LIBE 467 Assignment 3: Evaluation Plan to Improve Reference Services

Analysis

The reference section of the Library Learning Commons is not a section of the library that is well used. When students work on research, they rarely consult the reference resources. The reference print materials are housed on shelves that span one side of the library. It is easily accessed but not very close to the circulation desk.

LLC Reference Resources 

It is evident simply by looking at the reference resources on the shelves that many are old, and some need repair. There many parts of our reference section that could do with an update. I chose to focus on the atlases. This is not a large section, but I felt the lessons I learned and the methods I employed would help me as I continued to evaluate larger sections of the library in the coming year. Riedling says, “A systematic basis for reviewing resources, weeding, as well as adding new materials to the reference collection should exist” (23).

                         

 

After selecting the atlases, I ran a report to find out the actual number of catalogued books we had in this section, the cost of each of the volumes, and the year they were purchased. According to the catalogue, records there are 25 atlases in the reference section of the library. An actual count found twenty-six. When I went through each atlas on the list, three were missing and four others did not show up on my list. Since there is no record of the missing atlases being checked out, they will be removed from the catalogue record. Ironically, the four atlases on the shelf but missing from the report were the only new atlases we have, the set of The Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada. When I looked up the record for the missing atlases, I found that the Holding Record had these atlases listed as Regular instead of Reference. This has been corrected and they now appear when I ran a new report. As well, the spine label on one of the other atlases was incorrectly labelled. If we decide to keep this resource, it will be corrected. 

Rational

Next, I looked at the currency and condition of the resources, using standards in Achieving Information Literacy (2003). 

Literacy (2003).

Resource	Below standard	Acceptable	Exemplary
Currency	Copyright dates within the last 10 years: less than 50% of the collection	Copyright dates within the last 10 years: 50-70% of the collection	Copyright dates within the last 10 years: 80% or more of the collection
Collection Maintenance	Significant number of the resources are worn, damaged, missing components or need repair.	Most materials are complete and in good repair. Some items are missing components	Materials are complete and in good repair.

Chart (Asselin, 2003, 33).

In the categories of Currency and Collection Management the atlas section is Below Standard. Of the 26 atlases, only four have copyright dates within the last 10 years. Many of the other atlases show signs of age. Some have copyright dates in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Our oldest one is a Canadian Oxford School Atlas from 1979. Given the age of the majority of atlases in the reference section, students might easily find and use inaccurate information when doing research. 

Some of these resources must be deselected. To find out about staff use and recommendations of the reference resources, I asked to attend the Social Studies department meeting. My plan was twofold. First, I was interested to learn if the teachers ever directed the students to do research that required a look at reference resources, and second to request input into the process of deselecting some of the current resources and selected new resources that teachers will promote and use with students.

The plan:

Teachers involved are the Social studies department head and social studies teachers specifically the three who teach geography, Canadian history and American history as well as the Teacher-Librarian.

        1.   October and November 2019

Work with the teachers in the social studies department to evaluate and then deselect atlases that are no longer appropriate for use with students. I was surprised that the teachers wanted to keep a few atlases that I would have discarded. Specifically, we kept two Canadian atlases with maps that do not contain Nunavut. The teachers plan to use them for showing the evolution of Canada. As well, the teachers wanted to keep all four of the historical atlases. Although events have occurred in the ensuing years, it was felt that the material was still relevant to curricula.
We considered the criteria from the British Columbia ERAC document (2008), Evaluating, Selecting and Acquiring Learning Resources: A Guide, to help us evaluate the resources.
"CO-2: is the content accurate?
Possible problems in content accuracy include:
• outdated information
• factual errors
• improper use of statistics
• inaccurate graphs or displays
• invalid or oversimplified models, examples, or simulations
• errors in spelling or grammar." (31).

As well, we followed Riedling’s recommendations regarding the evaluation of geographic resources, "Because these materials depend on graphic arts and mathematics as well, further issues should be noted regarding evaluation and selection. The basic criteria to be considered when evaluating geographic resources include publisher (authority), scale, currency, indexing and format" (80).

