Unlocking the Power of Collaboration: A Guide for Teacher Librarians

Topic: CO

Reference: D’Orio, W. (2019, February 20). Powerful Partnerships: Librarian-teacher collaborations yield robust, original ideas. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/powerful-partnerships:

Summary: Ever wondered how the magic happens when librarians and teachers team up? Wayne D’Orio’s eye-opening article, “Powerful Partnerships: Librarian-Teacher Collaborations Yield Robust, Original Ideas,” is for librarians eager to bring their A-game to their teaching practice. This article, published in the School Library Journal, dives into the world of collaboration between school media specialists and classroom teachers, showcasing how these partnerships can be the secret to curriculum enrichment, student engagement, and powerful educational learning experiences.

D’Orio exemplifies two examples of librarians who demonstrated innovation and ingenuity. Librarian Janine Johnson led a charge on human body studies, and Mary Catherine Coleman crafted projects that turned students into art-machine inventors. The article highlights these success stories, proving that librarians aren’t just bookkeepers; they’re the creative collaborators ready to elevate teaching throughout the school. These collaborations aren’t just about learning; they’re about engaging students on a whole new level, breaking down the walls between subjects and turning education into a thrilling adventure.

Evaluation: 

D’Orio’s article serves as a mentor and guide for librarians seeking genuine collaboration with teachers, offering more than just practical advice. It dismantles some of the fears and barriers surrounding teacher/librarian collaborations but also instills confidence and inspiration in librarians to take the plunge into collaboration projects. The article goes beyond being a conventional how-to guide; it’s a compelling battle cry, urging librarians to recognize their expertise, dive headfirst into collaborations, and seize control of the education landscape. Emphasizing that collaboration is not merely a checkbox on a to-do list, the examples showcased in this article highlights the adaptability and creativity that collaborative units can take, reinforcing collaboration as a practice that shapes the future of education.

So, teacher librarians, if you’re ready to turn collaboration from a buzzword to a game-changer, D’Orio’s article is your go-to playbook. It’s not just informative; it’s a roadmap to becoming the rockstar teacher librarian who doesn’t just follow the educational trends but sets them. Dive in, and let collaboration light up your professional journey! 🚀

From Service Role to Partnership: Faculty Voices on Collaboration with Librarians

Name: Rouanzion, Taylor

Topic: Collaboration (CO)

Citation: Perez-Stable, M.A., Arnold, J.M., Guth, L.F., & Meer, P.F.V. (2020). From service role to partnership: Faculty voices on collaboration with librarians. Libraries and the Academy 20(1), 49-72. doi:10.1353/pla.2020.0004. https://muse-jhu-edu.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/article/747555

Summary: Two universities surveyed teachers’ practices and views about collaboration with librarians to learn what teachers’ thoughts on collaborating with librarians, why they would or would not collaborate, and what they would hope to gain from collaborating. The study revealed that the most common method of co-teaching was utilizing librarians for an introductory lesson. Motivations for co-teaching were found to include skill development, librarian expertise, and access to resources. Reasons given for not co-teaching included being unaware of the service, not feeling it was needed, and not having the time. The study’s authors recommend librarians market themselves to teachers using the most common motivational factors of skill development and librarian expertise.

Evaluation: This study proves very useful for school librarians in helping them understand the motivations behind teachers’ decision to or reluctance to coteach. While the study’s authors do provide some recommendations for school librarians on how to successfully recruit teachers for collaboration, the majority of the article focuses on the study itself and librarians will need to create their own strategies and plans going forward to increase willingness to collaborate among their school’s faculty.

Categories and Tags: CO-Collaboration, CO, Co-teaching, Coteaching

Collaborating with your school librarian: Ten ways to work with your highly trained colleagues in the library to enhance literacy

Name: De La Rosa, Annika

Topic: CO Collaboration/coteaching

Citation: Gregory, Jamie. (2018). Collaborating with your school librarian: Ten ways to work with your  highly trained colleagues in the library to enhance literacy instruction. https://www.edutopia.org/article/collaborating-your-school-librarian

Summary: In this article, author Jamie Gregory, gives ten suggestions for collaborating with your school Liberian. Gregory examines the South Carolina Association of School Librarians and their advocacy for school librarianship and role in student achievement. The article acknowledges that there is a rise in classroom libraries, and a call for more diverse books. However, what most are forgetting is that the credentialed librarian has more information about literacy and book selection that the average teacher does. Gregory states that encouraging classroom teachers to collaborate with the librarian when developing their classroom collections helps to expose students to more award winning and purposeful text.

