ETL504 Critical Reflection

My reflective journal in ‘Assessment 1’ referred to learning as a key element in becoming a leader.  The importance of learning has not waned but studies following that first assignment have highlighted the fact that Teacher Librarian’s are activists.  We are here to serve, to lead and to improve members within society.  We are in a position to reach all members of our individual whole school communities, as opposed to an instructional leader like the Principal.  As Teacher Librarians we are compelled to use this unique position to become effective and inspiring change agents.

To lead effectively, it is imperative that Teacher Librarians know how to do this and advocating the beliefs that drive ‘why’ we do what we do is integral for a Teacher Librarian to lead successfully. According to Bonanno & Moore (2009), to date, I have merely been promoting and marketing the library.  What I need to be doing is advocating it and convincing others to join me in this endeavour and commit to the vision.

Planning and programming is something teachers are already familiar with however convincing them as to why they should collaborate with the Teacher Librarian, who is an information specialist is one of the biggest challenges I face.  The staff at my school are highly experienced teachers and this does tamper with my confidence. I know I can make a difference in teaching and learning but perhaps I need to convince myself of that during the trial.  Collaborative planning and programming will develop best practices and pedagogy that promote the use of 21st century skills and this is what needs to be advocated.

I am keen to implement a strategic planning and believe it is a necessary professional tool of a Teacher Librarian that includes the likes of sharing a vision, defining goals, developing strategies to achieve those goals and outlining the desired targets from those activities which is primarily driven by the desire to increase student achievement.  The plan can also aid in promoting the professional status of the Teacher Librarian, demonstrate accountability through the likes of evidence based practice.

Time management and prioritising activities has always been a struggle but I now have a sense of hope as a strategic plan will provide guided direction, with specified times for each strategy or activity, keeping myself and stakeholders on task and honest.  Implementing change such as this will require flexibility as well as constant reflection and set review dates.

I am somewhat daunted by the importance, need and demands of a Teacher Librarian. Fearful that I might not live up to my expectations or that of others. Thankfully as Teacher Librarian I will be working collaboratively with stakeholders, sharing tasks, activities and knowledge including equipping initial staff from the trial with strategies and skills to improve practice through inquiry learning so that those particular staff can lead others and support the vision and goals.

I intend to be open, honest and will strive to be supportive and inspiring.  I will be making it clear that I do not know everything and that the teacher’s input is valued and a necessary part of a team effort. High levels of communication and collegial collaborative planning and programming will create a strong education system through a united front that shares the same goals.

To be innovative and stay abreast of the latest technology will enable me, as the Teacher Librarian, to remain an information professional who is willing to share this knowledge with others and lead relevant professional development through the likes of planned workshops, mentoring and continual individual support both formal and informal. Networking with other Teacher Librarians will be necessary and beneficial.

I am excited and keen to spend the last term of this year in preparation mode, providing a proposal to the Principal and executive, completing a future strategic plan with assistance from stakeholders and hopefully commencing in 2014. Although my studies towards a Graduate Certificate may be coming to an end, my journey is only just beginning.

Thinking of Libraries Differently

Libraries are not strangers to big ideas. Chained books to open stacks, public library. browsing, public library enormous ideas. public resource without censorship. worldwide networks of services is enormous ideas.

Innovation is different to entrepreneurship (marketplace of capital = this comes with risk, chance to make capital).  Innovation is masses (through the internet), expertise and time = marketplace of ideas. If you are committed to knowledge, committed to making your community a better place, if you understand and see knowledge and openness as enriching.

Particiption – user, reader, patron, customer, information consumer (!!!) communities who take and not give, where are they taught to participate in what is going on, are we preparing people???  We call them members, they have a card, sense of co-ownership, we are of the people not for the people. intricate life long partnership.  participation is urgent for us to understand. belonging, working together.

Democracy. ‘A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry’. Thomas Jefferson. If this is not what you are about, why are you there?  why are you there?  ‘all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent’. Thomas Jefferson.  Actively informed citizen, actively developing voters, actively helping them to understand intricacy of issues.

The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.

Promotional marketing

Why should someone want what the library and TL have to offer?

• Put together story about how you will meet their needs.
• Telling the story in a short, compelling, succinct statement is called a tagline.
• reflecting the story in a visual image is called a logo.
• putting your tagline and visual image together is called a brand.
• A brand can be developed for a product service, or an institution.

A vision is the story? The pictures of the school logo should also be somewhat reflected in the library vision and mission along with the school mission.  Do we create a new logo for the school library separate to KEPS logo.

