A discussion of the benefits of a flexible schedule for a school library, and the role that the library can play in the life of a school.

1. A Dynamic Library Program:
It’s all about student
learning.

2. “Access to more and
more information is
of little value unless
a school places high
value on equipping
its community in the
processes of
becoming informed.”
James Henri

3. The process of being informed:
“If you’re going to teach anything in the
Information Age shouldn’t it be how to find,
evaluate, and use online information
critically?” Alan November

4. Schools must adopt the
educational philosophy that
the library media program is
fully integrated into the
educational program This
program.
integration strengthens the
teaching/learning process so
that students can develop the
vital skills necessary to locate,
analyze, evaluate, interpret,
and communicate information
and ideas.
AASL Position Statement on Flexible Scheduling

5. Educational
PYP
Program at
QA
21st
Information Century Literacy
Fluency
Learning
Technology

6. 21 st learning/PYP:
Century learning/PYP:
1. Creativity and Innovation (risk-takers)
2. Communication and Collaboration
(communicators, open-minded, balanced)
3. Research and Information Fluency
(inquirers, knowledgeable)
4. Critical Thinking, Problem-solving, and
Decision-making (reflective, caring, thinkers)
5. Digital Citizenship (principled)
6. Technology Operations and Concepts

7. principles:
PYP principles
Inquiry learning
Transdisciplinary learning
Essential elements –
knowledge, skills,
concepts,
attitudes, action
IB Profile

8. Essential Skills:
Questioning
Brainstorming
Recognizing an information
need
Finding key words
Evaluating information
Note-making
Searching different media
Using the WWW
Ethical use of information
Citations
Sharing information -
collaboration

9. Teacher Language
Librarian Support
TIFS Literacy
Coordinator
ESL Humanities
Coordinator
Math Science
Coordinator Coordinator
School Libraries Work! Research Foundation Paper 2008

10. When the library media program is fully
integrated into the instructional program of
the school:
•students, teachers, and library media specialists become
learning.
partners in learning
•The library program is an extension of the classroom
classroom.
•Information skills are taught and learned within the
context of the classroom curriculum.
•The wide range of resources, technologies, and services
needed to meet students learning and information needs
are readily available in a cost-effective manner.
AASL Position Statement on Flexible Scheduling

11. How can this integration be achieved?
Collaboration and partnership between all the
support teachers
Flexible scheduling in the library

12. What is Flexible Scheduling?
"a scheduling arrangement that allows for variation in
library use, rather than having each class scheduled
into the library for a regular, fixed period"
Flexible Scheduling: Implementing an Innovation

13. What is Flexible Scheduling?
Shannon (1996): “The library
media specialist and the teacher
plan together for instruction or
use of resources based on
student learning needs in each
curriculum unit and schedule on
that basis. The schedule is
arranged on an ad hoc basis
and varies constantly.”

14. Flexible Scheduling
Allows teachers to bring their
classes to the library at the
time of greatest need for
instructional purposes.
Flexible Access
Allows students to visit the
library at their point of need.
Flexible Access and Technology Integration in your Classroom

15. Why Flexible Scheduling?
Educational research on
effective learning tells us:
• learning skills in context is
more effective than learning
in isolation
• inquiry-based learning is
more meaningful
• student achievement
increases when libraries and
librarians play an integral
role in student learning
Flexible Scheduling: Implementing an Innovation: How School Librarians Help Kids
Achieve Standards

16. Why Flexible Scheduling?
"Donham van Deusen and Tallman (1994) . . . found
that more collaborative planning and teaching
existed in schools with flexible- or mixed-scheduled
libraries, particularly where principals expected
team planning and librarians were full-time and did
not cover teacher planning time."
Flexible Scheduling: Implementing an
Innovation: How School Librarians Help
Kids Achieve Standards

17. "The integrated library media program philosophy
requires that an open schedule must be maintained.
Classes cannot be scheduled in the library media
center to provide teacher release or preparation time
time.
Students and teachers must be able to come to the
center throughout the day to use information sources,
to read for pleasure, and to meet and work with other
students and teachers.”
AASL Position Statement on Flexible Scheduling

