Best. PD. Ever.

I’ve had a lot of professional development over the years, in a variety of industries (there was a 12 year gap between college and getting my MLS).  A few times I’ve felt as though I should demand a refund for hours of my life absolutely wasted.  Most of the time there’s been something I can take back to my work, sharing with others or simply using in my own practice.  Then there was last summer and the AISL Summer Institute at Emma Willard School.  Katie has already blogged elsewhere on the overall experience, so I won’t cover everything.  And I’ll be part of a panel presentation at the upcoming AISL Conference in NOLA in March.

What made this the best PD I’ve done in memory (I’ll stipulate to getting old and perhaps not remembering how wonderful I thought something was at that time) was not just the setting – although I am partial to my alma mater – was what we refer to these days as the takeaway.  And OMG how useful it has been and will continue to be.  After introduction and discussion about what design thinking is and how to do it, we divided into groups linked by common problems and began to brainstorm.  My  group decided to focus on how we, as librarians, can help panicked students do research.

When I introduce students to research, even during a 10-15 minute rushed talk, I mention that I understand their plight (as I’ve blogged before, we often forget what that’s like). The problem then becomes how do they remember what I’ve gone through as they work on their projects? Many are afraid to disturb us, particularly when they see we’re busy processing new books or working on other stuff – all stuff we’re happy (eager?!) to put aside to help them.  And teachers frequently don’t emphasize our role as partners or resources, so… Luckily, my AISL group all felt my pain.  And we decided to come up with an infographic that helped the students go from stressed to successful.

I brought that infographic home with me, and we created bookmarks from it.  Those bookmarks went into each teacher’s mailbox at the start of the year and are now being handed out to our US History students as they begin their Big Research Paper.  But bookmarks alone aren’t good enough.

For each project we use Springshare’s LibGuide’s platform to create a Resource Guide and each year we update it.  Here is this year’s guide.  Notice that right column!  Yep, we took the infographic, added live links and posted it on the guide (full size version here).  And we’ll be adding it to our other guides.

It’s too early to figure out how successful this will be.  But I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to help students stress less, succeed more.  And that’s what makes for good PD: something you can use immediately, something you can customize to your situation easily, and something that will have a positive effect on your students.

 

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From the sublime to the…

The past week I attended a workshop on Design Thinking in libraries at my alma mater, Emma Willard School (currently referred to as Hogwarts by students):

And immediately after, I headed South to a city I never thought I’d visit (Orlando) for ALA’s Annual Conference, where I stayed in the Castle Hotel:

Of course, I’ll be blogging more about those two experiences (and much more) once real life has reasserted itself.

 

Diverse Diversity @ #ALAN16

Diversity was a minor theme for the various professional development opportunities I had during the month or so before Winter Break.  I’m always mindful of the fact that “diversity” doesn’t only mean “skin tone”; when I was co-chair of my school’s accreditation self-study, we tried to think about all of NYSAIS’ definition of diversity when discussing the school’s culture:

How does the school officially communicate its policies and practices with respect to differences in ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic level, physical ability, and learning styles?

Sometimes we do better at one, sometimes better at another.  When I hear #weneeddiversebooks I think about the diverse diversities and what books are doing to address them.  How does this relate to ALAN?

Last year there was a lot of discussion about “boy books” vs “girl books” and that carried over to this year.  One panelist asked why no one asks where are the strong boy characters, simply because strong boy characters are the norm.  Why can’t we have a world where that’s assumed equally for boys and girls? When one voice (male, or white, or Christian, or whatever) is always the authority/norm in books, it starts to carry over into real life because that’s what readers internalize.  Protagonists are protagonists, period.  Why don’t we say, “the protagonist” rather than “the girl protagonist”?  Because if it’s a girl (or not white or poor or some other diverse subset) that’s what we notice.  And isn’t that a shame?

The myth of diverse (by ethnicity or race) books not selling was also addressed.  They do sell, but part of the problem is that the publishers are small presses without the big ARC/promotion budgets of the big houses.  Why are so many English books translated into other languages, and not vice versa?  What about diverse authors, and getting their story out?  We were reminded that diversity is not all conflict, it can just “be” and still make for an amazing book.  Just look at science fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction: they write around diversity and outside themselves all the time and no one questions those authors about using an authentic voice (and it was repeated: did not being a wizard make JK Rowling’s world less authentic?).  The big takeaway was that maybe we should promote diverse books by not framing them as diverse, but as being about the story, as in “this a coming-of-age story” or “this is about first love”.