 

ASLA – Advocacy: reason, responsibility and rhetoric

Wow!!! To date I have promoted and marketed the library and its services. I need to start advocating it.  The school library and TL can connect with the schools agenda. In order to advance the position of the school as an information literate learning community. Planned and deliberate advocacy activities will work towards building effective partnerships, influential relationships, interactive decision making and collaborative activity. Investing in the school’s future. Emphasis is on connections, not collection.

Target audience? specific content (key message & crucial information)? what is it they must think, feel and do? most effective method of delivery?

The many faces of school library leadership, Coatney (2010)

This is a great reminder of what TLs do and strive to do as it is a multifaceted leadership role:

• keep current on research into best instructional practice and provide information and training for faculty and staff – thus encouraging best practice and promoting student achievement.
• keeping up to date on current technologies and providing training for faculty and staff – thus encouraging student motivation, interest and innovation.
• serving on curriculum committees and providing leadership to integrate student inquiry into the school’s curriculum – thus encouraging best practice and promoting student achievement.
• modelling best practice in instruction and innovative uses of technology, teaching students the skills necessary to structure inquiry while fostering the disposition of lifelong learning – thus promoting best practice.
• helping teachers teach – thus promoting and modelling best practice, encouraging trust, and fostering student achievement.
• modelling and promoting privacy, ethical use of information, equal access to information and intellectual freedom by informing students, staff and faculty of accepted practices and legal and ethical requirements – thus promoting trust and enhancing and empowering students access to all information.
• envisioning the future and always looking for new and better ways to promote student inquiry and build a more effective learning community.

 

Libraries, change & leadership

Cadwell (2010)

Leading from the middle. Change Management = No longer just executives, championed by lots of people at many levels, formal position or authority alone cannot implement change and everyone can develop the ability to lead change over time.

Five critical leadership behaviours. Dimensions of change: modelling the change, communicating about the change, involving others in the change, helping others break from the past and creating a supportive learning environment.

1. Modelling – how do my actions help others change, do I stop and think before I make change.  ‘to overcome the resistance of change, one must be willing, for starters to change oneself’ James O’Toole, Leading Change. Walk the talk and opinion leaders (finding them). Challenges = being first, glaring attention, role model and do as I say, not as I do. Uncomfortable!
2. Communicating about the change – ‘many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request’ chinese proverb. continuous, relevant, accessible and ALL audiences. use empathy acknowledge others emotions. challenges = the unknown, raising hopes, unfavourable information and repetition of the same message. Tangible approaches: communicate with a variety of methods, with a wide audience, share possible outcomes and their estimated likelihood and don’t dictate  the way people should feel.
3. Involving others with change: ‘the way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away’. Linus Pauling, American Chemist.  Do change with people not to people. building commitment, not compliance and those closest to change probably have best ideas. Challenges = too much time, too many opinions and too distracting. Tangible approaches: employ problem-finding, fully consider others’ ideas, let others know what happened to their ideas, practice empathic and non-defensive listening, ask effective questions.
4. Help others break from the past. To start something new, you must leave something behind. create a ‘burning platform’. clearly define what will be the future. ‘the past is over and the future hasn’t happened yet’.  Challenges = everything’s great, creating turbulence, maintaining the status quo and established traditions.               Tangible approaches: play devil’s advocate, stage a symbolic break with the past, support innovation, sponsor wild ideas and encourage continuous improvement.
5. creating a supportive learning environment. improvise, act, improvise, act, improvise, act. recognise mistakes are part of the process, change and learning are synonymous, ok not to have the answer.  Challenges = trying something new, making mistakes, punishing trial and error attempts, results focused, time pressure.                                          Tangible approaches: focus attention toward problem correction, admit what you don’t know, declare a practice zone and support time for training.

Kucha (2012)

In face of change, we need to cultivate entrepreneurial Leadership – focus on innovation and change

Roles:

1. Cheerleader and conveyor of vision – recognises needed for change, communicates it, persuade others to do things differently
2. Opportunity seeker – make use of change opportunity aligned with general principals and values
3. Master strategist – framing strategies, eliminate obstacles, support from stakeholders goal to solutions.

Leaders are not born but that they are created. We can all be leaders. Leadership institutes – e.g. library associations.  what are obstacles? what to do? Reboot studies on society. Praxis, bring world into the classroom and let the students out into the world. School needs to be a safe space.

The era of iSchool Libraries, O’Connell (2012)

This article is a good reminder about the changing information landscape and its inclusion in education for TLs.

Physical spaces into collaborative work areas, spaces for relaxation – designed for reading, info gathering, analysis and sharing; and media creation. Flexible learning spaces. Designing a library to become active agents of learning.