Evaluation: This article was a very well written and encouraging read. It helped to solidify my understanding of the role of a school librarian, and ways that we can help support classroom teachers. The ten suggestions were really useful, and things that classroom teachers as well as librarians should be conscious of .

Categories: Collaboration, coteaching models, collaborative planning

Tags: coteaching, collaboration, coteach,

Librarians and Teachers Collaborating Together

Miller, Kelly, Info Spring 2021

Main Topic: CO

Southworth, A. (2013). Speaking My Mind: Poised to Partner: The 21st-Century School Librarian. The English Journal, 102(5), 94-96. Retrieved March 5, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24484105

Summary:

The school librarian no longer stays only in the library and focuses on those who come in looking for information. They are now an underutilized tool that teachers can use to collaborate with and help enhance a student’s educational time in and out of school. Librarians are now looking to collaborate more with teachers to develop curriculum, support common core standards, and think outside of the box to engage students. They are the essential teaching partner who is prepared to meet the changing needs of both students and teachers. Librarians are posed to be the best help when it comes to finding information to fit into common core standards and are willing to collaborate with teachers to find new sources. Some are even willing to curate and customize materials for standards and teachers to gain new interest from students and shake up the bore of standardized learning. Librarians are transforming the library and bringing it into the 21^st-century by becoming a place to meet others, access data, and create information.

Evaluation:

This article strongly tries to sell the reader on the idea of collaboration with their school librarian and comes off more as an advertisement than a factual article, but this article does have several good points that proves that the school librarian no longer only works with only those that visit the library. Instead the librarian is going out and trying to connect and establish relationships with more teachers and students. Teachers and students should be looking towards the librarian as a new resource that can help them achieve more of their potential. The school librarian is bringing the 21^st-century into schools and creating a more inviting and innovate space that allows for collaboration and acceptance. Using the librarian as another tool in the school’s toolbox will allow for a more culminating learning experience and students will gain a larger knowledgebase.

Using Collaborative Learning Method

Kate Lasky, INFO 250 Spring 2021

Main topic: CO

Alshahrani, Hind. (2016). Using Collaborative Learning Method in Saudi Math Classroom. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. ProQuest: https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/docview/1870036444?pq-origsite=primo

Summary

This thesis explores collaborative learning strategy and demonstrates that teachers have different levels of understanding of collaboration. The researcher provides an extensive literature review covering collaborative learning, learning practices, motivation, and interpersonal relations. The main research question is “How do Saudi teachers use collaborative learning in the mathematics classrooms?” The methodology for the study includes survey self-reporting of teachers and students on collaborative learning experiences. Connections were found among the variables that demonstrate a structured approach to teaching supports outcomes at all levels of understanding.

Evaluation

Many teachers are overwhelmed by large curriculums that dominate planning time, but collaborative learning outcomes can still be employed. This study demonstrates that teachers rely on traditional methods of lesson planning in order to save the class time and to finish the curriculum each semester. Administrators could support collaborative learning by deploying structures to support teachers and students, such as including more time for classes and workshops to help teachers learn about collaborative models of thinking. Administrators may also benefit from controlling classroom size to allow for collaboration.

Collaboration in the Time of COVID (Podcast)

https://schoollibrariansunited.libsyn.com/virtual-collaboration

Name: Christensen, Kaeley

Topic: CO, Collaborative Teaching, Collaboration, Co-Teaching

APA Citation: Hermon, Amy, E. P. (2018-present). School Librarians United [Audio podcast]. https://schoollibrariansunited.libsyn.com/virtual-collaboration

Summary: This podcast, available from the link above, or in apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, offers a current insight on how librarians can genuinely support classroom learning in a virtual setting. From being more available to attend staff meetings, PLCs with grade levels, and providing forward-thinking assistance, collaboration has never been easier or more appreciated.