We were reminded that there were other diversities (see, it did all tie in!) that aren’t being as discussed, and where are the authors who are writing about these issues? Poverty, the not-college-bound, the disabilities (cancer, something other than OCD/ASD, a physical limitation), teens in prison, etc. are also missing from our shelves.  The reality of these lives is that they’re not easy, not everyone accepts them and sometimes, life hurts.  We need books that also say that while we may have depression, asthma, grief, etc, we aren’t depression, asthma, grief, etc., we’re human.  Let’s remember that, as Laurie Halse Anderson said, adults know how to handle “dark” while teens are turning to fiction to learn how to cope.  And Margi Preus eloquently said that every student reading is doing research into their future lives, books are a door to that life.  So let’s open up the canon, add some new books that maybe weren’t taught (or published) back when we were in high school!

Minor Musings

Still digitally decluttering…

Books, Reading, etc.

• One challenge at MPOW is getting the middle school students into the library (time, distance, lack of discrete space are issues).  So we’re thinking about the pop-up library.

School Life

• Speed Friending in the Library?  Sounds like the perfect start-of-school activity!
• Hoping I can emulate Buffy’s work with my students. Or Ethan’s. Particularly since we know colleges are still requiring research (and five page papers). A little design thinking might help. And maybe not this year, but next?
• I’m fond of this sign, but this one would work, too.

Tech Stuff

• This was done with sixth graders, but could easily scale to any middle or upper school class.
• This is of Allentown, but imagine creating a history or English class project (I know I’ve suggested this before… hoping this year a teacher takes me up on it!).  And how cool it would be to integrate the Newseum into your resources? or a Digital Timeline?
• MPOW is a GAFE/Schoology school, and Videonot.es looks like it would be a great tool to use!
• Right now, we’re BYOD (so have computer labs) – Doug has great ideas about 1:1.
• This list of tools is a great starter toolkit!
• It’s the start of a new school year.  Why not declutter your laptop before things get crazy?

Etcetera

• I’m not looking for a new job, and one might argue that this blog serves as a portfolio, but that doesn’t mean that Katie’s portfolio advice will go to waste.  Go and do likewise.
• Looking for a different conference to attend?  Maybe the First Year Experience is for you. Or maybe the LibraryTechnology conference.

And, as always, Will Richardson has some great ideas about trends we should be watching.  Something to ponder as the school year starts.

What are you doing with your summer?

I’ve already posted my early-summer PD schedule and a few “if only…” options.  Then I read this on Twitter:

Carrie Kausch on Twitter: “I attended disappointing PD at an #alaac15 precon, disappointing PD yesterday. Maybe I need to quit trying PD for a while.” via kwout

and Wendy posted about her Walden experience.

Both put me in mind of a friend (a librarian friend) who worked in a school that gave out summer sabbatical travel/learning grants.  No librarian had ever gotten one, because why do we need to travel/learn?  She applied and got a grant to learn to paint in Tuscany.  The rationale?  She was a very linear learner and thinker, not at all artistic.  Learning to paint would be out of her comfort zone.  Even more out of that comfort zone would be living and learning in a language she didn’t know.  Why was this important?  Because she was very comfortable (as I suspect most librarians are) doing research and speaking the language of information fluency/skills, etc..  Putting herself in those uncomfortable shoes would mean she could, for a few weeks, walk in her students’ steps as they began to learn the process of finding, evaluating and interpreting information while they did research.  She argued, convincingly, that her experience would make her more empathetic to them and help her be a better librarian.

I’ve never worked in a school that’s had that kind of program (or, if they did, I wasn’t eligible) but it’s something to consider for next year, even if it’s out of my own pocket (as Doug says, it’s good to have skin in the game).  Imagine how your program could change and improve if you did the same.

Help Yourself – personalized learning at #alaac15

(another program that will be posted online – check here)

Many schools and libraries are starting to embrace personalized learning, blended learning, the flipped classroom or whatever new buzzword appears.  At the Online School for Girls, they’re talking about “competency-based instruction” that puts learners at the center, meeting their needs and goals (in other words, it’s not teacher or student driven, it’s learner driven).  This approach allows teachers to work smarter.

