TL and the curriculum - my thoughts

Argh!! Can I just say that my mind is exploding as I try to get my head around educational research -- there are way too many "...isms", "...ates", "...igms" and "...ologies"!!! Well to take a break, I thought I'd jot down some of my thoughts about the teacher librarian's role with curriculum change.

I really liked one article I read from Bales in a 2002 Access - she talked about herself as a leader in not only information literacy, but also changing pedagogy. I think that this is a very important role and I certainly work towards this goal.

Teacher Librarians are often at the forefront and are well positioned to support other teachers to embrace change.  We have whole site perspectives and so can support whole school initiatives and consistency in approach when necessary. Initiatives can come from international, federal, state, local or even the individual school level. For example, last year, our school had a whole site focus on comprehension strategies. This was identified by teachers as an area of need for our students.  I took a very strong leadership role in this in a couple of ways. Firstly, as there wasn't a lot of Australian resources at the time, I did a lot of research and shared with my colleagues some fantastic work that has been done in the US - eg. Fountas & Pinnell, Harvey and Goudvis and The2sisters - Gail and Joan - (Google Daily Cafe) etc. I also offered to team-teach the comprehension strategies and 1 inquiry unit, instead of my usual 2 inquiry learning units over the year. I worked with teachers in introducing the different strategies - explicitly modelling them, guided practice etc - very much based on Pearson and Gallagher's (1983) gradual resease of responsibility model. Half of the classes (interestingly the teachers who I have greater affinity with in terms of teaching style) took up my offer in term 1 and the others said they would go it alone. After the success of term 1, however, the other half of the classes then asked to work with mein Term 2 on comprehension. The benefits of this were that there were consistent understandings of the terms, strategies etc. Also, common language and approaches were used. Our school was involved in a literacy audit in Term 3 and one thing they really commended was this process and its results. A key aspect was that teachers could decide if they wanted to work with me. I don't think teachers should be forced to work with the teacher librarian. It should be encouraged but ultimately, teachers should be able to choose. I believe it is up to the teacher librarian to make their programs exciting, innovative and really responsive to the students' needs, so that teachers want to work with the teacher librarian. I agree with Cooper and Bray's stance on this.(see Cooper and Bray article about collaboration in TechTrends, July/Aug 2011)

I think that  teacher librarians being involved in curriculum development is critical at the moment also with the introduction of the new Australian Curriculum. Many teachers are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and even fed up - some are thinking - here we go again! I must admit, this is the third whole curriculum change that I have seen. (In actual fact, if you can see the consistency between them all,  so the change isn't so drastic or scary!)  Classroom teachers have a lot to come to terms with in terms of having to cope with different structure etc for all curriculum areas. This is particularly difficult in SA where we have composite classes and Year 7 still in Primary school. Teachers also have a lot to deal with in terms of other issues such as behaviour, other priorities within a school etc etc. I can help teachers become familiar  with just one aspect or area of the curriculum when I co-teach inquiry units. By me taking the lead, I can take the pressure off them a bit, show them one way of implementing the curriculum, give them direction and show them that they aren't so scary, and therefore make it altogether more manageable - the 'two heads are better than one'  and 'togehter we can achieve more' mentality. Again, I'm not sure if I have explained this clearly. This is very much what I did in my SACSA leadership position as I have explained in an earlier post.  The only difference is I am working with my own staff, and am being paid less!!

Well back to educational research! Argh!!!