So far, we have deselected:

                The Canadian book of the Road, copyright 1980

                The Canadian Oxford School Atlas, copyright 1979

                National Geographic Atlas of the World, copyright 1990

                The World Book Atlas, copyright 1989

       2.  November and December 2019

Investigation of alternate resources to include in the library collection.Work with the teachers in the social studies department to select atlases that better reflect the needs of students as they work to achieve curricular outcomes. We are still working on this area. I introduced the teachers to online resources that are free such the Indigenous Map Tool

      3.  It is important that teachers know the resources available in the library learning commons. Several ways I plan to do this: book displays at staff meetings, show and tell at department meetings.

Most of the best conversations have taken place, not at the larger group meeting with all the teachers, but individually or in groups of two where I think teachers have been more comfortable expressing their opinions about why they want to keep certain volumes (to teach comparison).

 4. Most of the best conversations have taken place, not at the larger group meeting with all the teachers, but individually or in groups of two where I think teachers have been more comfortable expressing their opinions about why they want to keep certain volumes, for example to look at changes over time, or to have students discover the differences between old and new maps.

Other Considerations:

1. I was surprised to find so many inaccuracies, with regard to cataloging the resources, in a small sampling of books. The current Library Technician is new this year so discussing the errors of the past are a lot easier than it would be discussing the mistakes with the technician who made them. She is working fixing them.

2. As part of our professional development, all staff must complete a yearly plan for professional growth. A focus for my plan is deselecting of reference resources that are no longer useful and selecting of resources that will better serve our students. At the end of the year we revisit and evaluate how well we have met our goals. I am hoping that after working through this section, that I will be able to apply the skills I learned to the next sections.

3. The cost of many of the atlases, and many other reference resources, is substantial. I will have to allocate part of the budget ongoing to obtaining more current useful resources.

4. This is not a consideration just an observation. As I was going through the atlases, I noticed that in the Macmillan World Reference Atlas, copyright 1996, there were three people who did the job of Gazetteer, one of the words I did not know from lesson 1.

Works Cited


Asselin, M., Branch, J., & Oberg, D., (Eds) (2003). Achieving information literacy: Standards for school library programs in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian School Library Association & The  Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada. 

ERAC. (2008). Evaluating, Selecting and Acquiring Learning Resources: A Guide. BC Ministry of Education. Retrieved from: https://bcerac.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ERAC_WB.pdf 

Riedling, A., Shake, L., Houston, C. (2013). Reference skills for the school library media specialist: Tools and tips, (Third Edition). Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth. 

LIBE 467 Blog Post 3 Reference Materials

     This section of the course reinforced the idea that the Teacher-Librarian must have extensive knowledge and understanding of online and print reference resources. As Reidling (2013) states, “The accurate and appropriate provision of information will occur when the school librarian has a complete and accurate knowledge of the library collection, along with competence in selecting, acquiring and evaluating that collection” (5). Only then can the TL work with students in reference interviews to best direct and match student questions to resources that will provide the best information to resolve their questions.

     Theme three opened with a discussion of the components of the World Wide Web—the surface web, the deep/invisible web and the dark web. Accurate statistics from reliable sources that give the percentage composition of the different parts of the World Wide Web are difficult to find, but most sources state that the surface web makes up a small part—between 1% and 4% pf the entire web (Mcfedries, 2017, 10) and (Deep websites, 2019). 

Retrieved from: https://www.deepwebsiteslinks.com/how-to-access-the-deep-web/ 

     The information in this section cleared up a number of misconceptions.  First of all I had no idea how little of the web is actually searched using a search engine such as Google. I was also surprised to learn that I am a consistent user of the Deep net. I had also been confusing the Deep and Dark web. I believe that many of the students and the teachers might also not understand the difference between the Deep and Dark web and might not know just how little of the web search engines like Google can access. I would like to do some research among the students and my colleagues to find out what they know and then I plan to work on dispelling some of the myths. Reading about the “filter bubble” that Google uses to tailor searches explained why I get different search results based on whether I do the search at home or at school. This is something I want to test out with my students.

     We returned to the technology and online access often during theme 3. Many of the reference resources in the library—encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs—are available online through paid subscription services or in some cases for free. Sometimes these offer advantages over print resources, especially with regard to recency. In examining the materials in the reference section, it is apparent that out of date resources are not easily replaced due to cost. Many of the print resources in the reference section are large and heavy. This makes them less convenient to use and students often prefer to use a computer to search for their answer. I admit I am an advocate for print resources. I find it easier to navigate books. If forces a slower learning process for students as well.

This atlas for example is 12" x 22" very heavy and very large.

