1. http://www.metricsandlibraries.org/
Defining New Metrics for Library Success
School Libraries
Anita Brooks Kirkland
@AnitaBK
Jeanne Conte
@contej
University of Toronto iSchool Symposium, in partnership with Dysart & Jones Associates
April 22, 2014
2. Our communities, boards, management and institutions are asking for
stronger and better measurements of our impact and value to help them with
decision making and prioritization.
http://www.metricsandlibraries.org/
Assessing and Communicating the Efficacy of School Library
Programs: Evolving Practice
Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for Effective School
Library Learning Commons in Canada
Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach
and Assess Learning
5. “Yes, but what do you DO that makes a difference to student learning?”
In the current educational climate
there is a very clear mandate for a shift from
putting our emphasis on finding and accessing to
knowledge building. It’s where education is going.
We are talking about standards-based education.
We are talking about accountability. We are talking
about evidence of achievements.
Todd, R., Kenney, B. (Interviewer) (2006). Ross to the rescue: Rutger’s Ross Todd’s quest
to renew school libraries. School Library Journal 52 (4) 44-47.
Dr. Ross Todd, Rutgers University
6. Canadian Library Association
(ATLC & CSLA), 2003
A Vision for School Libraries in Canada
Revisioning School Libraries:
A.Learning Centres for Lifelong Learning
B.Active Learning Environments
C.Gateways to the World
D.Resource-based Teaching and Learning
E.Collaborative Teaching and Learning
Standards for Managing School Library Programs
●Staffing School Libraries
●School Library Collections
●School Library Facilities
●Information and Communication Technologies
7. Canadian Library Association
(ATLC & CSLA), 2003
Leading Learning:
Standards of Practice for Effective School
Library Learning Commons in Canada
8. Whereas the focus of the library program in the
past was on building strong collections of
resources and assisting users to find and use
them effectively, the goal now is to build learning
communities and make connections among
learners, thus facilitating knowledge creation in
the school community.
9.
10. Standards
Facilitating Collaborative Engagement to Cultivate and Empower a
Community of Learners
Advancing the Learning Community to Achieve School Goals
Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach and
Assess Learning
Fostering Literacies to Empower Life-Long Learners
Designing Learning Environments to Support Participatory Learning
11. Standards Themes
Facilitating Collaborative
Engagement to Cultivate
and Empower a
Community of Learners
Vision for
Learning
Design for
Collaboration
Partners in
Collaborative
Learning
Student and
Community
Partnerships
School
Administration
Partnerships
District
Administration
and Consultant
Partnerships
Advancing the Learning
Community to Achieve
School Goals
Planning for
School
Improvement
Principal
Collaborative
Role
Teacher-
Librarian
Collaborative
Role
Teacher
Collaborative
Role
Support Staff
Collaborative
Role
District
Administration
and Consultant
Collaborative
Role
Cultivating Effective
Instructional Design to
Co-plan, Teach and
Assess Learning
Instructional
Leadership
Instructional
Partnerships
Engaging with
Inquiry
Approaches
Differentiated
Learning
Technology for
Learning
Assessment
for, of and as
Learning
Evidence
Based
Practice
Fostering Literacies to
Empower Life-Long
Learners
Literacy
Leadership
Engaging
Readers
Information
Literacy
Critical
Literacy
Digital Literacy
and
Citizenship
Cultural
Literacy
Literacy
Partners
Designing Learning
Environments to Support
Participatory Learning
Designing for a
Collaborative
Physical LLC
Designing for a
Collaborative
Virtual LLC
Designing for
Accessibility
in the LLC
Designing for
Responsive
Print and
Digital
Collections
Designing for
Creativity and
Innovation
Designing for
Participatory
School Culture
12. Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach and Assess Learning
Themes
Instructional Leadership Instructional Partnerships
Engaging with Inquiry Approaches Differentiated Learning
Technology for Learning Assessment for, as and of learning
Evidence-Based Practice
13.
14. Transitions
What changes do
we want to make?
Timelines
What are the
expected start and
finish times?
Strategies and
Actions
How will we
achieve
transitions?
Roles
Who is
responsible for
what?
Resources
What budget, time
and people are
needed?
Indicators of
Success
How will we know
the transition is
complete? How
will we know it is
working?