18. What does it take to implement?
Donham van Deusen (1995) suggested the following
conditions are necessary for successful implementation:
• An information skills curriculum matched with the
content area curriculum
• Flexible access to the library media center throughout
the day
• Team planning
• Principal expectations for collaboration
• A commitment to resource-based learning
Flexible Scheduling: Implementing an Innovation

19. AN EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LIBRARY…
Is accessible to the total school community, on site or remotely
Is cost effective because one book is used by many
Provides flexible scheduling and timely access to the collection
by all students
Offers a broad range of materials—reference, fiction, and
nonfiction
Addresses a broad range of reading levels
Minimizes loss through cost-effective tracking systems
Supports learning to read and reading to learn with
informational and imaginative text and literature
Adds new resources throughout the school year to keep
collections dynamic
Creates a sense of ownership that is shared by the entire school
community
Roscello,
Roscello, Frances and Patricia Webster (2002). Characteristics of School Library Media
(2002
2002).
Programs and Classroom Collections: Talking Points. Albany, NY: Office of Elementary,
Middle, Secondary, and Continuing Education, New York State Education Department.

20. Librarians are NOT single-subject teachers, as are
music, art, PE. These Single-subject teachers will
integrate what they do into the UOI, but they teach
a specific subject.
.

21. Everything that the teacher librarian is qualified to
teach, and is interested in having the students learn,
is inextricably tied to the classroom curriculum.

22. Teacher Librarians are trained as:
Teachers
and as
Information specialists –
skilled at sourcing and selecting resources;
skilled at search techniques, evaluating websites, using
information.

23. Current library program:
Each class visits the library once a week: book exchange,
short lesson – sharing new titles, introducing a genre,
learning library lay-out, very basic skills.
Library schedule fixed.
Teachers’ schedules fixed, with little room for manoeuvre.

24. Flexible Library schedule:
schedule
Classes sign up for a 20 minute book exchange per week/ could
be a reading period. Teacher accompanies students.
Teacher librarian works with grade level teachers, team teaching,
supporting units of inquiry, reinforcing information literacy skills.
The library can be scheduled separately from the teacher librarian.

25. What does a successful flex program look
like for students?
• The library is a very busy,
dynamic place.
• Students are in the habit of
coming to the library as soon
as they need new reading
materials. Many come more
than once a week.
• Students see the librarian as
a literacy and inquiry
resource

26. What does a successful flex program look
like for students?
• Students are responsible
for what they've learned
in the library; it is tied to
what they are doing in
their classes.
• Students learn inquiry
skills systematically.
• Book checkouts increase

27. What does a successful flex program look
like for teachers
teachers? • Students are allowed to go
to the library on their own
when they need new books.
• Grade-level teams meet at
least once per unit of
inquiry with TIFS and the
librarian.
• Where appropriate,
librarian and TIFS meet
with other support
teachers.
• Classes are scheduled in
the library and IT lab as
needed

28. What does a successful flex program look
like for teachers?
• Library resources related to the
current unit are made available in
the library or the classroom.
• Classroom teachers, librarians, and
tech teachers are all responsible for
the Information and Technology
Literacy curriculum.
• Classroom teachers often team
teach with the tech teachers and
librarian

29. What does a successful flex program look
like for administrators?
Flexible scheduling won't be
successful without administrative
support.
o allowing time to investigate
and implement a flex schedule
o requiring and attending
planning meetings
o allowing for adequate staffing

30. What does a successful flex program look
like for librarians?
• Collaboration with every teacher in the school
• Busy and varied days
• Time with students focused on learning, not on
management
• Accommodating several classes at once
• Length of time with students varies
• Library management during "slow" periods

31. Planning:
Teachers, PYP coordinator, TIFs and TL look at learning
experiences, engagements for the following unit, and
discuss where information skills will come into play. TL
and TIFs will attend appropriate planning sessions for
each UOI. They will plan times through the unit where TL
will join classroom teacher to teach information literacy
skills.

