1 s session 2: james henri november 2009. barriers: physical and mental challenges?
TRANSCRIPT
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Session 2: James Henri November 2009
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Barriers: Physical and mental challenges?
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Learning in a BOX
• How does your school package learning? -Learning spaces-Time for learning-What is learned-Who is doing the learning
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Learning in a BOX
• Were you thinking about the students? Well now consider the teachers!
• How does your school package learning? -Learning spaces-Time for learning-What is learned-Who is doing the learning
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School Design
• How have schools been changing over the past 100 years or so?
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Nair, P. & Fielding, R. (2005).The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools. Designshare
Future schools 1909-1940
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Nair, P. & Fielding, R. (2005).The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools. Designshare
Future schools 1940s
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Nair, P. & Fielding, R. (2005).The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools. Designshare
Future schools 1990-
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Student design: See winners of
Classroom of the Future competition to research and design a futuristic school learning space
http://www.clcfeltham.co.uk/bsf_pcp/entries.html
Future schools 2009
Study has shown that the colour. Blue is very relaxing
70% of students we asked said if they could they would have sofas in school
Laminate flooringEasy to clean and very nice looking
plants
Plant tub Interactive board
Plasma screen
Yellow walls is proven to be a creative colour
Table with desk in case students want to work alone
This table can be broken into 4
Indoor comfortable benches for group work
Green chairs to help with our outdoor feel
Teachers desk With hi tech apple Mac pc
Circle table
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Much, much, more at Designing the Future online event: yourschoollibrary.org (Special price for CEO attendees US$50 per person.)
Future schools 2009
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• We can agree that structures have and are changing but too often even today’s schools exhibit closed and inflexible hardware (buildings) as well as unimaginative software (timetables, planning time, pedagogical practices etc)
Future schools 2009
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• There seems to be consensus that today’s school ought to exhibit:
• Agility• Transparency• Connectedness
Future schools 2009 ->
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It identifies that such schools have:• Leadership• Policy driven framework• Collaborative learning Culture (students and
teachers)
What has the research said about highly effective schools (HES) over the
past decades?
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• High expectations about what is learned and how it is learned within a culture of self-evaluation and reflection
• A seeking after information and knowledge that can be used to improve practice and inform decision making
• Strong beyond school networks
It identifies that such schools have:
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• Are these measures of HES timeless?• By analogy…should we use the same
measures today that were used in 1959 to judge a highly effective car?
• Are they technology dependent/independent/ interdependent?
http://idmx.blogspot.com/2007/01/soup- questions.html
1909 and 2009: Some soup questions*
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• What does the TL research and professional literature of the past have to say about this?
Key school library factors
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But First: What you do and for whom
• Management L• Knowledge Management T• Services T/S• Collections T/S• Curriculum (process) T• Information Policy T• Web Presence T/S• Reading/Children’s Literature S• Leadership T/P• Teaching T/S• Other peoples stuff• And check out the Valenza Manifesto at: http://tiny.cc/BvcV8
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• Professional education • An information policy framework• Allocation of adequate resources• Ongoing professional development opportunities • An articulated role statement • Demarcation of professional, paraprofessional and clerical
roles within the library• Linkages to school mission (and 5 year plan) matched with
accepted measures of success• Deep entry into the curriculum by way of enquiry learning• Flexible scheduling of access to the library (to information)
Important school library factors
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• A collegial culture (covered in session 1)
Collegiality is related to the presence of four types of interactions between and among teachers: – (a) teachers engage in frequent, continuous, and increasingly concrete
and precise talk about teaching practice; – (b) teachers are frequently observed and provided with useful critiques
of their teaching;– (c) teachers plan, design, evaluate, and prepare teaching materials
together; and – (d) teachers teach each other the practice of teaching.
Little, J.W. (1982). Norms of collegiality and experimentation: Workplace conditions of school success. American Educational Research Journal 19:3: 325-340.
Does your school enable these processes? Does it place a high priority on TEACHER learning?
Essential school library factors
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• A teacher focus- Curriculum design (process)- Leadership- Policy development
Corollary: Change in school culture does not flow from student learning it flows from teacher learning.
Essential school library factors
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• Lack of qualifications and experience• Lack of time • Confusion of roles• Poorly designed assessment tasks that: - enable copy & paste
- freeze out meaning via the making of information
Inhibitors
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• A collegial approach to teaching & learning • A shared understanding of learning as a
constructivist process (Students understand this today in a way that has never before happened. The social web! Now Teachers must come on board.)
• A shared commitment to lifelong learning • Competence in developing learning activities and
strategies…beyond text book comfort.• Planning time and Teacher PD time.
Enablers
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• Principal support• Corollary 1: If the P is not supporting you look
for a new school (or PD yourself into the 2010s)
• Corollary 2: If the P is behind you make sure the road you are travelling is headed in the right direction.
Necessary and sufficient school library factor
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• Your relationship with the principal makes or breaks your place in the school and defines the possibility of an information literate school community.
• For understanding about leadership look to:Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B. Z. (2007). The leadership challenge, 4th Edition. Jossey-Bass.
What you ask for
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• Modelling the way- That the principal is the most information savvy person in the school (YOU make sure s/he is!)-What you can do for school decision making- Professional recognition- Unacceptability of being a spare parts/ hand in the dyke resource- Respect for the research evidence
What you ask for
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• Encouraging the heart– Share soul time with the principal– Seek multiple alliances
What you ask for
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• Inspiring a shared vision- Opportunities to deliver on system/school goals- A framework for measuring success
What you ask for
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• Enabling others to act- Agility!!!!!!!!!!!!- Space- Risk taking opportunities- Resourcing- Access
What you ask for
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• Challenging the process- Keep asking “Why is it so?”
* Is the curriculum process or product the focus? Why? * Do students make information or record it? Why? * Why is the timetable the way it is? * Are teachers information literate? Why?
What you ask for
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• High expectations via:- Professionalism (The operating theatre model of collegiality) You are the expert!- Information leadership (KB,KM, IP, IL)- Teacher Focus- Planning time- Culture of inquiry
What you give
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Synergy• Trends are:
• Good schools are becoming much more flexible and client focussed
• Learning (the curriculum content) must be student focused and information will be increasingly digital and delivered via handheld devices. Students will make information.
• School libraries need no longer be (primarily) about collections. They are about access to information.
• Teacher Librarians are about influencing school curriculum (process)…how students learn...and equipping teachers to be able to model practice.
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Synergy
• Trends are:
• The teaching spaces and the information spaces can no longer be separated. Every learning space must be rich in information. That is:
• Schooling is best done inside a library.
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• Are you qualified for this task?• Are you willing to act as a professional and to
take a leadership role? Will you ask the tough questions?
• Are you mentoring a new TL or a CT who you think could be one?
• Are you busy or are you focussed?• Are you looking after the teachers?• Are you educating the P…do you know your P?
Conclusion: are you up to the challenge
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• What are you (and your professional network) doing about those colleagues who are dead but not buried?
Conclusion: are you up to the challenge
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If you want to change the world get ready to be dropped from a great height by those who already have the money and the power.
And if the principal is on your side be sure that s/he is heading in the right direction…
Postscript from Machiavelli
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But wait there is more!Late night Reading:
• For the Principal: http://hktla.school.net.hk/2001/p6_9.PDF