Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada

Johnston, Amy

Main Topic: ID, CO

Canadian School Libraries (CSL). (2020). Leading learning: Standards of practice for school library learning commons in Canada. http://llsop.canadianschoollibraries.ca

Summary: 

Leading Learning is the gold standard for developing learning commons in Canada. This comprehensive guide touches on all aspects of this course (educational theory, inquiry and design, collaboration, technology). The standards for effective practice include: 

• 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.

The guide gives interested parties tools and language to work at different growth stages of a learning commons. These include “exploring, emerging, evolving, established, leading and learning for the future”. Schools may find themselves at different levels for different standards. Each standard is broken down into different themes and with different criteria for different growth stages. Appendixes with worksheets are available to help stakeholders discover where they are at and where they can grow.

Evaluation:

This document was originally published in 2014. In 2016 it became a living document on the Canadian School Libraries website. The authors and contributors include many people from across the country. Students from the United States will find these standards and growth measures helpful for evaluating current school learning commons programs and ways that they could grow. There is also a helpful list of over 240 references available on the website. Although some now seem dated, the majority are still relevant to developing a learning commons today.

Unfortunately in Canada, there is no governing body for all school libraries, so while these standards are what manys school boards aim for, there is no accountability. Education is handled by provincial governments. In Ontario, different school boards have different approaches to school libraries. Some have full or part-time teacher librarians, where others have library technicians or library clerks. The standards can not be applied equally when the staffing levels are different. 

Overall this is a great tool for students to learn about school learning commons and to assess (hypothetically or theoretically) their approaches, teaching practices, collaboration and more.

Where to start? Creating virtual library spaces.

Litzinger, Vicki.

Buerkett, Rebecca. (2014). Where to start? Creating virtual library spaces. Knowledge Quest, 42(4), E23-E27.

IL

Summary
As we rethink and change our physical library spaces, the author points out that we cannot forget about our virtual spaces as well, “…creating a virtual library space should be a priority.” (E23) Buerkett walks us through the important steps of this process: choosing a platform, deciding on resources to include on the site, assessing the site, and tweaking, constantly. She also reminds to include a blog or news feed, pictures of students, widgets such as Shelfari or Flickr, and to certainly consider appeal and functionality. The author includes useful examples of websites to visit for ideas.

Evaluation
This article was concise and provided me with valuable information as I rethink my library’s presence online, and why I need to revise my website. I appreciated the reminder that a thoughtful and useful web presence is a valuable advocacy tool, and that it might be first place to start when rethinking and revisioning my library program.