The Collaboration Centre: One Stop Shopping

My Scenario:

We all have a story.  My story so far is what has led me to make this website.  It’s a messy one with many ups and downs in leadership.  And it’s a long one, but I feel it all must be told in order to understand my vision.

I have been working at my middle school for 7 years.  In the last 4 years I have been blessed with time built into my schedule to do what we call curricular support.  Basically, I work with teachers to co-plan, co-teach, and co-assess.  It’s a really sweet gig.  I work closely with my admin team of 3, and I support and help grow their vision, all of which is part of the role of a teacher librarian, according to From School Library to Library Learning Commons.  This year, in their strategic thinking (Eisenberg, 2002, p.48),  my school is focusing on student agency, so my focus will be on that.  However, last year’s focus was on assessment, so I also am honouring that as my colleagues are in all different areas in their development. Most of my curricular support has been in these two areas.  I help interested teachers build out inquiry lessons and make their current lessons more student centred.  I also help interested teachers revamp assessments and lessons that they love to ensure they are able to assess learning standards, basically ensuring they are meeting the redesigned curriculum.  It’s been great, but challenging.  My colleagues seem happy to work with me, but are understandably challenging any new ideas as they are all excellent critical thinkers.  They have seen initiatives come and go in the educational world.  Next year I will be moving into the LLC as the teacher-librarian.  My vision is to continue this work and honour teachers' work and voices in my school by creating an online resource centre to highlight work my colleagues and I have done.

This online collection of resources will allow me to work on 4 of the standards in the Leading Learning Framework.  I am facilitating collaboration between colleagues digitally, planning for school improvement, working on assessment for, of and as learning,  inquiry approaches and differentiated learning, as well as designing a collaborative virtual space for the LLC.  It fits so many of my goals and ties in perfectly with my school’s vision.

Need:

I am constantly touting the move towards greater student agency in our classrooms. I am echoing the words of Margaret Vaughn (2020) when she says, “what could happen in schools if we centred educational reform efforts on creating agentic spaces for students in schools?  What would classrooms look like for students, teachers, and communities?” (p.3).  And teachers are curious.

When they hear me talk about what others are working on, or the work done in collaboration, teachers often want to see an example.  I always invite them to see it in action in one of the classrooms, but I know that many are not ready for that leap.  And so far, I have collected a healthy amount of examples that can be shared including plans, assessments, and student handouts that move teachers towards a greater sense of student agency in their classrooms. The artefacts are things I have created on my own and in collaboration with my colleagues as a team teacher and within the role of curricular support.  What is still missing, and what I think would also meet the needs of those who want examples, are videos of the collaboration process and of the students engaging in the end product.  These will come as I get more time with my colleagues this coming year.

How to meet the need:

I’m envisioning a one-stop shop website where teachers can take a look at different ways of teaching, projects, resources, and lessons.  I like the idea of a website as it is “open 24/7” and it can be easily organised.  I also like that I can add features like a calendar of events and a blog or vlog.  

The “Three C’s” that create an effective learning commons program, according to Michelle Hall in From School Library to Library Learning Commons (2022) are communication, coordination, and collaboration.  With this website I am working on the first and the last.  A virtual space is a great add on to the communication I do in person.  Hopefully I can reach more people this way - those that are more likely to start by looking something up rather than a full on planning session with me.  And this website, as mentioned previously, will assist in creating collaborations between colleagues and myself and colleagues.  I am posting the work I have done with others to show what types of things can be done, and I am also showcasing my colleagues' work so others can find partners in their interests at school.

Learning that has lead me here:

I have many strong relationships with my colleagues, but we are a big school with around 50 teachers and 25 CEAs. I am aware that I don’t have strong relationships with everyone, and I recognize the importance of building these relationships so I can have the greatest possible impact on all of the learners in my school.  I know that not everyone is open to sharing their space and their practice.  I learned that if I market my services in an accessible way, I should have more people coming to me.  Some people are more comfortable observing from afar before moving into any type of co-planning and co-teaching. I also am keenly aware of the feelings of inadequacy in my school even though I truly feel that my colleagues all have inspiring, beautiful work to share.  As such, I want this to be a place where everyone is honoured through the work they do and so I am requesting for others to share with me.  Foote, in Everyday Advocacy (2010), speaks about the need for an online presence, a communication network, and the need to document what you do (p.29-30).  This website effectively does all three.  I created a place for teachers to go 24/7 for resources, a way to communicate with one another and me, and a central place to document my work with others.  This website will help me advocate for my new role as teacher-librarian.

