Special Topics in Teacher Librarianship

 As I was reading Leading from the Library, this quote from Miller and Bass really stuck out to me: “Equity of experience doesn’t mean that all classrooms have identical experiences. Rather, it’s a focus on recognizing the time in which we live and utilizing the tools of the day. It’s no longer acceptable for technology usage to be an option based on adult interests or comfort levels” (2019, p. 73). It made me reflect on whether I avoid any technology because of my own comfort levels despite what the students are interested in. I consider myself to be very comfortable with technology, but I wondered whether there was any aspect of technology I would encounter barriers with in the future as I am still early in my career and technology is changing all the time. I realized that I had a very negative viewpoint of the metaverse without really having any experience or knowledge about it. Keeping Miller and Bass’ ideas about equity of access and digital mentorship in mind, I decided to le...

     In our schools, we try to make our libraries hubs of information, literacy, and learning. Organizations and projects throughout the world seek to extend this concept to individuals in developing nations to provide access to literacy and ICT resources. While exploring library projects in developing nations, I learned about many amazing organizations who seek to put books into the hands of children to help them access literature and develop their literacy skills. Room to Read seeks to create “a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality” (Room to Read About Us, n.d.) by providing books and literacy programming to children in 15 countries including Grenada, Vietnam, Rwanda, India and, Indonesia (Room to Read Impact and Reach, n.d.).  Charmaghz is an organization that provides mobile libraries for children in Afghanistan. They have 5 mobile libraries which each contain 400 books and host 1000 visitors each day (Charmaghz Mobile Libraries, n.d.).  The Bo...

     In my previous blog post, I discussed how I am going to continue to build my PLN on Twitter so that I can continue my own self-guided professional development. This learning will positively impact the students in my classroom in my current role and will also be beneficial for sharing with my colleagues in a future teacher librarian role.       One of the challenges of providing professional development to a large staff, such as the staff of 33 classroom teachers I currently work on, is that each teacher has their own unique strengths and challenges, so no one PD topic will meet their needs. Trust, Carpenter & Krutka (2018) discuss the need for building PLNs rather than focusing on a more traditional PD model stating that “traditional top-down professional development (PD) models have historically sought to mold educators to institutional aims through synchronous, face-to-face activities . . . Such PD can be engaging, interactive, and effective...

     As educators, it is important that we are continuously learning and improving our skills to improve student learning. I also believe it is important for students to see their teachers engaging in learning and modeling lifelong learning habits. Most of my professional learning outside of traditional PD days currently takes place both in my UBC Teacher Librarianship Diploma courses and in meetings with my grade level teaching team. I am fortunate to work on a team of 5 grade 3/4 teachers that regularly co-plan, share resources and ideas, and support one another in our learning. It will be important for me to consider how I will continue to learn and grow professionally after I am finished my diploma courses, and potentially move to a smaller school and/or to a teacher-librarian position where I am no longer a close member of my current team. One tool that I think will be helpful to me as I continue independently professional learning is Twitter.      Whe...