School Libraries as Knowledge Spaces: Connections and Actions; Outcomes and Evidence

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School Libraries as Knowledge SpacesConnections
and ActionsOutcomes and Evidence

• DR ROSS TODD
• Associate Professor
• Department of Library and
• Information science
• Rutgers, The State University
• of New Jersey
• rtodd_at_scils.rutgers.edu
• SLAV CONFERENCEAssessing the Evidence
• Assessing the Learning

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The Information Age school Get it right
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OutlineHallmarks of Victorian School Libraries

• CONNECTIONS Intellectual / information
  scaffolds for learning
• ACTIONS Inquiry approaches to
  teaching and learning
• OUTCOMES Making a real difference to
  student learning
• EVIDENCE Charting the outcomes
  demonstrating the role and power of the school
  library

THE THINKING COMMUNITY
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The Hole Truth

• Consider the Drill

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The Hole Truth

• Consider the Drill
• People don't buy a 1.0 cm drill bit because they
  want 1.0 cm drill bit, they buy a 1.0 cm drill
  bit because they want to create a 1.0 cm hole.

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The Hole Truth

• Consider the school Library
• School administrators and teachers aren't
  interested in a good library because they want
  good libraries or good teacher-librarians.
  They're interested in libraries because they want
  students to read better, to research effectively,
  to discover new ideas, learn more, and to
  improve achievement.

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The Hole Truth

• Buying the drill is an expense
• Creating the hole is an investment
• Drills are boring the infrastructure
• The focus is the hole the space
• The school library from infrastructure and
  information to knowledge from place to space

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What is your focus?

• The Drill
• the place? the infrastructure? the collection?
  the technology? the role? the image?
• The Hole
• student achievement? student learning outcomes?
  student engagement with information? knowledge
  and understanding?

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Hallmarks of a Victorian School Library

• But
• Knowledge construction and human understanding,
  implemented through a constructivist,
  inquiry-based framework
• Actions and evidences that show that it makes a
  difference to student learning

• Not
• Collections
• Systems
• Technology
• Staffing, Positions
• Image
• Buildings Infrastructure
• THESE ARE IMPORTANT

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SHIFTING THE FOCUS OF SCHOOL LIBRARIES

• From collections, position and advocacy
• Through connections, actions and evidence-based
  practice centering on a shared philosophy and
  process of inquiry learning
• To making a real difference to student learning
  outcomes

Developing knowledge and understanding A thinking
community
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• "If we always see as we've always seen, we'll
  always be as we've always been, and always do as
  we've always done"
• (Author unknown)

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School Libraries 3 Fundamental Beliefs

• Information makes a difference to people.
• Making a difference does not happen by chance
  Teaching-learning role is the central dimension
  of the professional role of teacher-librarians
• Learning outcomes matter belief that all
  students can learn, and develop new
  understandings, and demonstrate outcomes

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1. Information Makes a Difference to People

• Effects conception of information
• Move from a focus on thing and its management
  to effect outcome
• Posits that people engage actively / highly
  selectively with information that surrounds them
  to some effect a persons existing knowledge is
  changed or transformed in some way.
• Effects orientation faithful to Greek / Latin
  roots of information in within formere to
  shape or form that is, informations effect is
  inward forming.

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2. Teaching-learning role is the central
dimension of the professional role of
teacher-librarians

• IFLA / UNESCO Manifesto for School Libraries
  The core school library services center on
  supporting and enhancing educational goals as
  outlined in the school's mission and curriculum
• Collaboration with individual teachers in
  designing authentic learning tasks and
  assessments and integrating the information and
  communication abilities required to meet subject
  matter goals and standards
• Provide learning experiences that encourage
  students and others to become discriminating
  consumers and skilled creators of knowledge.

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The reality

• Survey of Principals 2002
• 80 of principals believe that the school library
  and teacher-librarian play a key role in the
  school
• 99 of principals believe that despite the growth
  of the Internet, school libraries will remain
  important in the school
• 97 of principals believe that the school library
  plays a positive role in the overall value of the
  school
• 94 of principals believe that there is a direct
  correlation between the strength and
  effectiveness of the school library and an
  increase in student achievement

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The reality

• 76 of principals identified that their
  teacher-librarian worked with classroom teachers
  as needed
• 50 of principals saw their teacher-librarians
  working in the classroom
• 52 of principals saw the role of the
  teacher-librarian to be that of caretaker of
  the library

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Focus on the Hole instead of the DrillWhat
Concerns School Librarians? Australian Survey
2001

• Impact of technology on library and role
• Perceived lack of understanding of nature and
  dimensions of role
• Perceived lack of value, importance and
  appreciation
• Negative perceptions of image
• Perceived lack of support for role

• Not able to do the job I want to
• Perceived low status
• Advocacy for position
• Funding
• Professional development
• Student learning-processes and outcomes

