I was very fortunate last Thursday to attend UC Davis’s fifth annual Academic Literacy Summit. My attendance was sponsored by Stacey Aldrich, California State Librarian, who funded participation by 10 statewide teacher librarians and 10 public librarians. The summit, with approximately 200 K-16 educators, explored the topic “What’s at the Core of Academic Literacy,” with special focus on the new Common Core Standards. A huge plus of the summit for me was the opportunity to share ideas with educators from multiple grade levels, ranging from elementary school through college.
The opening presentation of the day was a teaching demonstration by Jose Rivas, Physics and Engineering Teacher at Lennox Math, Science, and Technology Academy in Inglewood and a recipient of the Carlston Family Foundation 2011 Outstanding Teacher Award. Rivas was able to both teach us a physics lesson and articulate his techniques as he progressed. He showed us how he builds emotional connections with students to engage them and help them retain material through hands-on exploration, fun competition, self-assessments, and lively film clips. He emphasized how a short movie or song can help students retain an important concept. He spends minimal time doing direct instruction, since the students spend most of their time actively working on solving problems with other students. Our challenge was to use a collection of Styrofoam cups, paper clips, tape, wooden sticks, and rubber bands to create a catapult for a marble that would send the marble further than our other classmates’ examples. We all got into the spirit of the competition, although I am afraid my group’s product was not very successful!
I came away highly motivated to incorporate these techniques in the lessons I teach. I especially liked his effective use of film clips. An audience favorite was the film he made himself in which a picture of Isaac Newton was talking to us. He used a software product called Crazy Talk in order to animate the picture. CrazyTalk is definitely on my “have to get and use” list now! Another example he shared that I think I could implement right away was a tic-tac-toe game. Students receive a sheet of physics computation questions at different levels of difficulty. Once they choose a level with which to begin solving problems, they can find the correct answers on a tic-tac-toe board which they compete with a classmate to complete. I think this tic-tac-toe model could be applied to problems in any subject area, including my own information literacy lessons in the library.
One of the breakout sessions I attended was led by Bill Macauley, Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. The intended focus of the session was on how we can help students make the transition from high school writing to college writing. In fact, though, our discussion was much broader, since there were educators from middle school through college participating. We discussed how the Common Core Standards provide a fairly even balance between higher order and lower order skills, and how we can balance them in writing instruction and practice. Macauley shared several handouts on designing effective writing assignments which I can, in turn share with Mira Costa teachers, and we all contributed our own ideas in small group and whole group discussions. One idea that I contributed myself to help students develop both lower order and high level skills is to alternate between structured writing assignments and more free form, creative writing such as blog postings. We also talked about how the teacher librarian can help the students focus on the structure and citation components of writing, while the subject area teacher focuses on the higher order analysis components. Another idea we discussed was the value of using Google Docs for writing assignments, allowing teachers to share comments with students online. One participant suggested taking advantage of the revision history feature and requiring students to articulate the kind of changes they make at each revision.
I attended a second breakout session on “You Can Have it All: Academic Literacy, Critical Thinking, and Student Engagement through the Common Core” led by Nicole Kukrai, Secondary Teacher on Special Assignment, San Juan Unified School District and Area 3 Writing Project. Like Rivas, Kukrai led us in a model lesson, and, at the same time, articulated the techniques or routines she uses to teach students and build a classroom culture of learning. The lesson in this case was reading and analyzing a short essay, We all came away with a number of routines for multiple readings of a text and student conversation promoting academic literacy in the classroom. Kukrai’s routines included “turn and talk” in which students pair up to discuss what they read, small group conversation, whole group sharing, and charting the discussion points. We all read the essay several different times, focusing on different types of questions for each reading. While we worked in pairs and small groups, Kukrai had time to move from group to group, assess our performance, and give help as needed. These routines are definitely good ideas I would like to use as models for my own teaching.
I came away from the summit with lots of good ideas for myself, many I can share with other Mira Costa staff, and a much better understanding of the new Common Core Standards and how I can help implement them. Teachers, please come by to hear more about the summit and see the helpful handouts I received. I am very grateful to have been able to attend this outstanding professional development day.
We are so fortunate at Mira Costa to have a strong school library. So many schools in California and across the U.S. do not.
Carl Harvey, AASL (American Association of School Librarians) President has posted a petition on the Whitehouse.gov site in support of school libraries. Here’s the text:
“WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Ensure that every child in America has access to an effective school library program.
Every child in America deserves access to an effective school library program. We ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Such action will ensure more students have access to the resources and tools that constitute a 21st century learning environment. Reductions in school library programs are creating an ‘access gap’ between schools in wealthier communities versus those where there are high levels of poverty. All students should have an equal opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to learn, to participate, and to compete in today’s world.”
Petitions posted on this site need 25,000 signatures to be forwarded to President Obama. Please add your signature and spread the word far and wide. We need more signatures by February 4 for this petition to be forwarded. We can do it if we all get out the word to colleagues, family, and friends. Our students’ futures depend upon strong school libraries. Let’s advocate to make it happen.