     Reliance on technology has drawbacks as well. The care and maintenance of devices is time consuming and costly as well. Computers require technicians to maintain them in good working order. Reference resources, while expensive do not come close to the cost of thirty laptops that require programs and services from divisional technicians to keep them running smoothly.

Works cited:

Deep web links | Deep web sites | The Deepweb 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.deepwebsiteslinks.com/how-to-access-the-deep-web/

Mcfedries, P., Atwood, M. (2017). The dark dialect (Technically speaking). IEEE Spectrum, Volume 54: 10.

Riedling, A., Shake, L. & Houston, C. (2013). Reference skills for the school librarian: Tools and tips. Santa Barbara, Ca: Linworth.

LIBE 467 Assignment 2: How Can I Help You?

As a Teacher-Librarian one of my roles is to “Collaborate with colleagues to provide opportunities for students to engage in authentic inquiries using existing and emerging information and communication technology to deepen understanding, transform student thinking and develop critical literacy skills” (Standards for Literacy, 2016). There has been an increasing focus on inquiry in the classroom. There is a divisional or “top-down” (Gundy, 2016, 233) initiative to get more teachers using the inquiry models. As well, my school division places a high value on collaboration.  This assignment provided the perfect pairing of fulfilling divisional goals and using reference resources to do so. For this paper, I am using Riedling’s definition of reference resources. Riedling (2013) says reference resources “can be defined as materials, from book to computer to periodical to periodical to photograph, that can be found anywhere in the library or online” (139).

One of the ways to effect change is to use a model such as the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CMAB). This model is particularly helpful in planning and implementing change in teacher practice through collaboration. Using this model allows the TL to become a change agent that will lead to better student success. The relationship between the Stage of Concern and The Level of Use can help illustrate the process of change for my collaboration with Teacher A.

   

                   Celmer, K. et al. Images retrieved from:  https://www.slideshare.net/strentacoste/cbam-33690744                           

Template of Teacher A:

·         Has been teaching at the school for 18 years.

·         Focus on English Language Arts.

·         Teaches almost exclusively compulsory courses, resulting in high numbers of students with diverse needs.

·         Not a consistent user of the Library Learning Common other than for laptops for students to type work for submission.

·         Has not previously engaged in inquiry with her students.

Teacher A was beginning a new unit for her grade 11 class using Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese and after a Languages Department meeting I asked if she would be interested in collaborating on this unit. Teacher A indicated that she had been wanting to collaborate and to use one of the inquiry models but didn’t know where to start.

Our first meeting centered on the Stages of Concerns component of the model. Teacher A has begun this process at the Awareness/Information stages. She is aware of inquiry but is not sure what is involved in the process. She had done some reading but was concerned that she needed more information to be comfortable to continue with planning. To facilitate this learning we were lucky enough to attend a workshop by Trevor MacKenzie on “Inquiry Mindset.” As well, we purchased his book, Dive into Inquiry, and Kath Murdoch’s book The Power of Inquiry to help us understand.

With regard to the Level of Use, Teacher A began at the Non-use level. So far we have progressed to the Mechanical use or maybe the beginning of Routine stage.

Level of Use	Teacher A Path
Non-use	This is where Teacher A began. She was not using inquiry in the classroom.
Orientation	Attended workshop and read books and articles on Inquiry. At the workshop, both the TL and teacher acquired knowledge and explored the topic of using Inquiry in the classroom.
Preparation	TL and Teacher A have met and continue to meet in order to prepare inquiry unit. These meeting help us figure out how to teach the skills and become more comfortable with our new learning before we introduced it to our students. I have introduced Teacher A to LLC resource, fiction and non-fiction books to support student learning. As well as graphic novels and children’s’ books on indigenous themes.
Mechanical use	We have begun working with the students and because of all that we had prepared, we were able to focus on using the new skills. Some days it is more than apparent that our efforts are “disjointed and superficial” (Gundy, 2016, 234). While we try to plan a week at a time, most of the effort is on what has to be done each day.
Routine	As we move through the unit we are thinking about ways in which we can improve the work we have done with students for next time. For example, in teaching questioning techniques we will be using different images as prompts. Our current ones did not solicit the number of questions we had hoped they would. However, there is no time to really evaluate/change our process.
Refinement	Teacher A is not yet flexible enough to vary “the use of the innovation to increase the impact on the students” (Gundy, 2016, 234).  Teacher A is not yet at this stage in the process.
Integration	Teacher A is not yet at this stage in the process.
Renewal	Teacher A is not yet at this stage in the process, but we have determined we will collaborate again next year on an inquiry unit. The second time, Teacher A will be starting at the Routine or Refinement stage the collaboration.

