Extending Our Reach: Librarian/Teacher Partnerships To Ensure Student Attainment of 21st Century Skills

Shelbie Witte, School of Teacher EducationMelissa Gross, Library and Information StudiesDon Latham, Library and Information Studies

2012 Marvalene Hughes Research in Education Conference

Overview

• Preparing Teachers and Librarians to Teach 21st Century Skills Project

• Partnership for 21st Century Skills• Preliminary Findings

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Preparing Teachers and Librarians To Teach 21st Century Skills Project

• A collaboration between the School of Library and Information Studies and the School of Teacher Education at FSU, funded by CRC Planning Grant

• Assess the extent to which we are preparing our students to foster 21st Century Skills among students

• Create a synergy between educational and library initiatives by bringing teachers and librarians together to orient them to partner in the goal of ensuring that students are able to achieve the skills outlined in the 21st Century Skills framework.

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Partnership for 21st Century Skills

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Research Questions1. What are the information literacy skill levels of students

graduating from the Master’s program in Library and Information Studies (LIS) and of preservice teachers in the College of Education at X University?

2. Where in the LIS curriculum and the Education curriculum are 21st Century Skills currently taught?

3. What do faculty in LIS and Education say about how 21st Century Skills could best be incorporated into their respective curricula?

4. What do faculty in LIS and Education say about how teacher/librarian partnerships could best be fostered?

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Methods

• Assessment of graduating students’ information literacy skills

• Curriculum maps• In-depth interviews with faculty focused on

the incorporation of 21st Century Skills and librarian/teacher collaboration into the curricula for public, school, and academic librarianship and K-12 education.

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Syllabi MappingAnalysis of all syllabi in SLIS and secondary certification programs coded against the 21st Century Skills framework•Secondary education certification programs– English education– Science and mathematics– Social studies

•Library and Information Studies programs– Core courses– School Library courses

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Health Literacy

Be Responsible to Others

Global Awareness

Interviews with Faculty

12 faculty were interviewed– 6 in School of Teacher Education (representing core,

math, science, social science, English)– 6 in School of LIS (representing core and school media)

Previous experience– All Education faculty had been former middle/high school

teachers; none had been librarians.– One LIS faculty had been a former teacher; one a

substitute teacher; two school librarians; one a children’s public librarian; and one a corporate and academic librarian.

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Best strategies to ensure 21st C Skills are being taught to pre-service teachers & librarians

• In classes, ideally across the curriculum– Individual & group activities– Instructors modeling 21st C Skills

• A class that enrolls both Education and LIS students• Field experiences

– Internships– Service learning projects

• Professional development

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Faculty experience collaborating with teachers and/or librarians

Previous experience with collaboration:– Varied widely– Some teachers described the school library as a place for detention, faculty

meetings, student group work—but not as a resource for research– Former teachers and former librarians recalled collaborating on developing

assignments and/or collections– In general, collaboration was described as “challenging”

Experience with collaboration in current position:– Both Education & LIS faculty work with their library liaison– Types of collaboration:

• Developing assignments, presenting workshops to students, inviting guest speakers to classes

• Librarians assist faculty with research—mostly locating sources• Faculty in LIS collaborate with librarians on grant proposals

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Where teacher/librarian collaboration is taught in the curriculum

In LIS:– Primarily in School Collection Development and

Instructional Role of the Information Professional– Collaboration, more broadly defined, is taught in

Foundations, Marketing, Management courses.In Education:– Various courses require students to use the library to

complete assignments & also discuss the importance of resources for K-12 students.

– Very few specific examples were provided.

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Where teacher/librarian collaboration could be taught in the curriculum

In LIS:– Perhaps a course could be developed that both Education

and LIS students could take together.In Education:– Methods course– Introduction to Education– Introduction to Technology– Writing & reading courses– Through experiences in the Education resource center

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Best strategies for teaching teacher/librarian collaboration

• Simulated assignments• Field experiences• Professional models (best practices)• A class that Education & LIS students take

together• Guest speakers: Education faculty talk to LIS

students; LIS faculty talk to Education students

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Challenges in achieving teacher/librarian collaboration

• Usual challenges of collaboration: territoriality, identifying strengths, defining roles

• Information/Media/Technology skills are “the bridges between the silos of core subject courses [in K-12], but it’s hard to measure the strength of those bridges.”

• “There’s no reward for risk-taking in schools; it’s all about improving test scores. This stifles creativity and maybe collaboration too.”

• Pre-service teachers are undergraduate students; pre-service librarians are graduate students.

• Defining 21st C Skills: more than one interviewee asked, “What are 21st C Skills?”• From an Education faculty member: “We don’t teach our students how to work

with school psychologists or guidance counselors either.”• From an LIS faculty member: “What’s the distinction between providing [library]

services to a sub-group of users and collaborating with them?”

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ReferencesAmerican Association of School Librarians. (2007). Standards for the 21st Century

Learner. Available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/standards.cfm

Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm

Kent State University. (2011). Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS). Available at: https://www.projectsails.org/

National Council of Teachers of English. (2008). 21st Century Curriculum Assessment Framework. Available at: http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentframework

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Available at: http://www.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank:– FSU for funding this work through a Planning Grant.– Our faculties for supporting and participating in the

project– Our graduate research assistants Michael Ferrarro,

Jonathan Hollister, Rebecca Kuitems

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Thank you!

Melissa Grossmgross@fsu.edu

Don Latham dlatham@fsu.edu

Shelbie Witteswitte@admin.fsu.edu

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