Evaluation: This is a podcast I have been listening to for several months now, and I have yet to be disappointed. Along with the audio of this episode, great effort has been made to provide pdf links, slide decks, and applicable examples of how the guest speaker was able and successful at her collaboration with teachers in her multiple school sites simultaneously. There are several “gems”

This podcast has provided incredibly useful resources for me, as a new librarian, as someone relatively new to digital resources, virtual learning spaces, and all things library-related. I encourage you to follow this podcast, as well as School Librarians United on twitter. This is a community you will be grateful to join.

Collaboration and the Value of Assessments

Name: Nicdao, Jocelyn

Topic: CO

Citation: Moreillon, J. (2019). Co-planning and co-implementing assessment and evaluation strategies for inquiry learning. Knowledge Quest, 47(3), 40-47. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1201075.pdf

Summary: Moreillon discusses the importance of school librarians to work in “comprehensive collaboration” with classroom teachers and/or learning specialists in order to be valuable in the academic partnership. In such collaborative efforts, both school librarians and classroom teachers and/or learning specialists actively work together in the planning, implementation, assessment, and evaluation of a unit. More specifically, Moreillon emphasizes the value and use of assessments especially from both the school librarian and classroom teacher and/or learning specialist. Assessments coming from the collaboration of two or more adults allow for reliability and for different perspectives in practice and in the learning process. Assessments guide in the co-planning of learning throughout the unit, focused on the “what?” and the “how?” students learn in the process and the quality of that learning. Further, assessments allow for the co-implementation of further academic supports such as small groups or one-on-one for students who may struggle or the co-implementation of lessons to reteach with examples or to  re-frame for the whole class. Moreover, assessments inform the evaluation of the unit itself, with both the school librarian and classroom teacher and/or learning specialists seeing its successes and needs for improvement and thereby, planning for the next unit.

Evaluation: I find that Moreillon is basically encouraging school librarians to be a valuable part of the collaboration process, using assessments as tools to collaborate successfully with the classroom teacher and/or learning specialist in the planning, implementation, assessment, and evaluation of a co-taught unit. With that, she includes in this article examples of forms that can be used in the collaboration process. As she points out the many benefits and examples of co-assessments from both librarian and classroom teacher and/or learning specialist, I realize how much rich input school librarians can provide in co-teaching a unit and thus, become a prolific part of the academic partnership.

Piloting the Learning Commons

Jay, Jessica

CO

Murray, E. (2015). Piloting the learning commons: Coteaching and collaboration between a classroom teacher and a teacher librarian. 43(1), 18-24.https://sjsu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_gale_ofa433385848&context=PC&vid=01CALS_SJO&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US

Summary

This article focused on the collaboration efforts of a 3rd grade classroom teacher and a teacher librarian.  The media center was changed into a learning common area with the classroom teacher and the teacher librarian collaborating together to teach students.  This article detailed a successful coteaching plan between a teacher librarian and a general educator. This study proved to be academically advantageous to students, as well.  

Evaluation

The results of this study were inspiring to me as a future teacher librarian.  To have a space that isn’t set aside just once a week for ‘library class’, but instead is transformed into a common, easily accessible learning area, is very exciting.  The students benefit, as well as the teachers. I’d love to try this model when I am officially a teacher librarian!

Effective Co-teaching

Bader, Devorah

CO-Collaboration

Pratt, S. (2014). Achieving symbiosis: Working through challenges found in co-teaching to achieve effective co-teaching relationships. Teaching and Teacher Education, 41, 1-12. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X14000249

Summary/Abstract: This grounded theory study explored how secondary school co-teachers in an urban Eastern Iowa school district resolved challenges to co-teaching relationships. Five partnerships participated in focus group interviews, interpersonal behavior questionnaires, classroom observations, and individual interviews. The resulting theory, Achieving Symbiosis, explains how co-teaching partnerships became effective in their collaboration through using personal differences and strengths to become interdependent. This theory provides helpful strategies grounded in the field for co-teachers as they seek to begin or improve collaborative teaching relationships, for administrators as they support co-teachers, and for teacher educators as they prepare students for collaborative partnerships.

This was a good article discussing the challenges with co-teaching and how to work with different strengths and weaknesses.  I particularly liked how it connected with the stages of group development that we learned about in INFO 204 and gave direction on how to relationship between the co-teachers is as important as the content they are trying to teach.