Projects are remapped to put the student learner at the center, allowing for deeper engagement with the materials :

• what major competencies are desired?
• what is the individual student profile (what type of learner are they? what do they already know?)
• what “pathway options” are there to get the student to understand the material?
• what operational elements need to be designed?

remember: the pathway is less important than the competencies

You can build units in your LMS – Haiku, Schoology, WhippleHill, LibGuides, Moodle, etc. – chunking competencies and building in the pathway options.

Personalized learning is data-driven: always assign what students are learning and circle back if necessary.  In other words, assess assess assess (not necessarily formal assessments!).

In order to do this, you need to think about the school climate and have conversations about pedagogy.  For this to work, creating a climate of personalized learning needs to be a strategic intention, with an evaluation of space and investment in infrastructure for what the student’s needs are. Does the school’s mission have learners at the center?

The next speaker was from SFPL, highlighting their new literacy and learning center, a place where all kinds of learning can take place.  They’ve relabeled their classroom the Learning Studio/Learning Theatre, giving it flexible furnishings that can be positions to best assist what the program is.

Other ideas:

• develop a public instruction plan
• create a collection of resources and programs
• instructional materials and tools are important (use YouTube for a tutorial collection, create handouts as take-aways)

Most learners want hands-on help! Make that happen with drop-in classes, 1:1 tech help (20 min sessions), online course instruction and meet-ups.

Finally, we heard from VATech, which has created a program that stresses empowering students by partnering with faculty – to do this they’ve developed programs and tools.

Good place to start: check with the first year experience librarians at schools popular with students and build down from that

One thing they’ve created is an iPad tour of the library: auto-generated, outcome based tour (there are also auto-graded assessments).  They’re now thinking about beacons, QR codes and apps to provide the same opportunities.

It’s important to train the trainers: creating lesson plans and activities that teachers can use/drop-in to their classes.  Your role is that of coach/consultant, not teacher. Example? their Working with the Library toolkit. The anecdotal evidence is that this works, freeing the librarians to do 1:1 assistance.

VT has also created an Instructional Learning Community with the assumption that all librarians are learners.  It’s open to anyone who wants to talk about teaching and includes a Read/Lead group who read and discuss a book that deals with learning, pedagogy, schools, etc.

Tool to check out: EDpuzzle (allows students to insert questions they have about the video tutorials they’re watching)

 

Big Data and danah boyd at #alaac15

danah boyd’s research and work has been fascinating to follow – this was less “It’s Complicated” and more “it’s problematic” (if you’re an ALA member, the presentation will probably be posted here). This marks a shift from watching how teens use social media towards the idea of big data (and metadata) as a whole; essentially, she takes issue with the idea that big data collection can somehow solve all of life’s questions – it can’t because tech is not neutral, it takes on the bias of the creators/manipulators.  She then went on to talk about three things:

Privacy

• social media is a relief valve (boyd blames helicopter parents who give their children no down or alone time to just hang with friends – my problem with that is that these parents are my age, and we had plenty of this time and we managed to survive!)
• as a result, public spaces are now networked online (check out Youth Radio)
• privacy no longer means “control of information”  – it means “control of social situation” (agency is important); context is important and learned (another way to think about it is “code shifting“)
  • the skills to interpret context and how to navigate online social dynamics are emerging – adults and teens need to learn them
  • the big challenge is that real life requires constant code shifting, but online is soooooo different (esp. for teens) – check out the social stenography post danah did in 2010

Making Meaning of Data

• some teens have learned to put random brand names into their email posts (esp. gmail) to provoke those brand ads that accompany “free” email
• the lesson? who interprets, collects and provides data matters
  • q: was the Target story real or apocryphal
  • “Reckless associations can do very real harm when they appear in supposedly neutral environments like online stores” (Atlantic Monthly article)
  • look at the work Latanya Sweeney is doing and read Sorting Things Out (Bowker & Star)

Just because it’s a machine doesn’t mean there are no politics involved: there are usually more!

Networked Data

• who has control? our usual models break down online (23andme gives your consent now and in the future for you and your family; LAPD’s “spit and acquit” program)
• we now live in a world of predictions that can be used to discriminate (“legal” is another issue) and raises questions about fairness (equality, equity and economic)

So, where does Librarianship fit into all this?

• ALA’s Core Values take these things into account
• question license agreements, hours of access, technology equity – push for open access, push back against information lock-up
• there’s a new literacy: data literacy – we need to educate our users about this

we tell students that Wikipedia is BAD, but why do we also say that Google is GOOD?

• question everything: push levels of thinking, teach students to do this so they can see bias and better determine who to trust online
• social responsibility: more of us (librarians) need to speak up!
• privacy: we need to talk more and teach more about the cultural consequences of Big Data (the NSA is the tip of the iceberg)

There are three types of data collection (for more about some of this, see my post about Debbie and Kristin’s program at #alaac13:

1. data by choice (eg., Fitbit)
2. data by coercion (the LAPD)
3. data by circumstance (using Facebook)

• why is ALA so afraid to be local? we do a great job of taking national (and international) positions, but local? rarely.

This documentary was not mentioned during ms. boyd’s talk, but I highly recommend watching/showing Terms and Conditions May Apply.  Scary, provocative and perhaps a catalyst for change.

 

Book-based thoughts about #alaac15

I have so much more to write about, but just don’t have time right now to digest and properly reflect on the sessions.  So instead, here’s the “easy” post, all about the books!

ARCs to savor – look for these books soon! (ok, I haven’t read more than one or two… yet…):

• Slade House by David Mitchell (huge surprise, given the appearance of The Bone Clocks earlier this year)
• Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley (historical fiction about the Brontes)
• The Trouble in Me by Jack Gantos (no one does fictional autobiography like Gantos.  No one).
• Most Dangerous by Steve Sheinkin (about Daniel Ellsberg, maybe helping students understand why what he did was such a Big Deal Back Then)
• Untwine by Edwidge Dandicat (need I say more?)
• The Year of Lear by James Shapiro (maybe understanding the historical setting around the writing of the play will help students appreciate it more?)
• We Believe the Children by Richard Beck (looking forward to revisiting the hysteria)

For the record, I got nearly 70 books at ALA, all of which I’m hoping I’ll truly enjoy.  These just seemed to be the most universally interesting.  Or not.

A few years ago, Wendy introduced me to the joy that is the Best Fiction for Young Adults teen feedback session.  If at all possible, I try to go and hear what the teens really think (because as a 50+-year-old, sometimes I just don’t think like a teen).  The following is a list of the books that got Much Love, Some Love and Mixed Love from the group that spoke, and one or two that they didn’t seem to like as much as the committee did:

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Becky Albertalli) – some love
• The Tightrope Walkers (David Almond) – some love
• Infandous (Elana Arnold) – mixed love
• The Doubt Factory (Paolo Bacigalupi) – no real love
• Silent Alarm (Jennifer Banash) – some love
• The Darkest Part of the Forest (Holly Black) – mixed love
• The Game of Love and Death (Martha Brockenbrough) – mixed love
• The Bunker Diary (Kevin Brooks) – mixed love
• Alex as Well (Alyssa Brugman) – mixed love
• Audacity (Melanie Crowder) – some love
• Death Coming Up the Hill (Chris Crowe) – some love
• I’ll Meet You There (Heather Demetrios) – some love
• Eden West (Peter Hautman) –  some love
• Poisoned Apples (Christine Heppermann) – much love
• Little Peach (Peggy Kern) – much love
• Read Between the Lines (Jo Knowles) – some love
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J. Maas) – some love
• All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven) – much love
• Vanishing Girls (Lauren Oliver) – some love
• The Boy in the Black Suit (Jason Reynolds) – mixed love
• Bone Gap (Laura Ruby) – mixed love
• The Winner’s Crime (Marie Rutkoski) – mixed love
• Fig (Sarah Elizabeth Schantz) – some love
• The Ghosts of Heaven (Marcus Sedgwick) – mixed love
• X (Ilyasah Shabazz) – much love
• Challenger Deep (Neal Shusterman) – much love
• The Walls Around Us (Nova Ren Suma) – mixed love
• All the Rage (Courtney Summers) – much love
• In Real Life (Laurence Tabak) – mixed love
• An Ember in the Ashes (Sabaa Tahir) – mixed love
• The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B (Teresa Toten) – mixed love
• Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go (Laura Rose Wagner) – some love
• We All Looked Up (Tommy Wallach) – mixed love
• My Heart and Other Black Holes (Jasmine Warga) – mixed love
• This Side of Home (Renee Watson) – some love

There were 59 books on the list, so that “only” 24 were left off during a whirlwind 90 minute session isn’t bad.  For me, the surprises were that Mosquitoland (David Arnold), Saint Anything (Sarah Dessen), The Girl at Midnight (Melissa Grey), Razorhurst (Justine Larbalesteir), Hold Me Closer (David Levithan) and Black Dove, White Raven (Elizabeth Wein) were not mentioned at all.  That might not mean anything… or it might.  What I do know is that I’m going to use the much loved and some loved books in a Welcome Back display in September, asking our students to weigh in.

Now I’m off on a brief vacation (and some reading of the new books).  More on ALA when I return.

 

Summer Learning

One of the biggest complaints others have about those of us who work in schools is that we get this really long summer vacation, so why do we need to get paid a reasonable wage? While it’s true that we get that vacation (and part of me says the haters are just jealous), the reality is that few of us use it for Vacation and more of us use it to revamp lesson plans, to learn new tools and skills, and to learn from each other.

My plans, in addition to revamping and trying new tricks, are:

• ALA Annual in San Francisco (where I’m triple booked at times on Saturday, with long stretches of downtime on Sunday and nothing on Monday – a far cry from the good old days)
• Wonder Women! Uncovering your Superpower and Signature Leadership Presence at my alma mater

If I had the time/money, I’d also be attending

• AISL Summer Institute in La Jolla
• Capstone Project Summit (also in CA, where apparently I could stay for most of the second half of June!)

Between now and then, however, I have time to go through my archived tweets and blog posts, pulling out great ideas to try for next year and tools/tricks/tips to share with you, my faithful readers.  And after, more time to play and explore, not to mention get caught up on all the wonderful summer book releases and getting ready for fall.  Sadly, Faculty Orientation and Student Orientation in August will be upon us far too soon…

What will you be doing?  where?

Change, or thinking the unthinkable

“Life is change”, we’re told. And we need to “lean in” to the discomfort (a real misreading of That Book) or recite the Serenity Prayer or do yoga or something. But change is stressful, no matter how we try to deal with it.

There’s a very loosely connected group of librarians who meet once a year at a day-long conference (the group is called the New England Association of Independent School Librarians, or NEAISL, and has no elist, no website, nothing more than this moveable conference) and this year, Porter’s is hosting that conference.  Our metatheme is change in all its permutations and instead of presentations we’re having facilitated conversations.  I know, from personal experience, that those conversations we have amongst colleagues are incredibly valuable – going to a conference presentation may lead to a new idea or two, or give an overview of a new tool, but for help with real change, real problems, it’s that interpersonal piece that works best.

So what kind of change?  As a librarian, I know that our programs have changed radically over the past couple of decades.  The school library my parents had looked very much like the one I had, but the one my nieces and nephews had has undergone so much change that they wouldn’t recognize mine!  Gone are the micro-format machines and drawers of film/fiche, ditto the card catalog, the LP collection, etc. and instead there are computers and databases and possibly makerspaces, and no shelves of encyclopedias with annual updates.  Do we stay with Dewey, or go with Metis or BISAC or Library of Congress?  What is the right size to the collection?

And then there are professional changes, like a shake-up in school or library administration.  Sometimes it’s a redistribution of duties or divisions, based on staffing changes.  What do you do if you have to change divisions, moving from your Middle School comfort zone to working with Upper School?  Or losing your K-12 range to go K-4 only?  Maybe there’s been a reduction, where your clerk has been “reassigned” (or someone without any training has been assigned!).  And if you’re new to a school, how do you fit into that team – if there is a team; sometimes you’ve gone solo and are suddenly everything from the Head Librarian to the occasional volunteer.

For some people, and I’ve heard from a number, these changes are too much.  They’ve gotten that one straw too many and it’s time to think about What’s Next.  Years ago, a colleague at another school sent out an email describing a situation at her school, where the new Head was radically changing the program and essentially turning it into a non-library space with a non-library focus.  This distress call got back to the school and a few days later, What’s Next became What Do I Do Now?  Some of us are trying to prevent that from happening to us, but the strain of keeping up with the changes is difficult to deal with.

It’s my hope that instead of thinking the unthinkable, we’ll be able to band together and share resources, share tool and share our stories, bolstering each other so that we can deal with the stress and the change.  What are we doing, and where are we going is relevant to everyone – so here’s your opportunity to vent, share and help.  I look forward to your comments!