Penny for your thoughts?

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

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Listen

My key takeaway from this exploration is that the role of the teacher-librarian is ever-evolving but that collaboration with staff and students is at its core.

What are the needs of the staff and students during this time? How can I support their literacy programs and respond to questions and concerns? Staff room impromptu conversations often generate a lot of ideas!

I am trying to get away from using email to update staff. I think we all have email fatigue now. Maybe I could try using Teams? Or I recently heard about  Slack which is an online collaboration tool. Something to explore!  

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

Image taken from inc.com

Think outside the library

·       virtual read alouds – especially in French – I had an idea that a teacher could read a book during assemblies on Teams

·       organize grade-level book clubs – We do MYRCA (Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award) book club but not all kids are participating which makes me think that we need to look at different genres to help generate interest and engagement

·       I really like Shannon’s “Ten in Ten” book talk initiative – especially that the books are already in the classroom. I would love to do this with the grade 8s – they are the least likely to check out books – something to investigate.

·       Explore different international charities like Room to Read, eGranary (Thank you Alison for finding that) and investigate doing some collaboration with a grade-level or classroom

What are you going to take with you, moving forward from your own explorations and from the explorations of others in this class?

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Be flexible and open to new ideas

I marvel at the flexibility and creativity of my teacher-librarian colleagues across the country. We are facing similar problems and yet, the resolve to keep students engaged in reading and responding to the needs of the staff is unchanged. I love it and it keeps me motivated. Continuing to review the blogs of my colleagues is something that I will do going forward.

Bibliography

Harte, S. (2020). LIBE 477 - Developing a Culture of Readers...From a Distance. Retrieved 7 November 2020, from https://hartelovesbooks.blogspot.com/2020/10/libr-477-developing-culture-of.html

How World Wide is the Web?. (2020). Retrieved 7 November 2020, from https://prmslearningcommons.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/how-world-wide-is-the-web/

Welcome to your new HQ. (2020). Retrieved 7 November 2020, from https://slack.com/intl/en-ca/


Comments

  1. CaaityNovember 9, 2020 at 9:34 PM

    Jennifer your ideas and takeaways from the inquiry process sound great! I like the idea of finding another way to update teachers, I am finding that emails are often missed (or opened and quickly forgotten about) when I send them out. I will have to check out Slack as well, thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alison MackleyNovember 11, 2020 at 3:31 PM

    Jennifer,

    I used to say yes to everything. It left me tired and frustrated, and so I started saying no. Then I became a Teacher Librarian, and found that I was going to need to change my perspective again. You hit the nail on the head when you say, you would like to become more flexible and open to ideas. This is so key to being a teacher librarian.

    Alison

    ReplyDelete
  3. D.McNeeNovember 15, 2020 at 7:13 PM

    This is a good post that reflects back on your learning from phase 2 of our course. I appreciate the way you demonstrate the power of a PLN by including your learning from your classmates' blogs. You have some strong takeaways here and ideas for the future.

    ReplyDelete

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