School Librarians Advancing STEM Learning, Faculty Guidelines, Year 2
Introduction
“School Librarians Advancing SEM Learning” is a 3-year project, supported by a grant from IMLS, with the goal to extend a proven collaborative model to reach pre-service and in-service school librarians--and their STEM teacher colleagues as well as faculty in teacher education programs--in accelerating school librarian instructional expertise and leadership. Through a partnership between ISKME, the New Hampshire(NH) Department of Education, Granite State College, and others in the state’s Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Network, and endorsement by the American Library Association and American Association of School Librarians, the project supports professional learning cohorts at the K-12 level, as well as faculty fellowships to develop open courseware modules, that together aim to elevate and expand the role of school librarians and transform their capacities as instructional leaders toward advancements in STEM learning.
Faculty Fellows Role and Contributions, Year Two
In Year Two, the project is providing supports for faculty fellows to develop open course modules suitable for Granite State’s LMS certification. These modules will be designed to build LMS candidate knowledge, understanding, and skills that advance best practice in school librarianship, and that integrate open education philosophy into school librarian professional practice. In addition to the Rubric described above, the project is providing faculty with a set of draft guidelines to serve as an initial framework against which they can assess the degree to which their own modules embed open education practice for LMS candidates to experience and reflect upon as they build their new practice. The overarching objective of these guidelines is to guide further integration of key elements of open education practice across the four principal areas of librarianship—Collection Development, Teaching and Learning, Library Environments, and Leadership and Advocacy—as they may be addressed within the LMS courseware and its continuous improvement over time. The guidelines are listed below.
Faculty Fellows Guidelines for Building Open Education Practice into the School Librarian Credential Program
Project Domains of Practice
OER Creation and Curation
Librarian Candidates build their practice to curate digital collections that deepen learning across the curriculum and across school needs through their ability to:
Understand how open educational resources (OER) support school curriculum and instructional goals;
Access and use OER collections in a variety of formats and genres, and determine if resources are openly licensed, freely accessible, adaptable, and portable;
Evaluate OER for their instructional value as outlined in recognized guidelines, such as Achieve’s Rubric for Evaluating OER Objects, EQUiP’s CCSS Rubrics; and
Curate and organize online and digital collections of OER for seamless access and use by teachers and students.
Teaching and Learning - Building Authentic Inquiry
Librarian Candidates build their practice to build and support authentic inquiry and effective teaching and learning across the curriculum through their ability to:
Advance multiple literacies, including Common Core-aligned literacy, STEM-focused literacy, and digital literacy, and support cross-disciplinary inquiry across the curriculum (meta knowledge and skills);
Provide guidance on the use of open digital resources and technologies that support teaching and learning, in alignment with national frameworks and standards (CCSS, NGSS, AASL, ISTE, C3); and
Model collaborative instructional practice with peers and foster partnerships across the school.
Library Environments - Places of Inquiry and Discovery
Librarian Candidates build their practice to create library environments (physical, digital, experiential) that advance open education practice in the school culture through their ability to:
Build library environments comprised of both physical and digital resources, tools, and spaces, designed to provide a local connection to a globally connected information landscape;
Understand and apply principles of open learning and maker culture toward building a library environment that provides non-cognitive learning experiences and discovery.
Leadership and Advocacy - Advancing Open Practice
Librarian Candidates build their practice to provide professional leadership in the form of thought partnership, dialogue, shared learning and accountability through their ability to:
Understand, model, and share how open education practice brings a transformative shift from a proprietary and industrial education model to a participatory education model;
Use action research methods and personal reflection to build their own professional growth plan, to include aspects of open education practice, outreach and advocacy; and
Build a time-bound plan for providing professional development training to peers around open education practice, cross-disciplinary inquiry, and building student literacy across the curriculum with a school department, at a school or district-wide training, or at regional, state or national professional gatherings.
Timeline, Year Two
