Teaching Multiple Literacies through Collaboration

Through collaboration, teacher librarians aid teachers in embedding multiple literacies skills across the curriculum. As school leaders and technological resources, teacher librarians have the necessary skills to teach digital, information, and media literacy to students. Collaboration enhances student achievement. Through a social constructivist platform, teachers and teacher librarians can teach the 21st century skills needed to prepare students for future employment.

Administration

It is an interesting time to be a school librarian! The Common Core State Standards are changing the way school librarians look at their collections and support their teachers. The need for students to develop digital literacy skills requires school librarians to not only be adept at choosing materials but also agile in the world of technology, while the greater emphasis on teacher evaluations is pushing librarians to look critically at their own teaching practices. In addition to this, budgets are being slashed, and librarians are losing their jobs due to tough fiscal times. It is now crucial for the library to be the central hub of the building, and for the librarian to be an essential part of the building staff. By making a connection with the building administration, a librarian can become vital to the successful operation of a school. Collaborating with administration is a natural way to expand the work that librarians do and offers many benefits to the librarian, and as a result, to the students.

Building Literacy through Media-Rich Projects

This chapter details a case study of a librarian and high school English teacher who collaborated on Shakespeare projects to improve students’ critical reading of sonnets and soliloquies. The literary analysis goal expanded as students developed media-rich products that reflected media literacy skills: performing advanced searches, locating research to inform image selection of primary sources, and evaluating images to communicate analysis of Shakespeare works. Students also modeled digital citizenship skills by respecting the copyright of images, and exploring contemporary images from creative commons sites. Following fair use guidelines, students created transformative works, adding value to and repurposing copyrighted materials. Text, images, and music were combined into a movie using the free digital software Animoto. The school librarian and teacher successfully collaborated, supporting goals of improving literacy and helping students to become 21st century learners.

School Librarians as Significant Other

This chapter explores three strands of research: professional learning communities, the significant others in the development of pre-service teachers, and teacher-school librarian collaboration to develop a strategy for using Online Professional Learning Communities (OPLC) as a means for fostering career-long, mutually beneficial collaborations among teachers and school librarians. A previous study of such an OPLC comprised of pre-service and in-service teachers, university faculty, and school librarians is described. The role of the school librarian as a member of the OPLC is examined, particularly as a significant other (Karmos & Jacko, 1977) in the professional development of pre-service teachers. Recommendations include the key elements of creating OPLCs that are inclusive and demonstrate the value school librarians bring to this community.

Collaborative Learning Design in Librarian and Teacher Partnerships

This chapter details some of the different learning design models and collaboration styles that promote effective partnerships between classroom teachers and school librarians. It evaluates types of lesson designs that lend themselves most easily to teacher-librarian collaborative partnerships. It reviews partner and student activities that reflect on design elements of delivery and internalization of concepts and skills by students. The decision makers behind the technologies, those who engineer, program, record, demonstrate, and design the computing resources that are ubiquitous in learning today, are the architects for student learning. In these ways, collaborative partnerships between librarians and teachers of all grades and subjects can result in improved student performance.

From Collaboration to Transformation

As part of educational reforms, educators are increasingly expected to gather and interpret data, implement initiatives, and analyze outcomes. Practitioner research offers a framework for conducting school-based inquiry; consequently, it can be an instrumental part of educational change. Due to its focus on local contexts, collective knowledge, and critical reflection, practitioner research can foster collaboration between school librarians and classroom teachers. This chapter explicates the core features of practitioner research and discusses new findings from a three-year study of digital literacy conducted by a high school librarian and an English teacher.

Invaluable Collaboration

This chapter presents examples of content-focused collaborations that illustrate how a school librarian can build collaboration with teachers. By describing actual lessons and units that were developed collaboratively with teachers, this chapter gives readers a glimpse at what one particular school library program happens to look like, in hopes that a more concrete picture of school librarian-teacher collaboration emerges. This chapter covers five key lessons new or struggling school librarians can review as they develop their school library programs.

Simplifying and Expanding Collaboration through Collaborative Websites

For many years, school librarians have recognized the importance of collaborating with teachers to integrate inquiry into student work but have met with varying degrees of success in achieving this goal. Traditional teaching methods, attitudes and expectations, lack of understanding of the role of the school librarian, staffing multiple schools, communication roadblocks, and scheduling have all contributed to the difficulties of creating truly collaborative units for students. Technology can provide a creative strategy for encouraging and supporting collaboration with teachers. At the same time, it is vital to involve students in the creation of their own knowledge through collaboration and communication with others. The use of LibGuides is examined as a framework and tool for both these purposes.

“Need to Know”

This chapter outlines, defines, and illustrates examples of project-based learning, while focusing on how librarians can offer support to teachers when creating and leading project-based learning programs. Various disciplines and grade level (K-12 and higher education) examples of projects are discussed, pointing to strategic methods of intervention from school librarians, as well as ideas on how to collaborate and build relationships through project-based learning opportunities.

Special Collaboration

This chapter provides a foundation for the development of collaborative relationships between school librarians and special educators by examining the commonalities between the roles and responsibilities of the school librarian and the special educator, through explaining the terminology and legalities associated with special needs students, and by providing strategies, tips, and techniques for effective instructional design that results in standards-based, collaborative lessons utilizing the most current instructional tools and resources to motivate student learning. This chapter also examines the educational needs, abilities, and challenges of working with students with significant cognitive disabilities.