Planning and Leading Transitions to a School Library Learning Commons: Action Plan
15. Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach and Assess Learning
Themes
Instructional Leadership Instructional Partnerships
Engaging with Inquiry Approaches Differentiated Learning
Technology for Learning Assessment for, as and of learning
Evidence-Based Practice
20. Supporting Adaptive, Responsive Stances to
Teaching and Learning
Formative assessment [assessment for
learning] is a planned process in which teachers
or students use assessment-based evidence to
adjust what they're currently doing.
W. James Popham, Transformative Assessment (ASCD)
21. Evidence of Learning
C =
Conversations
P =
Products / Performance
O =
ObservationsTRIANGULATION
22. ● plan assessment concurrently and integrate it seamlessly with instruction;
● share learning goals and success criteria with students at the outset of learning to
ensure that students and teachers have a common and shared understanding of
these goals and criteria as learning progresses;
● gather information about student learning before, during, and at or near the end of a
period of instruction, using a variety of assessment strategies and tools;
● use assessment to inform instruction, guide next steps, and help students monitor
their progress towards achieving their learning goals;
● analyse and interpret evidence of learning;
● give and receive specific and timely descriptive feedback about student learning;
● help students to develop skills of peer and self-assessment.
As essential steps in assessment for learning and as learning, teachers need to:
23. Inquiry positions the teacher as an informed
practitioner refining planning, instruction and
assessment approaches in the continual
pursuit of greater precision, personalization
and innovation. A focus on student learning
drives inquiry. Data generated from student
actions and work compel teachers to
investigate new, engaging and relevant
questions about how and what their students
learn. These questions lead to informed
actions within the classroom, which in turn
serve to refine or initiate new investigations.
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html
24. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/capacityBuilding.html
Students are better able to evaluate and reflect
on their own learning and the collective learning
of the class when they have been part of the
learning process from the beginning, having
played an active role in the initial planning and
identification of main learning goals. In fact, a
key feature of inquiry-based learning is the
practice of revisiting initial theories and ideas,
both as individuals and as a class, and reflecting
on the ways in which current understanding
differs from the former. In this way, students
begin to experience learning as an ongoing
process, not an end point.
25. Learning to learn is a critical component of
student success. The Learning Commons’
information-rich and media-savvy
environments facilitate learning to learn. The
Learning Commons’ networked learning
experience and directed metacognition of what
is being learned – and how it is being learned
– facilitate learning to learn as well.
To improve their learning, students need
feedback and formative assessment
throughout a unit or project. They also need
opportunity and time to reflect and discuss
their findings with others.
https://www.accessola.org/OLAWEB/OSLA/Together_for_Learning/Learning_to_Learn.aspx
28. Cultivating Effective Instructional Design to Co-plan, Teach and Assess Learning
Teacher / teacher-librarian collaborative
inquiry for system change.
2012: Ottawa
Collaborative Teacher Inquiry and
the School Learning Commons
https://sites.google.com/site/treasuremountaincanada2/conte
http://lanyrd.com/2013/ecoo13/schpym/
29. It has been demonstrated that when librarians and
teachers work together, students achieve higher levels
of literacy, reading, learning, problem-solving, and
information and communication technology skills.
IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/libraries/manifestos/school_manifesto.html
30. In working together, teacher-librarians
in partnership with others can modify
the process, content, product and
environment to meet the needs of a
diverse student population. The result
will be empowered learners.
Together for Learning, p. 12
www.togetherforlearning.ca
31. http://www.metricsandlibraries.org/
Defining New Metrics for Library Success
School Libraries
Anita Brooks Kirkland
@AnitaBK
Jeanne Conte
@contej
University of Toronto iSchool Symposium, in partnership with Dysart & Jones Associates
April 22, 2014
Editor's Notes
Anita
Intro:
Anita
Session Outline
Time for questions & discussion at end? (We only have 45 minutes)
Anita
Lots of studies making links between library programs & student achievement
Largely correlational
Anita
Factors, yes, but what do we actually DO in each of these areas that makes a difference?
Are test scores the ultimate marker of success, or should we looking for other markers of value to the community of learners?
Anita
EBP is thoroughly entrenched in K-12 educational practices - Dr. Ross Todd a pioneer in research of outcomes as opposed to outputs, gathering and using evidence to improve practice.
Anita
Canadian Standards
Achieving Information Literacy set out an ambitious vision for school libraries in 2003
Standards are based on outputs, not outcomes
While standards have been extremely useful, they are outdated
The Challenge: How do we express standards in today’s evolving educational context? How do we deal with the broad range of understandings of the school library across the country, and even within provincial jurisdictions? How do we use the standards to unite rather than divide in this context?
