Reflection on Phase 2 Learning

Image by: John Hain

 

What are your key takeaways, learning and direction after all this exploration?

There has been lots to explore this past four weeks.   While trying to narrow down the new strategies I want to try in my one-day-in-the-future library, I realized that the biggest, most important jobs a TL has is to develop relationships with those using the Library Learning Commons. It seems to be what binds all four topics together for me.  Relationships are the foundation upon which reading culture, ICT professional development and other library programs are built upon. Below I have briefly outlined how relationship building is important to each topic discussed over the past 4 weeks.

Reading Cultures: School libraries should be an inviting, welcoming space.  In order to create such a space the teacher librarian needs to get to know the school community, teachers and students.  TLs are responsible for crafting responsive programming, curating collections, creating useful spaces for patrons and engaging displays. Suzanne Simpson, in her post "Rebuilding: A Foundation Built on Trust", talks about TLs taking on a role during assemblies, which is an idea I had not thought of before.  Seeing the teacher librarian involved in many different school activities contributes to the feel of the library being at the centre of a school community. 

PLNs: PLNs essentially are online relationships built with other teachers with common interests. They are key to ongoing and timely professional development in the 21st Century.  Technology shifts so quickly, keeping up with these changes can be difficult and a PLN can help keep the most relevant and up to date ideas at your fingertips.  Tiffany Nyquist's blog post "Using Twitter to Develop a Personal Learning Network" has many suggestions on how to use Twitter to build an PLN.  I appreciated her perspective as an active user of Twitter. This is one area which I need to grow and will continue to be a focus for me going forward. 

ICT: As I mentioned previously keeping up with technology changes can be difficult and the TL needs to be up to date with their knowledge of ICT so that they may help or support their colleagues.  In order to do this the TL needs to create a safe, supportive atmosphere in which teachers can experiment and learn about technology. Conversations with colleagues go along way in building our knowledge of the teachers we work with and allowing the TL to better know what support each teacher wants or needs.

Developing World Libraries: Libraries are for more than just books and this topic put this idea front and centre for me.  Books and ICT are important but libraries also fulfill other roles crucial to communities.  They are responsive spaces that try to meet the needs of their patrons with the limited resources they may have. 

If you could pick just one topic from Phase 2 that resonated with you, which is it and why?

The one topic that resonated with me the most was Developing World Libraries.  This topic I had an emotional connection to.  I thought about my father's country in a new way that I am not sure I would have if I hadn't taken this course.  This particular topic made me dive deep into Facebook to look at Fijian libraries and aid agencies because there is very little to be found online. This was an eye opener for me. The only information to be found was from Facebook posts.   

What are the new avenues for development in your personal and professional practice?

As I mentioned earlier, I believe developing my PLN is important and area of need in my personal and professional practice. I will continue to work at developing a PLN through Twitter.  My biggest obstacle with Twitter is time - fitting in everything seems to be a struggle for me.

Early in the course I researched about makerspaces.  Partly because I don't use the makerspace in my school and I haven't seen others use it either.   My own reluctance to use the makerspace is due to not understanding its usefulness in learning.  As I have learned more, I think that makerspaces do have a lot to offer to students and teachers.  I was particualily interested when I found Vongkulluksn's (et al. 2021) study that showed that makerspaces could contribute to positive gains in growth mindset.

  I will have to spend some time exploring resources such as those from Renovated Learning, World  of Learning and John Spencer's website and YouTube channel. I hope to use our makerspace for some design challenges this Spring.  I think that getting teachers to use the makerspace comes down to knowing what is possible and offering some support along the way.  I believe that I will continue on this path for my final vision project.

Conclusion

 I have learned a lot over the past month.  Not only are libraries about books, they are also serve communities as meeting places, support and communication hubs.  I have only scratched the surface of the ICT I feel I should know about as a TL.  Hopefully the continued effort to develop a PLN will help me learn as I go and keep me up to date with new educational technology and ideas as they emerge. 

Works Cited:

Vanessa W. Vongkulluksn, Ananya M. Matewos & Gale M. Sinatra (2021) Growth mindset development in design-based makerspace: a longitudinal study, The Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00220671.2021.1872473.