I also want this to reflect my personality and the quirky culture of my school.  I want to use tongue-in-cheek humour wherever possible as I find it helps me connect with my people.  There is an aversion to anything shiny and any type of buzzword, which I fully understand.  A lot of us have been around for cycles of education where everything old is new again.  We get a bit jaded, and honestly just tired.  So on the website I want to honour those feelings by gently poking fun at them.  A little humour goes a long way in opening doors to relationships.

My learning has also led me to realise that my personal interest in education, student agency, assessment, and digital portfolios, match well with our school’s vision (and therefore the vision I will create for my LLC).  I am a part of a district committee on assessment, one on maths learning and teaching, and another on digital portfolios.  This will help me continue my learning so I can keep my website valid and updated in a timely manner.  

This course, Special Topics in Teacher Librarianship as been incredibly helpful as I leap into a teacher-librarian role this September.  I have so many takeaways.  First, this was the first chance I had to participate in inquiry based learning as a learner rather than as a teacher.  I loved the freedom to look into issues from my own lens and to explore the paths I was most interested in learning about.  I loved the structure to lead me to my interests and the thoughtful readings that allowed me to learn but then diverge.  It inspired me to continue with inquiry learning in my own classes. Further, Miller and Bass’ Leading from the Library (2019) was a terrific read, and I will be returning to the dog eared pages often in my journey.  I love the challenges and have written many in my goals notebook for next year.  I think the biggest takeaway from this book is the idea of advocacy.  I built the website as a way to document my colleagues' journeys and as such create a space of advocacy for my programs and what I have to offer.  They write, “advocacy doesn’t just happen; it needs to be intentional, so making our stories visible through data provides evidence of value and impact on student learning” (p.53-54).  It is so important to share.  And share I will.

Finally, I have learned a lot about creating and curating an online presence. I learned that I’m not quite as much of a luddite as I originally thought, as I easily took to blogging and website building.  These tools are very intuitive and I needed no prior instruction.  This is great news for my colleagues as I look to share more tools like this with them.  It’s not as hard as it looks! I hope my website reflects the learning in regards to an online presence by having easy to find information in a pleasing presentation.  I hope it is organised and offers something to everyone, because just as we differentiate for our students, we also do for our colleagues. 

Sharing this project:

I love sharing, and it is a part of my role.  Burns (2018) speaks of the need for librarians to be leaders in professional development (p.10) and develop lessons for 21st Century learning (p.12). This website aims to do both. My hope is that every time I share something, my colleagues will take at least one thing from me and develop it as their own.  This is not a spot intended for teachers to download, copy, and use (although of course they could do that) but rather a place for them to springboard off of and ask for support as they see fit. My district, in various capacities, is big on creating websites for teachers to find resources. This is just a mini (so far) version of that.  I think it would be valuable for many educators, not just my colleagues, and I would be happy if this website went beyond my people.  As for how this can be shared, I look forward to showing it at our Implementation Day in October, and prior to that I will be posting it in the weekly staff memos, under my newly created LLC section.  Further, at my lunch and learns, where staff is invited to come learn a new tool or other information once per month, I will showcase parts of the website so staff gets used to seeing it and hopefully using it.  Finally, I will scan in a spiral of inquiry, as per Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert (2017).  In this way I can adjust my work to best needs those for whom it is intended.

I just started building the KLO Collaboration Centre this week, and there is no way I can build it all out in this short amount of time.  I really do want it to be a website that gets weeded and added to, just as a library collection is.  Items will be added as I work with others and as they choose to share, so what you see on this site is only a sample of what it will look like in the future.  If you see something you like, share it!  If you have ideas, share them with me.  When we work together, everyone gets stronger.

Works Cited:

BC Teacher Librarians’ Association. (2017). From School Library to Library Learning Commons: A Pro-Active Model for Educational Change. BC Teacher-Librarians’ Assocation. https://bctladotca.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/from-school-library-to-library-learning-commons.pdf

Burns, E. A. (2018). Advocating for Change in School Library Perceptions. Teacher Librarian, 46(1), 8–14.

Eisenberg, M. B. (2002). This Man Wants to Change Your Job. School Library Journal, 48(9), 46–50.

Foote, C. (2010). Everyday Advocacy. School Library Journal, 56(8), 28–30.

Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2017). The Spiral Playbook. Canadians for 21st Century Learning and Innovation.

Leading Learning Framework – Leading Learning. (n.d.). Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://llsop.canadianschoollibraries.ca/leading-learning-framework/

Miller, S. M., & Bass, W. (2019). Leading from the Library: Help Your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age (Digital Age Librarian’s Series). International Society for Technology in Education.

Vaughn, M. (2020). What is student agency and why is it needed now more than ever? Theory Into Practice, 59(2), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1702393