Anita
The new Standards to be launched at CLA Conference in Victoria are intended to help schools transition into learning for the future. They call for an emphasis on futures oriented teaching and learning as a library learning commons and are framed around five core standards of practice that put school libraries at the centre of school improvement.
Anita
We still need excellent collections and physical and virtual facilities but to ensure we are improving learning we now have some tools to help schools make effective use of these valuable resources and at the same time help schools address many struggles with shifts in pedagogy .
Anita
The work of an effective school library learning commons is framed by five core standards of practice that weave together to generate dynamic learning. Each standard is supported by a growth continuum of indicators of success and authentic examples happening in libraries today.
For the library learning commons to be effective we need to build a collaborative culture, plan initiatives to advance school improvement, ensure knowledge building with best instructional design, continue to foster literacies and the joys of reading and enable all that to happen in learning environments that support participatory learning.
Anita
There are currently serious inequities in school library programs and facilities in Canada. Students who are in schools without a professionally staffed and resourced library program are not receiving the same education opportunities as those who participate in thriving learning commons collaborative learning environments. The volumes of research Anita cited earlier supports the expectation that every child has a right to an excellent school library program. One of the aims of the standards is to provide entry points for all schools. With this in mind, we acknowledge a pre-standards level, “Exploring” because we have many schools libraries, if they exist at all, managed by personnel with no library or educational training. At this pre-standards level the school community will be utilizing the standards to begin the review of their school library and to help them develop goals and action plans for moving forward. The next 4 levels are expanded into a series of themes and growth continuums. In keeping with the responsive nature of the School Library Learning Commons (SLLC), there is no end to the continuum as it evolves to keep pace with information and technology changes and school needs of the future.
Anita
Here you can see the major themes that are flushed out within each standard to help schools target areas of strength and weakness. Looking at the Literacies standard you will see at a glance the breakdown into categories. If a school library is already doing fine work to engage readers and build information literacy skills they may want to explore another theme they have not addressed such as Digital Literacy and Citizenship.
Anita
Let’s look a little deeper with the instructional design standard. The themes target major areas of concern for an effective collaborative teaching experience such as co-teaching, inquiry approaches, technology to boost learning and assessments. Supporting each of these themes in the document are indicators of growth for each of the 4 implementation strands. Each indicator has a real example from a school in Canada to show what effectiveness looks like. For example in the Evidence Based Practice theme we have links to tools to help develop a responsive program, a video documenting evidence of an effective inquiry learning experience, a collaborative teacher inquiry report and a link to a portal where teacher librarians are leading the way by sharing best practice for the benefit of the larger school library community.
These live indicators will help schools grasp the picture very quickly.
Anita
The learning commons is a whole school approach to learning where everyone - administration, teaching staff students and professionals leading the library are working together with common goals of preparing students for the future. The new Standards do more than provide vision and examples of effective practice they also provide a suggested process for transitions and many practical tools. The very first action suggested is developing a Learning Commons Leadership Team...this is too big a job for the teacher librarian alone it needs a team effort.
Anita
Of course to ensure sustainable change schools need to approach transitions to a library learning commons as a process not an event! It isn’t a case of just opening up the physical space and purchasing chairs on wheels, although that does help to enable collaborative learning. The transformed spaces will never be used if the rest of the standards are not embraced as well.
And like all school change it should evolve out of the needs of the school community and remain responsive to those needs through continuous assessment, followed by redesign to address challenges and new opportunities.
Anita
Back to our instructional design standard. How can the library learning commons team design instruction that meets Ontario assessment practices
Anita introduces Jeanne
Anita
The shift in Canada did not start with the new standards project. Learning Commons thinking has inspired change across the country, starting with Ontario’s own landmark document, Together for Learning: School Libraries and the Emergence of the Learning Commons, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education, and published by the Ontario Library Association in 2010. While the vision document has been published in print and is available as a downloadable PDF, the intent was always to create a living document, evolving with innovations in technology and in education, and linking practitioners to a bank of ideas for implementation. The project to realize that goal with a dedicated website was realized in 2012, and continues with ongoing development.
Major topics in the document.
Jeanne
Synergy between T4L and Growing Success / other education priorities & practices
Assessment is fully integrated into learning, not the end product.