To sign, click this link to go to the petition. You do need to create an account, then sign in. Some people have had challenges getting logged in. If you have trouble, try another browser. If you still have trouble, click on ‘forgot password?’. You’ll fill out the dialog box and then it sends you a new password in your email. When you get that, you are sent to a site to change your password then you can go back to the original site and type in your new password. That seems to work. I did have to log in about three times before I succeeded. The time and effort will be worth it!
Thank you for your support of strong school libraries for all students!
If you have a smartphone or iPad, you can now access our library catalog via our new Destiny Quest app. The free app, available through the Apple iTunes App Store or Android Marketplace, runs on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads with iOS 4.2 or later and on Android 2.1-2.3.7 phones. Here’s some of what you can do with the new app:
Search for books in our collection
See the top ten recent checkouts
See recent additions to our collection
Access resource lists of books on different topics
In addition, you can login to:
Place holds
See what books you have checked out. (The list does not currently include textbooks).
To download the app, go to the iTunes App Store or Android Marketplace and search for Destiny Quest, click on the app name, then click on Free and Install to install it. Once the app is installed, you need to set it up by entering our district url: http://destiny.mbusd.org. Then, select Mira Costa from the list of MBUSD schools. You can now access the library as a guest, or login. To login, enter your nine- or ten-digit Permanent ID number as your username and destiny as your password.
If you don’t have a smart device, you can still access our library catalog on any computer with a web browser. Either follow the link from the library website (mchslibrary .org), or type destiny.mbusd.org on the URL line. Then, select Mira Costa from the list of MBUSD schools. You can now search for books and resource lists. To check the books you have borrowed, place holds, or create resource lists, you can login from the Mira Costa page, entering your nine- or ten-digit Permanent ID as your username and destiny as your password. When you login on a web browser, you can display both your checked library books and textbooks.
Mira Costa students, staff, and library volunteers had a huge treat on January 13 meeting best-selling author Andrea Cremer when she visited our library. Ms. Cremer shared how she became a professional writer, where she gets her inspiration, the historical background she applies to her work, and the discipline required to complete a novel and get published.
As you can see above, she also posed for a READ poster, now featured to our Library READ wall.
Please visit the library to borrow Nightshade and its two sequels, Wolfsbane and Bloodrose. You can also see more photos from the visit on our library Flickr page.
Many thanks to {pages} bookstore for arranging the visit for us.
The Mira Costa High School Library is pleased to announce that Andrea Cremer, a best-selling author of the Nightshade series and a History Professor at Macalester College, is visiting our school on January 13, 2012, and will be speaking about her craft during a session in the library from 2 PM – 3 PM. The third installment in the series is being released on January 3. We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to hear an author speak in a small group session. Students are invited to sign up at the library to attend her talk. They must obtain permission from their Period 6 teachers to attend.
The library has some copies of Ms. Cremer’s first two books to borrow, but we encourage you to also consider purchasing one or more to enjoy and get autographed. All students who purchase books will have the opportunity to meet Ms. Cremer and have her books signed during the visit. This visit has been arranged for us by {pages} bookstore, a local Manhattan Beach independent book vendor. A portion of the profits for books purchased at Mira Costa before or during the visit will benefit our library. If you are interested in ordering books in advance, please complete the book order form and return it to the library. You can also purchase books on the day of the visit.
Ms. Cremer will also be visiting {pages} at 4:30 PM on January 13, and our library is grateful to {pages} for arranging our school visit.
You can learn more about Andrea Cremer and her books on her website.
During the recent California School Library Association Annual Conference in Pasadena last month, the organization held the first ever “Cyber Sunday,” an event open free of charge to the community with some of digital literacy’s top experts providing sessions on many different aspects of digital citizenship. Shirley Shoda, a Mira Costa parent and library volunteer attended. I asked her to write a guest posting:
“My main reason for attending Cyber Sunday was to learn about ways to protect my family on the net. I signed up for a session called Parent Support: Young Children Online.
“The first portion of the session was covered by Daryl Hulce, Program Administrator for USA-SOS Internet Challenge. This program is an Internet Safety Program for 3rd thru 8th graders, backed by the FBI and is designed primarily for participation by schools. The students answer a series of questions to earn points. The schools then compete against other schools to win a prize. Some of the topics include Virus Protection, On-Line Predators, Reputable Sites, and Social Networking. (There are 17 topics in all). The program is designed like a game, making it very kid-friendly.
“The second portion included an introduction of Nooks for Books by a rep from Barnes and Noble, explaining how this technology can be used in the classroom and at home. Everyone in the audience actually got to play around with a Nook!
“In addition to these talks, I received some helpful handouts, such as “A Parents’ Guide to Facebook”, presented by ConnectSafely.org, explaining about how kids can socialize smartly and safely on the web. It covered topics like “Why you should be honest about your age”, “How to choose friends wisely”, “Configuring who can see what you post”, and “Limiting who can see your info or search for you”. These topics were extremely informative not only for my children but for me as well.
“Cyber safety will continue to be a hot topic in our household as we use the web more to connect with others. I feel that having attended Cyber Sunday has definitely helped me become better equipped in protecting our privacy and ensuring our family’s safety online.”
