an overseas trip to Taiwan to let students experience the authentic Chinese culture in Taiwan. Parents are invited to join the trip and help all the logistics needed by this trip. Thank you so much for your sharing and I feel encouraged and enlightened. My name is Huei-Ru Shiu.
Dear Huei-Ru,
DeleteI think that is very inspiring of you to plan a trip for students and parents to learn about Chinese culture in Taiwan. They will have experiences that will last them a lifetime. They will gain an understanding of the culture that they would never have had before. I know that is how I felt after visiting china. Best wishes in your teaching and in your travels.
Jeanna