TL have an increasingly important role to play in nurturing information-literate engagement with content. this is because IL strategies needed to ensure critical thinking and problem solving when making connections with information.

Content exploration and learning demands a mix and match approach:

• search engines
• evaluation strategies
• critical thinking and problem solving
• networked conversation and collaboration
• cloud computing environments
• ethical use and production of info
• info curation of personal and distributed knowledge.

core information research tools available:

• microblogging tools for info sharing by teachers, students, classes and the school community in primary schools e.g. edmodo, yammer, google+ or twitter.
• social bookmarking and tagged collections e.g. diigo, flickr, vodpod
• collaborative writing, editing, mind-mapping and presentation tools, e.g. google docs, exploratree, voicethread, mindmeister, wikispaces
• research tools for online info management, writing and collaboration e.g. zotero, endnote, easybib, bibme, mendeley, refworks
• information capture in multiple platforms and on multiple devices e.g. evernote, scribble.com
• library catalogues, databases and open access repositories – all used for info collection, RSS topic and journal alerts, and compatible with research organisation tools
• aggregators, newsreaders and start pages, e.g. igoogle, netvibes, symbaloo, feedly
• online storage, file sharing and content management across multiple platforms and computers, e.g. dropbox, box.net, skydrive.

leadership learning conversations:

• curriculum conversation and innovation
• PBL
• guided inquiry
• virtual and gaming environments
• digital divide, and credibility of online info
• contemporary media and open online access
• participatory evaluation of info
• digital citizenship
• internet safety
• responsible use of info
• global sharing of leading practice and resources to support the 21st century learner.
• scholary research
• standards for 21st century lesson plan database
• teacher librarian ning (http://teacherlibrarian.ning.com/)
• community entrepreneur
• bring together conversations and resources to build knowledge
• staff development to enhance student and staff learning in collaborative environments.
• community outreach, supporting motivating the core of learning mission of the school.

Transformational Leadership, Belisle (2005)

This is a fantastic article that highlights the importance of teachers as leaders, including the TL. It emphasises the benefits for the whole school when collaboration and professional development are supported. It discusses the sense of isolation in teaching and how to end it.

‘If TLs as a group are going to survive and have an effect on educational reform, they need to adopt strategies or transformational leadership that reach beyond the walls of the library’.

‘TL can be a change agent by taking a role as an instructional leader and assisting with moving from low to high-consensus. It has been my experience that a strong teacher leader can bring others along into new awareness of profession. TLs need to strive to become dynamic change agents’.

Become a part of improving the whole school. TL needs to make links with principal, teachers and school community happen.

‘Teachers who become leaders experience personal and professional satisfaction, a reduction of isolation, a sense of instrumentality, and near learnings – all of which spill over into teaching. As school based reformers these teachers become owners and investors in the school, rather than mere tenants. they become professionals’. (Barth, p1)

 

 

How great leaders inspire action, Sinek (2009)

Why?

All great and inspiring leaders think, act and communicate the exact same way.  Its the golden circle.  Why? How? What?

1. What: everyone knows what they do – e.g. apple we make great computers (neocortex corresponds with this level)
2. How: some know how they do it – e.g. beautifully designed want to buy one
3. Why: not everyone understands the purpose. e.g. everything we do we believe, in making things differently. (limberick brains are middle two sections trust, loyalty, decision making)

People buy why you do it. Why is the most important aspect.  Do business with people who believe what you believe. Operate from inside out no starting with what. You must know why you do what you do. goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe, goal is to hire people who believe what you believe.

If you are driven by a cause, by a belief this will drive everyone. It will attract those who believe what you believe. Law of diffusion of innovation.  Means the first 2.5% of population = innovators, next  13.5% = early adopters, next 34% = early majority, next 34% = late majority = final 16% = laggers. First 17% are people who believe in it.  They want to be first.

This leaves me contemplating how can I make teachers believe that together we can make teaching and learning better. Teachers will show up for themselves. I want them to take my belief that together a teacher librarian and teacher provide a stronger teaching and learning experience. I want teachers to make this their own belief.  That is my goal.

 

 

One of my first attempts at strategic planning!!!

Library Goals/Vision/SWOT

This incomplete effort was my attempts at trying to establish what direction the strategic plan would take. The thing I found most useful for my own analysis was the SWOT analysis!!

What was really interesting was by using this layout and approaching it early on in this subject I found it difficult to group goals, defining strategies and contemplate eventual targets.

Anyone can learn to become a leader but technical, conceptual and interpersonal skills are something that everyone at some point has to learn.  That’s how we become professionals!