This week's post about my vision project was a struggle for me. I have written and rewritten this post so many times that I have lost count. I think I have finally settled on an idea that I will benefit my students, my school community, myself and other teachers.
Potential Idea/Goal: I will create a presentation about makerspaces that can be shared with my school staff and perhaps beyond. The makerspace is one area of our school that goes unused most of the time. I intend to present what makerspaces are along with an annotated list of articles or posts outlining the benefits of using makerspaces, such as growth mindset gains and other resources, such as those on John Spencers YouTube channel or by Brooke Brown. I will also create several makerspace challenges focused around Canadian landmarks that could be used in June before Canada Day (perhaps with a road trip theme). In my mind, mid to late June is a good time to try things out because you know your class well, assessment is wrapping up and students need engaging tasks to work on in order to hold their focus. One problem I have thought of is that the challenges I make for the middle grades (which is what I am most familiar with) will not necessarily be of use to the upper grades or early primary. I am hoping that providing the ideas and editable slides, teacher will be able to modify the challenges to make it work for their students. These makerspace challenges will be focused around blocks, gears and other reusable materials we have in our makerspace. We currently do not have consumables such as cardboard, duct tape, straws and pipe cleaners stocked in our makerspace. I think that sticking with what is at hand in our makerspace will encourage teachers to try it out as there would be minimal prep and materials are easy to clean up.
Potential Designs: I think that I will create my presentation in Google Slides. This can be downloaded as a powerpoint or pdf and saved to OneDrive (which is part our districts preferred platform, Office 365) or saved directly to Google Drive. I know that I will have to make a version where downloaders must create their own copy to prevent editing of the original slides.
Your Turn - Bring on the Advice: What am I missing? Is there a better way to present information on makerspaces? I would appreciate any advice you have to offer.
How can teacher-librarians support teachers ICT curriculum and pedagogy? Currently, I am in the classroom and I have not yet had the opportunity to act as a teacher librarian so I have not thought much about how I will support teachers. However, the best practices we use with students, should also be used when teachers are the students. Like the classroom, I would first start with building relationships, followed by building opportunities to learn.
Teachers need to view a teacher librarian as approachable, knowledgeable and willing to help. For staff to see this a relationship needs to be fostered.
There are lots of ideas out there on how to build relationships between colleagues - eat in the lunch room, make rounds to see what is going on in the building, but my favourite was something I experienced. I once had a vice principal who kept chocolate in her office. If you had a bad day you could go and help yourself. If she was there then you probably had a conversation and left feeling better (plus you still got chocolate) but even if you didn't you knew she cared - she left you chocolate after all. Carolee Walker talks about how being the 'candy lady' brings people to her that she wouldn't normally interact with and that socializing at work is good for you. I suspect you will find a box of candy behind the desk in my library one day.
One idea I had to get to know teachers better is to ask them to fill out a survey. The survey would be aimed at discovering what they know, what they want to know, what they have tried in the past that worked or what didn't work for them. This way I would know what tools, technology or resources I could curate to meet their needs. Also, a survey that is followed up on by the teacher librarian, gives teachers a voice. I could tailor any professional development I plan I would develop towards what teachers are curious about. Therefore making the professional development relevant and timely.
Provide Choice In Learning - It's Motivating
Providing students with choice has proven to motivate learning. Judy Willis, a former teacher turned neurologist, explains that the brain chemical dopamine promotes intrinsic motivation. Dopamine provides a rush when we've achieved a goal and is linked to intrinsic motivation. Dopamine is produced when people are given choice.
Some ideas involving choice I thought were interesting:
1) Teacher Tech Playground.
Monique Flickinger had an interesting article that talked about having a Teacher Tech Playground where teachers have the opportunity to play around with various technology. It seems like a low stress, fun and supportive environment in which to learn something new. Also, teachers would have choice as to what technology they would like to try out with some support from their colleagues or the teacher librarian if they choose.
2) Pathways
From my own experience, being able to play around with technology or ideas on my own time is something that I look for in PD. One of the most effective PD I've attended happened this past summer, where we learnt about Teams, our district's preferred digital platform. The day consisted of an online presentation followed by digital handouts. We were given a 'pathway' or a series of links to videos and other resources to help us discover more about the various applications available to teachers through Teams. The remainder of the time that day, I was able to explore many videos and try many of the applications out. I feel like having the time to explore on my own allowed me to learn more deeply about the applications and how they could be useful in my classroom. One of the reasons that maybe this pathway resonates with me could relate back to my exploration of growth mindset. Pathways track your progress and as O'Rouke (2016) found in her study, progress tracking is motivating. I could see developing pathways in other areas to support teachers' learning.
A photograph of the pathway created by Michel Gagnon. Each icon or button is a link leading to resources.
3) Book Clubs
Book clubs featuring professional books, have been successful at my current school. Often teachers meet at lunch or after school for an informal chat about the section of the book they had agreed to read. Given covid isn't going anywhere fast, an online book club for teachers may be a good alternative. Cheryl Boes describes how an online book club can be advantageous for those who have busy schedules. She suggests having moderator for the book club who posts questions about the reading in a blog post that teachers can respond to through the comment section.
Differentiation and Mentorship Are For Teachers, Too
Differentiantion is not only for students. Teachers benefit as well. The pathway discussed above is one example of differentiation. A teacher could start anywhere along that path depending on their experience.
In the video below, Kristen Daniels points out in this video that by differentiating and providing choice and support for teachers using technology empowers them to affect their school community and beyond.
Howard (et al 2015) found that teachers who are reluctant to use technology in the classroom do so often because they are not confident that they can trouble shoot if the need arises. A teacher librarian may be able to work alongside the teacher providing assistance. As Dweck (2014) has found students (or teachers) with a growth mindset realize that if they stick with something and get mentorship when need it, they will learn and grow.
Your Turn
Supporting teachers I feel requires teachers librarians to firstly develop relationships with those teachers. Only once the relationships are formed will a teacher librarian know the needs of staff. Providing inservice opportunities is important and best practices tell us people learn best when they have choice, opportunities to talk and reflect as well as, receive mentorship and support at their level.
How do you support your staff? What methods have you tried that have been successful?
Works Cited
Howard, Sarah Katherine and Mozejko, Adrian, "Teachers: technology, change and resistance" (2015). Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers. 1830. https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/1830
O'Rourke, Eleanor, Erin Peach, Carol S. Dweck, and Zoran Popovic. (2016). Brain Points: A Deeper Look at a Growth Mindset Incentive Structure for an Educational Game. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 41–50.https://doi.org/10.1145/2876034.2876040