After I wrote the posting about our library club connecting across the country, both Joyce Valenza and Shannon Miller cross-posted and added the perspectives of their clubs. Check their postings out:
One great activity that has been occurring at the Mira Costa Library has been the growth and development of TLC: The Library Club, now in its second year. Last school year when we established the club, it was primarily a group to support library programs, and the club met every other week. I very much appreciated the help the students offered with our D.J. MacHale author visit, with library displays, contests, PR, and more. They also conducted a very successful book drive and sent the collected books to a shelter. This Fall, the students took the initiative to expand our club by meeting weekly and incorporating more discussions of books in addition to supporting the library.
Then, in October, we had the opportunity to expand our club beyond our school when I responded to a generous open invitation from Joyce Valenza, Teacher Librarian at Springfield Township High School in Pennsylvania, to join several school library clubs in a virtual book club discussion of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. Despite some technical difficulties with my computer and the challenges of time differences, our club members were able to join the group for approximately a half hour of a lively discussion of this engaging book. And, they are looking forward to “Round 2,” when we have revisit Hunger Games after the movie comes out in March.
TLC Members discussing Blood and Chocolate
On December 1, we had our second virtual book discussion about Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. Two of the other schools – Springfield Township HS in Pennsylvania, led by Teacher Librarian Joyce Valenza, and Van Meter in Iowa, led by Shannon Miller – were able to attend this session, and one student who was ill even Skyped in from home. The students enjoyed a very lively debate about the different characters and clearly had very divergent views about how sympathetic they were. I was so impressed by their insightful comments and their ability to disagree with each other while always remaining polite and considerate.
We are now reading Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret and plan to compare it to the new Hugo film in January.
To bring the groups together, we have been experimenting with different platforms, including Google + Hangouts and Skype. These are some of the tools that we teacher librarians have been using for webinars, virtual conferences, and professional organization meetings. Communicating across the miles in this way has also offered our students an opportunity to practice virtual meeting skills they are sure to be using in many other contexts.
I know that I have been enjoying the opportunity to communicate across the miles – and connect and plan with talented Teacher Librarians Joyce Valenza, Shannon Miller, Michelle Luhtala, Colette Cassinelli, and Amy Lott - at least as much as our students.
In my November 8 posting about the American Association of School Librarians Conference I attended in Minneapolis, I promised to write more about it as I processed my notes, materials, and thoughts from the conference. One of the sessions that resonated with me was “Transforming Learning for Today’s Students: Libraries as Sponsors of Transliteracy” presented by Buffy Hamilton, the “Unquiet Librarian” from the Creekview High School Library in Canton, Georgia. Fortunately, the session was taped, and I was just able to watch the recording, since it took me a second time through to absorb all that she shared.
So, first, what is transliteracy? Buffy shared several definitions for what is clearly an evolving concept. Transliteracy, I believe, means being literate across the entire spectrum of the most traditional forms of communication to the most cutting-edge social media platforms. Our students are using many new platforms, including software like Facebook and hardware like smartphones, in their personal lives. We need to embrace these options and help them use these media as part of their educational experience as we also introduce them to new media they may not be familiar with. Here are a few of the points that struck me in Buffy’s talk that I want to make sure we foster at our library:
We need to move from just helping students learn to helping them learn how to learn. We need to help them move beyond being just knowledgeable to being knowledge – able.
Don’t tell students not to use Google to search or Wikipedia as a source. We aren’t going to stop them from using these tools. Instead, we need to teach them how to use and filter them effectively. (Whenever I see students using Wikipedia, I never discourage them; instead, I always share that it may be a good place to start research, but not to end.)
We need to be wary of the myth of the digital native. In practice, most students know a little about a lot of things. We must be careful not to make assumptions about prior knowledge of both tools or concepts.
We must also be wary about assumptions that all students have access to technology. The library needs to take ownership of helping to close the participation gap in access.
New technology tools can be powerful, but pedagogy and sound practice needs to come first. And, we can’t rely either on just theory or just experience from practice. We need both, and we need a sound framework before introducing new tools.
We need to help build inquiry-driven lessons and projects. A sound model is Barbara Stripling’s “Inquiry Model” which includes six non-linear, recursive phases: wonder, investigate, construct, express, reflect, and connect. Many students have lost the power of wonder, since they have not been given an opportunity to exercise it. We need to think of strategies to engage that. (Here is an article that outlines Stripling’s model and includes a great graphic Buffy included in her talk:
We need to allow students to fashion their own research questions and find what they are passionate about. We need to celebrate their strengths and differences and encourage them to share their work. We need to fight the idea that there is “the answer.”
We need to include students in the assessment process. The ultimate empowerment is when students can evaluate their own work.
At Mira Costa, we are blessed with outstanding teachers. I look forward to building on our strengths by working to foster these concepts in our library programs.
Here’s a review of some of what’s been happening at the Mira Costa High School Library since the beginning of the school year. For the best viewing, click the Forward Arrow, allow the presentation to load, then click the More button at the bottom right and select Fullscreen. Or, view the report at this link.
