Aha! Moment

Yes I've had my own little aha! moment. The lightbulb is flickering due to our essential reading "Introduction to guided Inquiry - What is it, what's new, why now?" Everything we've looked at so far is connected in this article: the roles of the TL; collaboration; leadership, constructivist learning; information literacy; curriculum; the information process etc. Guided Inquiry connects all this together and in my view should be the main instructional framework for all schools.
What challenges do I foresee in the implementation of such an approach? The main one is probably getting everyone on board - teachers, parents, students, executive. I think it would work best as a whole school approach but if that was not happening you could still make a difference with just a few classes and some teacher support. You are also going to get students who lack motivation, no matter what you throw at them but I think it would be great with the majority of students.

Inquiry Learning and PBL

I've started reading about inquiry learning, PBL, constructivism, and 21st century learning and what does this mean for us at TLs.

A few points that stand out:

• student centred/student lead


• higher order thinking


• implementation of technology


• collaboration


• 24/7 anywhere,anytime learning


• adapt, adopt, modify


• cyclic inquiry model


• intuitive, deep, conceptual knowledge


• knowledge is created by dynamic interaction with the learning environment


• lifelong learners


• strategies can be interwoven


• student generated questions


• technology


• motivation

Why is this important to TLs?

• related to the information process/info literacy


• show leadership by modelling constructivism strategies


• collaborate with teachers to embed in teaching/learning strategies


• promoted by various pedagogical initiatives


• to help students develop lifelong learning skills in an info-rich environment.

I think as TLs we need to consistently think "outside the box" and consider constructivist strategies whenever we are planning units of work or activities or collaborating with teachers.

Assignment One

I am still unsure as to what two aspects of the role of the TL I shall use in my first assignment. I have read a range a articles and still cannot decide. Do I choose aspects of the role that I personally feel are important, or do I choose aspects for which there is a lot a literature available? I was considering that TLs need to be both a qualified "teacher" and a "librarian" and what these roles may involve. The teaching aspect is essential and the role of teacher also overlaps with the role of "instructional partner". Perhaps I have been considering this because I have been teaching for some time and I feel that this has a lot to do with defining who I am. I found myself reading a lot about the role of leader and what that may entail, but I also feel the role of information specialist is important. I'm not sure where I will go to from here. I think I will re-read the Herring and Purcell articles (again!) and hope something jumps out at me. I really want to be able to start writing something concrete down.

A Critical Thinking Approach

One of the blogs I've been following http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/ drew my attention to this article.

Maan, N. A. (2011) "A Critical Thinking Approach for Information Education" IFLA SET Bulletin, 12(2), 6-11.
This is in the whole online issue: http://www.ifla.org/files/set/Bulletin/_SET_Bulletin2011-2.pdf

In the article, information literacy is described as a "survival skill" in the information age. The article explains exactly what an information literate individual should be able to do. Information literacy has a life cycle of eleven stages according to the author who lists the stages. This is terrific information for a TL to have. It would enable a TL to benchmark where an individual is on the information literacy spectrum and allow a more individual approach. Where does critical thinking fit in all this?

"Media literacy uses the concept both as a metacognitive ability, which determines the individual’s degree of control of the process of information seeking, and as a set of skills which allow the description, analysis and evaluation of the message (Potter, 2011)."

Basically "critical thinking skills can be learnt in and applied to any domain" (Paul 1993). Four interdependant components of critical thinking are also described. I found the article really interesting as it explains in greater detail what information literacy is, how critical thinking fits into this, and what you can do to ensure your students develop these skills.

I felt this article helped me understand exactly what "information literacy" is and also how it fits into education as a whole.

The Role of the TL Continued...

Our first assignment for this subject asks us to critically compare two aspects of the views of (a) Herring and (b) Purcell on the role of the teacher librarian. Purcell's article is devoted almost entirely to the various roles the TL takes on, whereas this is only a small part of the Herring article. Purcell gives us snippets of what the different roles entail but doesn't really say why these roles are more important than others. I kind of feel we don't really find out what she thinks - we just get a brief overview. It's like, here - these are the roles and this is a little bit what they're about. Whereas I want to know a bit more why. I also don't feel she has cited enough references. Herring's chapter is presented differently. He's shown us what a few different organisations/people have said and then it's a case of you make up your own mind. Which is good in a way. Everyone's ideas about what the role of a TL is, is of course, very different. Now it's up to us to work out what aspects of the role we feel are important enough to address in our assignment. Personally, I think most aspects could be melded (is this the right word?) together under just a few titles. For example, a TL in the role of teacher, could also be described as a leader. Or, if you are a TL acting in the role of information specialist, then don't you also need to act as a leader and a teacher to fulfil your role? I'm still considering how to work around this in my assignment. Maybe this is where Purcell and Herring fall down - they don't consider how intricately woven the ties are between the different aspects of the roles.

The Instructional Role of the Information Specialist

The Instructional Role of the Information Specialist

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