PREPARING TEACHER LIBRARIANS TO LEAD TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION TO SUPPORT STEM EDUCATION

A current focus in schools in the United States is STEM education, which prepares students for successful employment and post-secondary studies that require unique and more-technically advanced skills through teaching and learning in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This approach is grounded in problem solving, discovery, and exploratory learning, which requires students to actively engage in a situation in order to find its solution. Students engage in STEM learning in many different ways, with technology and digital resources playing an important role. The prominence of technology in STEM education provides leadership opportunities for teacher librarians. Yet, teacher librarians must be prepared to lead in the integration of technology to support STEM education. This report presents identified needs of teacher librarians in regards to supporting STEM education and discusses implications for better preparing pre-service teacher librarians to lead in order to address the needs of a new generation of learners.

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Supporting STEM Education in the School Library with Digital Tools

IASL Annual Conference Proceedings ◽

10.29173/iasl8301 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Melissa P. Johnston ◽

Lucy Santos Green ◽

Amanda Jones ◽

Erica Thompson

Keyword(s):

Stem Education ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

School Library ◽

Digital Tools ◽

Leadership Roles ◽

Federally Funded ◽

Stem Learning ◽

Digital Resources ◽

K 12 ◽

Teacher Librarians

The prominence of technology in STEM education provides opportunities for teacher librarians to collaborate with teachers across multiple disciplines and embrace leadership roles through integrating digital tools for teaching and learning. This presentation will discuss work from the federally funded REALISD project which is providing professional development for K-12 teacher librarians for designing and facilitating STEM learning in their schools. Participants will learn about locating, accessing, and evaluating digital resources, along with strategies for utilizing resources to provide learning experiences in the STEM areas through both formal and informal instruction.

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Empowering Teacher Librarians to Support STEM Education: Preliminary Findings

IASL Annual Conference Proceedings ◽

10.29173/iasl7432 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Melissa Johnston

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Stem Education ◽

Emerging Technologies ◽

Digital Tools ◽

Exploratory Learning ◽

Stem Learning ◽

Teacher Librarians

STEM education is grounded in problem solving, discovery, and exploratory learning, which requires students to actively engage in a situation in order to find its solution (Young, 2013). Students engage in STEM learning in many different ways, with technology and media playing an important role. Students need exposure to current and emerging technologies appropriate for STEM learning, but also instruction on how to interact with and utilize digital tools to solve problems and improve learning (Subramaniam & Edwards, 2014; Subramaniam et al., 2013).

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Enabling Teacher Librarian Leadership for Technology Integration

IASL Annual Conference Proceedings ◽

10.29173/iasl7460 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 227-244

Author(s):

Melissa Johnston

Keyword(s):

Technology Integration ◽

Vital Role ◽

Leadership Role ◽

Leadership Roles ◽

Technological Environment ◽

Integration Of Technology ◽

Replication Research ◽

Teacher Librarians ◽

21St Century Schools

The highly technological environment of 21st century schools has significantly redefined the role of the teacher librarian by presenting the opportunity to assume leadership roles through technology integration. The teacher librarian must evolve as a leader in order to address the needs of today’s learners and ensure that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to use technology as an important tool for learning. This research, based on distributed leadership theory investigates practices of teacher librarians in order to identify what is enabling some to thrive as technology integration leaders and what is hindering others. This paper presents the findings from the replication research identifying what is enabling some teacher librarians to thrive as technology integration leaders and serve as a foundation on which to build research- based strategies to support practicing teacher librarians in understanding how to enact this vital role and on how to better prepare future teacher librarians for a leadership role in the integration of technology.

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