Putting off part 2?

Thank goodness I've just finished part one of assignment 3. I finished it the other day but it's taken me all morning to reference it! I'm about to delve into part 2. I've previously read the 12 standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians and given some thought as to the most crucial 3. I've got it down to 4 so will have another look in a minute. At first glance it is striking me as a tad dull and tedious but other than that I've no idea what part 2 is really about, how to approach it and what references will be needed. I'm really digging Kuhlthau's ISP as it really helps me to know my thoughts and feelings, especially the ones of uncertainty ,feeling overwhelmed and confusion are quite normal steps in information processing.

I wanted to blog about all the reading I did on collaboration. I spent a fab day at a local outdoor cafe reading about 5 readings on this. I found the literature illuminating, especially the dawning that a school is much like any other business organisation and has very similar management issues. I should posted that night when all the ideas were fresh, because now they're not!!!

The concept of the school having the same functions as a corporation is quite a new idea for me. I have limited experience working in schools. I retrained and spent the majority of my teaching career teaching teenagers ESL in private colleges. A private college operates very much like a corporation, and lots of the issues that came up in the literature i could relate to my time teaching there. In this field of education, peer observation,review and sharing of ideas was a built in part of the system. Since my college also ran teacher training courses, my lessons were constantly being observed by trainee teachers as well as observations by the head teacher, my co-teachers and by members of the foreign organistaion to whom we were aligned. As a result I am very comfortable with being observed and evaluated and see this a a very necessary and valuable part of my own development as a teacher. It was seen as a natural part of our professional development, and was handled in a very positive way.

In contrast, in my experience the primary classroom often seems a very closed space. There is often the, untenable situation where the principal is not even doing in class observations of the teachers occasionally, let alone regularly. By only being observed when a problem arises, and not in the normal course of the running of the school, teachers naturally come to view observations and assessments as a negative process, and one they want to avoid. Maybe collaboration is also viewed as an infringement on the teacher's ownership of their space. I think the T/L can work in collaboration with the principal in developing a more collaborative, open door/wall space, one where teachers feel supported to try new things and feel valued by being encouraged to share their strengths with the faculty. Especially in this new environment where skills around information retrieval, storage, sharing, evaluation and use are so dynamic, i think a school environment where there is less "ownership" of ideas, and more a sense of the collective knowledge of the school, is necessary. Such an environment can be fostered by a gradual change to the way teachers view the sharing of information and lesson ideas, styles and approaches, facilitated by an increase in both peer observation and teaching as well as a focus on in-class evaluations by the administration.

Lesson observations are invaluable professional development and the T/L should collaboratively teach lessons with teachers as well as have teachers sitting in on their lessons as a natural part of the school timetable.

Random Thoughts on Info Process Models

I now see the benefits of Info Process models. When i first looked up the NSW process model in the very first week of this course I was amused at what appeared to me to be a mind map of common sense. I now realise that that was not far from the truth. Helping learners organise their cognitive processes and go one step further and engage in meta cognition, or thinking about their thinking, which doesn't happen automatically for most learners, is a great tool for them to control the stages or processes involved in their learning.

The staged process of help and its subsequent staged withdrawal is a useful attempt to engender these processes in learners even once the scaffold is no longer used, and a means to help ensure lifelong learning.

I see the potential of such models primarily if they are used beyond their compulsion. In evaluating these info process models learners were asked how the use of the scaffold made the process easier, more efficient etc. I think an important outcome needs to be whether using the model made the process more enjoyable to students. This didn't seem to be evaluated. Eg if the scaffold made the process more time consuming or tedious, it would be less enjoyable and the chance of students using this process when the mandatory use of the scaffold was taken away, would diminish. I think a worthwhile research study could involve the classroom use of a particular model over, say, 1 year and then at the end of the year a setting of a research project and an assessment of how many students actually choose to use the scaffold in whole or part, when they don't have to.

I also particularly like the mindmapping stage as in Herrings PLUS model, useful for collecting and organising, both ideas and possible info sources. Research is saying that todays learners are more visual, and mindmaping is therfore an increasingly relevant and useful tool.

literacy definition

I think the dialogue around the meaning of information literacy, and it's continual updating, is often superfluous. If literacy is the ability to effectively use (ie question, source, analyse, use and create) the current means of acquiring information and communicating ideas, as ICT's evolve and become an important means of doing both, naturally the nature of literacy must change to maintain the definition.
Spoken-print-ICT's

Authenticity

I am interested in the concept of authentic activities.

Wolf brush and Saye (p1) ,in the case study of the Big 6 model, talk of the need to infuse IL skills into the curriculum " in an effort to create authentic experiences for students in schools".

I would argue that their examples are not truly authentic activities as they do not fulfill the role of purpose, inherent in the nature of something authentic.

What is the aim of writing an article, designing a pamphlet, writing a letter etc? By ignoring the authentic purpose of the activity eg that a book review is to be read by other potential readers, a vacation schedule is to be followed, a newspaper article is to be published to inform, and replacing it with the unauthentic purpose of providing the teacher a product to assess, the authenticity of the activity or task is compromised. It doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile, but i would argue it isn't authentic.

It is the TL and teachers job to fulfill the purpose of the activity. This is an exciting opportunity for teachers to enhance collaboration within the school ie across classes/grades and to increase the use of ICT's in an authentic way ie between schools/countries, to use blogs to post book reviews/ research findings other students can access and use. Imagine if one class was researching info/ doing science experiment etc that another class was using as a source of info on a particular topic.

By truly authenticating activities by fulfilling their purpose, learner motivation, engagement and sense of purpose should be enhanced, which in turn should aid the cognitive processes in the processing of information.