Chart adapted from Huang, P.S. https://sites.google.com/site/ch7cbam/home/levels-of-use

As we work through the unit, Teacher A is also progressing in the Stages of Concern component of the model and has moved from Awareness and Information to Management. 

Template of Teacher B

·         Has been teaching at the school for 22 years.

·         Focus on Biology

·         Many years spent as the only Biology teacher in the school, so avenues for collaborating within the department are limited.

·         High number of students which makes for very little time to change already established procedures and projects.

Teacher B assigns an extensive semester long project each year to the grade 12 Biology class involving scientific article reviews. Each student is responsible for finding, and summarizing ten articles about Biology. They must also print the articles and the summary in order to submit their work for marks. Teacher B will not accept nor mark any assignment without the attached article. This creates significant backups in the LLC.  When an article is due, approximately 30 students descend on the library to print their articles and summaries claiming that their printers at home have just broken. The articles are often many pages long and the printer is slow. As well, the printing is costly and it is a colossal waste of paper and resources. (Ironically, this teacher is also the teacher in charge of the Environmental Awareness Club). The topic of paper waste and cost is visited many times throughout the school year in staff meetings however this information had not resulted in any changes.  

I thought using the SAMR model would be best for changing practice with Teacher B. 

                          SAMR MODEL

 Puentedura, R Image retrieved from  http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014/11/28/SAMRLearningAssessment.pdf

Since Teacher B almost never comes up to the library learning commons I ended up talking to him in the hallway. The first time I broached the topic of printing the articles, he insisted that the only way he could verify that no plagiarism was involved was to have the article printed to refer to while he was marking. I offered to show him how to use technology so that students could submit their article summaries and provide a link to the article that he could click on to view it. As well, I offered to show him how to use the FIND function to search for suspected plagiarism within the article. According to the SAMR model Teacher B was at the Substitution Stage—students printed all work and handed it in. “There was no functional change in teaching and learning” (SAMR Model, paragraph 1).

Though reluctant, Teacher B agreed to let me teach the students how to provide a link to the article they were using, and to email him the summary with the link. He did insist that the summary needed to be printed as well and submitted so that he could add comments and provide a mark on their work. While Teacher B only moved to the Augmentation level of the SAMR Model, I really felt that progress had been made. Talking to him after the second article was due, Teacher B indicated he was frustrated at times by using technology instead of pen and paper, he felt that it was overall a positive change. I am looking forward to more opportunities to collaborate with Teacher B. Next on my list—APA citations, the shortcomings of using Google when searching for reliable sources.

To see how the SAMR model can be connect to Bloom’s Taxonomy, visit Kathy Schrock’s page here: https://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html

After working through this change process, I recognized just how difficult and time-consuming changing practice can be. Working with Teacher A using the CBAM allowed us both to practice and learn new skills. It forced me to evaluate resources in the library that we were using for Indigenous research projects and to introduce Teacher A to those resources so that she could use them with her students. Collaborating with Teacher B to better use technology and move up levels in the SAMR model was a more difficult process. Though I used the SAMR model to explain how technology could facilitate a deep and rich experience for the students, we were only able to move up one level.

References 

Celmer, K., Moore, M., & Trentacoste, S. (April 18, 2014). The Intended Adopter (Slide Share). 

              

               Retrieved from: https://www.slideshare.net/strentacoste/cbam-33690744

Gundy, M.S. & Berger, M.J. (2016). Toward a model of educational change. International Journal of

               

                Information and Educational Technology, 6(3), 232-37.

Huang, P-S. (n.d.). Concerns-Based adoption model: Levels of use. Retrieved from

              

          https://sites.google.com/site/ch7cbam/home/levels-of-use

Pembina Trails School Division. (2016). Standards for Success in Literacy [Brochure]. Winnipeg: n.p.

Puentedura, R. (2014) SAMR: Learning and assessment (Class Slides, PDF).  Retrieved from:

               

                http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014/11/28/SAMRLearningAssessment.pdf

Riedling, A. (2013). Reference skills for the school library media specialist: Tools and tips, (Third 

            Edition).Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth.