2/25/16

Today was a pretty quiet day. When I first arrived Ms. Schell told me that their supervisor, Mary Keeling, was here observing Ms. Gratto’s media literacy class. They thought Ms. Keeling would stay all day, but after the class she gave Ms. Gratto some feedback and then left. Ms. Gratto and Ms. Schell spent some time explaining how Ms. Keeling visits each school library and how she supervises their work throughout the year. This is something I had not given much thought to, how the work of a school librarian is supervised not only by the school’s principal but also by the district’s library supervisor.

It is helpful to have a general idea of how things work, even though I know each school district may have a different approach.

Around mid morning I sat down and observe Ms. Schell give a lecture to 6^th graders about text features in non-fiction books. She gave a quick lecture on text features and the gave out a short form for the students to fill out where they had to list the text features they saw on 5 different non-fiction books. Ms. Schell had already piled non-fiction books on their tables, so they did not have to get up and walk around. The students seemed to enjoy the activity and they did the work quickly.

I also spent some time adding more of the new books that arrived yesterday to the library catalog. This is work I actually enjoy doing, it is very relaxing and it gives me some quiet time to work on my own.

Here is the form Ms. Schell had the students fill out:

2/23/16 & 2/24/16

The last couple days I spent a lot of time in the classroom observing both Ms. Gratto and Ms. Schell as they imparted their media literacy lectures to 8^th graders. We had already discussed this specific media literacy lecture and I knew what they would be teaching, but it is interesting to see how they adjust their lecture based on the class (“know your audience” as Ms. Schell called it). Ms. Gratto, for example, gave a somewhat different lecture when she was with the ESL class. She gave more detailed information, spoke at a slower pace, and went through the first couple exercises together with the class to make sure they understood the activity.

Ms. Schell on the other hand gave her lectures to TAG classes, so she moved more quickly through the content and gave the students more autonomy when working on the exercises. She also had them explain why an option was wrong or right.

I guess I should mention that Ms. Gratto and Ms. Schell prepared their media literacy lectures based on the SOLs (Standards of Learning) and what the students need to know for those tests. They even used released SOL questions for the exercise they have the students do.

After the classes I started working on processing the new books that arrived this week. Ms. Gratto had ordered these books a few weeks ago using some of their book fair funds.

2/16/16

Today I started the day with the usual shelving. Then I spent some time discussing some of the ways Ms. Schell and Ms. Gratto do collection development. This came up because earlier that day they had received a few boxes with sample non-fiction books from one of the publishers they have bought books from before. We talked about how they select books (does it relate to the curriculum? will it get checked out? is it too easy? too hard?) and how they pay for them. A lot of the books included were either too simple (and expensive) or too hard for middle schoolers, but Ms. Schell found a series about the different government agencies that she thought might be good to add to the collection. She explained that usually she takes the books to the teachers and asks them to peruse them and tell her if they would use them.

I also did a little bit of reader's advisory! I was walking around the library doing some shelving when a student asked me if I could help him find a novel about basketball or football. I suggested he do a keyword search in the catalog to see what we had. We found several options, but he kept asking me how long the books were (it seems that he was starting the work on an assignment pretty late and he needed to find a quick read). After spending some time looking through the results list, he picked "The Crossover" by Kwame Alexander.

2/11/16

Today I worked a full day. I have been here since early this morning, which has given me a chance to experience what a full day is like at the library.

When I first got here Ms. Gratto had left me a note asking me to look at the library catalog and note which websites and databases have relevant information on each of the topics for the PE & Health teacher’s substance abuse project with 7^th grade.

I spent most of my morning working on that (the internet is rather slow sometimes and I have been having some access issues).

Today I also observed Ms. Schell and Ms. Gratto give lessons to 6^th grade TAG classes. It was interesting to see how they took the same lesson they were giving yesterday a step further for these students.

2/9/2016

So, when we filled out the midterm report last week, we realized that I needed to work more on teacher collaboration (one of my learning outcomes). I knew that this week Ms. Gratto and I would be meeting with the PE and Health teacher to help her plan for a project she is doing on substance abuse with 7^th grade (more on that later). But as I came in this morning, Ms. Schell was getting ready to go visit a 7^th grade classroom and give a talk about how to do online research and what resources are available through the library website.

Ms. Schell used to be a science teacher before she became a librarian. So the science teacher asked for her collaboration organizing an activity where students have to do a presentation on an assigned African American scientist. Ms. Schell already had the list of names and she knew what kind of information they had at the library on print and online.

I do not have much experience in the classroom that is why I always appreciate being able to observe other teachers work. Ms. Schell’s talk was short and to the point and together with the science teacher she showed the students how to quickly find the information they are looking for (the names of the scientists were preselected by the teacher, the students picked each name from a hat and the assignment includes a bullet list of the specific information the teacher wants the students to find on each scientist).

Ms. Schell succinctly covered reliable sources and citations and then gave them a print out with the sources they could use and where to find them. Sometimes I think they make things too easy for the students, but at the same time I realize that they have much more experience with them and know their needs much better than I do ;)

Towards the end of the day the PE teacher came in for a meeting about the upcoming assignment. This is the first time she is having her students do a PSA so she is starting from scratch. I sat in the meeting as they discussed different ideas on how to approach the assignment. Ms. Gratto offered to help her find a good rubric and they talked about how they need to come up with a list of topics for the students to choose from. Ms. Gratto is also going to give the students a quick reminder about the ABCs of note taking. 
I thought it was very interesting how quickly these two instructors put together and good and instructive assignment that it is going to challenge the students and also help them learn on their own.  

2/2/16

One thing I am learning about the job of a school librarian is that every day can bring something new. Also, you need to be flexible to accommodate the needs of your patrons. The other day, I came into the library and there were dozens of books spread out on the tables. It turns out that a 7^th grade teacher had emailed Ms. Gratto the night before telling her she wanted each 7^th grade student to check out a poetry book on their next class visit to the library. Ms. Gratto and Ms. Schell then decided to pull out all the poetry books and spread them out on the tables so that they would not have 20 kids looking through one bookshelf at the same time. This made it easier not only because the students would not be all crowded in front of a bookshelf but also because they could browse the books more easily and look at the covers and decide what to check out. 

I thought this was a great idea and I think the students enjoyed the experience. Ms. Gratto pointed out though that one problem they face during poetry month is that the whole district does poetry at the same time and the libraries do not have enough resources for everyone.