I agreed with Melissa Marscham when I wrote that I thought dual teaching and librarianship qualifications were a “huge imposition” for teacher librarians (TLs) as I had worked in university and college libraries and had experience teaching information literacy. (Taylor, A. Mar-18, Re:role of the teacher librarian, Topic 2: Subforum) I can see now that the school library should be “a centre of learning first and a centre of resources second” (Herring, 2007, p.1). As I posted on (May-11), teaching qualifications are a way of establishing credibility so TLs can be a key player in establishing collaborative relationships with the Principal and teachers: they need to be able to speak the Principal’s language and communicate relevant research on library practice (Todd, 2008).
After I read Montiel-Overall (2008), I realised that what I had previously thought of as collaboration at university and college libraries was closer to co-operation or co-ordination. In addition, I had evaluated success by the teacher's comments and not on student outcomes. (May-8, Re: Montiel-Overall’s article, Topic 5:Subforum). My belief that systemic collaboration was not happening in schools was reinforced by various forum posts including (Proctor, P, (26-Apr), Forcing the horse to drink: Topic 5: Subforum) who mentioned teachers wanting to insulate themselves from collaboration with TLs, and (King, C, (30-Apr), Re: Collaboration: Topic 5: Subforum) who found TLs eager to collaborate but finding it a haphazard experience. Ever an optimist, I posted on (30-Apr) that sharing some of the classroom teachers’ concerns such as lack of student motivation, gap in student learning to build friendship and professional relationships with teachers would be a positive addition to a TL’s role (MacGregor 2003).
“Those who fall in love with practice without theory are like the sailor who boards ship without rudder and compass, and never is certain where he is going. (Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1508 cited in Patricia Montiel-Overall (2005) p.25, encapsulated an important breakthrough in my learning and understanding of the role of the TL. As posted on (May-7), I realised I needed “a deeper understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the profession so that I can strive to be a collaborator in a learning organisation”. It reinforced my belief that I must learn more about evidence based librarianship, especially around student achievement and quality teaching and learning” (Mar-31), and not just how the library is being rated (My changing views on collaboration, May 15: Topic 5: Subforum).
I kept referring to my experience as a reference librarian at university in my early blog posts about the role of the TL (Mar-6) and My initial response to Purcell’s 2010 article on the role of the SLMS (Mar-14). I failed to grasp how much teaching TLs do, how I would have to use educational pedagogy to teach IL effectively and that learning more about blogs, wikis and other ICT would be useful only if I could embed it in collaborative learning (Todd, 2009). As the lecturers modelled their use of ICT and participation in the TL professional learning community, I saw how a TL must show their students how to incorporate Web 2.0 tools to reflect, to collaborate, to complete authentic tasks and become a lifelong learner in IL, ICT as well as keep abreast of educational trends.
As I worked on my assignment, my knowledge of information literacy deepened and its’ relationship to authentic learning tasks. As Herring (2007) writes, students need to become active learners, receive constructive feedback, which we have received and engaged in authentic tasks (p. 4), and there needs to be appropriate assessment for IL so TLs can be sure students are grasping the concepts (Abilock, 2007, p. 10). Reading about Kuhlthau’s Information seeking process (ISP) and that confusion and anxiety were part of the information seeking process was a revelation to me about information literacy (Kuhlthau, 1995, p. 4). I posted on my blog (Apr-30) that this mirrored my confusion about this assignment but that the excellent learning environment with on-line modules, forum discussion, wikis and websites to look at was the scaffolding I needed to keep me on track. I see this as an important part of the TL's role, providing a scaffold to students' learning, as well as instruction on how you might feel during the process.
Warlick (2009) tells librarians to acknowledge the personal weaknesses of their personal learning networks and go further afield (Eliot, 2009, p.50). As a 44 yo with reasonable but not exceptional IT skills, I must increase my professional network. Koechlin, , Luhtala., Loertscher (2011) agree that TLs must demonstrate how they ‘keep up’ with technology which boosts learning outcomes and show a dynamic TL with lots to contribute to the school community.
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