32. We need to think of the
library “as a part of
rather than apart from
the classroom, and of the
librarian as a line
member of the teaching
staff rather than an
adjunct to it.”
Gary Hartzell

33. Research:
There is significant research proving that a well-resourced
school library, with a qualified TL, makes a difference to
students learning.
In our situation, I believe that with our resources, and the
fact that we do have qualified library staff, it does not
make sense to not utilize fully either the resources or the
skills of the library staff.
Our library does not need to be purely a repository for
books and other resources – it can be the heart of all
learning in our school – and will be so when the new
learning hub comes into being, but only if the philosophy
is in place.

34. COLORADO (LANCE, ET. AL., 1993; LANCE,
1993;
2000)
ET. AL., 2000)
The size of the school library staff and collection
explained 21% of variation in 7th grade Iowa
Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) reading scores,
while controlling for socio-economic conditions
(1993).
Elementary school students with the most
collaborative teacher librarians scored 21%
higher on Colorado Student Assessment
Program (CSAP) reading scores than students
with the least collaborative teacher-librarians
(2000).

35. DELAWARE (TODD, 2005–6)
2005–
Data collected from this study shows that 98.2% of
students were helped by the school library in their
learning process, when the school libraries had state
certified, full-time school librarians, flexible schedules,
,
active instructional programs for information literacy
development,
development and a networked information technology
infrastructure.

36. DELAWARE (TODD, 2005–6)
2005–
The mere presence of a large collection of books,
magazines, and newspapers in the school library is not
enough to generate high levels of academic achievement
by students. Such collections only make a positive
difference when they are part of school-wide initiatives to
integrate information literacy into the school’s approach to
standards and curricula.

37. DELAWARE (TODD, 2005–6)
2005–
Elementary schools with flexibly scheduled libraries
performed 10% better in reading and 11% better in
10% 11%
writing on the ISAT tests of fifth graders than schools with
less flexibly scheduled libraries.

38. Teacher comments:
I love the flexible schedule because it allows me to
send the students as they need to get a book or as
they need to do research and doesn't tie me to a
certain time, and the students can read as much as
they want to because they can go and get more books
and don't have to wait until the next week to get a
book.
—fourth-grade teacher
fourth-

39. Teacher comments:
It's a lot easier to be able to say, “Why don't you go
check it out in the library? That's a great question.”
And feel comfortable that they can go to the library
and be able to get the help and look it up without me
trying to schedule a time, like, “OK, that's a great
question, but we'll have to look it up next week when
we go to the library.”
—third- and fourth-grade teacher.
third- fourth-

40. Teacher comment on the loss of planning
time:
You need to look at it the other way to see that the
students really benefit the most, it depends on who
we're here to benefit, I guess—for the benefit of the
teacher or the benefit of the students being able to
students,
learn some real-life skills.
fourth-
—fourth-grade teacher
fourth

41. Teacher comments:
And I think it also encourages the children to use the
library more. At other schools I've been at, the library
just isn't on anyone's mind. But I think in ours the
library is very central. Not only is it physically central
in the building, but I think it's central in kids' minds.
—first- and second-grade teacher
first- second-

42. WORKS CITED
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sitionstatement.cfm>.
Hartzell, Gary. "Capitalizing on the School Library’s Potential to Positively Affect
Student Achievement." White House Conference Resources. Web.
<http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/LMS/news/flexible_scheduling/pdfs/white_house_conf_
resources.pdf>.
Henri, James. "Understanding the Information Literate School Community." The
Information Literate School Community 2:Issues of Leadership. Wagga Wagga:
Centre for Information Studies, 2005. 11-26. Print.
Hoiseth, Linda. Flexible Library Scheduling in the Elementary School. Presentation
2009
Keith Curry, Lance. "How School Librarians Help Kids Achieve Standards: The Second
Colorado Study." Apr. 2000. Web. 13 Mar. 2010.
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Secondary, and Continuing Education, New York State Education Department
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