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A PREFERRED FUTURE 3 CHALLENGES

• Integration of information literacy and
  information technology into curriculum units
  development of conceptual, technical, and
  evaluative processes / scaffolds that underpin
  inquiry learning
• Constructivist, inquiry-based approaches to
  learning building knowledge and understanding
• Evidence-based practice demonstrating and
  documenting how the school library program makes
  a difference to student learning

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The Research Evidence

• Macro-Research Eg. In USA by Keith Curry Lance
  and colleagues focus on broad relationship of
  various library dimensions to student achievement
• Micro-Research International Seeks to
  identify students use of information,
  information skills development, reading

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Lance USA Findings

• State test scores increase as teacher-librarians
  specifically spend more time
• planning cooperatively with teachers
• identifying materials for teachers
• teaching information literacy to students
• providing in-service training to teachers
• managing a computer network through which
  librarys learning program reaches beyond its own
  walls to classrooms, labs and offices

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The Micro-Research Evidence

• Teaching information skills results in improved
  curriculum performance
• A process approach results in students with more
  positive attitudes to learning, increased
  engagement in the learning environment, and more
  positive perceptions of themselves as
  constructive learners.
• Teaching information skills is most effective
  when it is integrated into flexibly delivered
  classroom instruction at the point of need.
• Teaching information skills is most effective
  when embedded in a constructivist, inquiry
  approach

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Other Research Evidence

• Active reading programs foster higher levels of
  reading, comprehension, vocabulary development
  and language skills.
• There are benefits to students when school and
  public libraries communicate and co-operate more
  effectively.
• Successful school library programs gather
  meaningful and systematic feedback on program
  impacts.
• School leaders tend to be more supportive when
  they can see the library actively engaged in the
  teaching and learning process, and they see the
  difference this makes.

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The Research evidence I.T.

• Significant student learning dilemmas
• Getting a focus on their search and structuring
  an appropriate search strategy (conceptual
  processes)
• Working with search engines (technical processes)
• Critiquing web sites and making quality
  assessments of the information (evaluative
  processes)
• Moving from relevant web sites to pertinent web
  sites
• Constructing personal responses that demonstrate
  development of understanding (conceptual
  processes)
• Expectation of technology to make up for student
  weaknesses
• Information management issues managing search
  process, time, workloads, deadlines

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The Research evidence I.T.
Every research study published 1996-2002 that
focuses on the integration of information
technology into learning highlights one key
implication the development of the intellectual
and technical scaffolds for engaging with
information pedagogical intervention and the
development of a community of thinkers
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Can we believe what we see?

• http//urbanlegends.about.com/library/blphoto-wtc
  .htm

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From Information Literacy to Knowledge
Construction

• Information literacy instruction is part of
  making actionable all the information and
  knowledge that a school possesses or can access.
  
• WHY?

HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
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From Information Literacy to Knowledge
Construction

• Information literacy instruction is part of
  making actionable all the information and
  knowledge that a school possesses or can access.
  
• WHY?
• DOING information skills is not the answer.
• The development of an information literate
  student is integral to BECOMING and BEING

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By developing information literacy skills, what
do we want students to become?

• The destination is not an information literature
  student, but rather, the development of a
  knowledgeable and knowing person, one who is able
  to engage effectively with a rich and complex
  information world, and who is able to develop new
  understandings, insights and ideas.
• The development and use of human knowing, the
  construction of understanding and meaning is what
  learning is all about, and that defines the
  central purpose of the school library

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• Empowerment, connectivity, engagement, and
  interactivity define the actions and practices of
  the school library, and their outcome is
  knowledge construction new meanings, new
  understandings, new perspectives

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• The Library as a Knowledge Space, not an
  Information Place

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FROM INFORMATION SKILLS INSTRUCTION TO AN INQUIRY
APPROACH TO LEARNING

• Focuses on the process of thinking that builds
  understandings by engaging students in
  stimulating encounters with information and
  ideas.
• Students learn by constructing their own
  understandings of these experiences by building
  on what they already know to form a personal
  perspective of the world.
• The process of construction is an active ongoing
  process of learning that continues throughout
  life.

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Characteristics of Inquiry-Based Learning

• Students motivated to know
• Students able to raise the focus questions that
  lead to new knowledge I need to know more
• Students own the search process and its outcome
  they know why they are in the library
• Supported by information skills that provide
  scaffolds for connecting and engaging with
  information
• Conversation and sharing of ideas throughout the
  searching process
• Construction of personal understanding from
  diverse perspectives another part of their
  world has been opened

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Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning

• Moving beyond doing information skills or
  treating information skills as a laundry list
• The critical role of exploration and
  formulation in the search process making
  provision for situations that build background
  knowledge and promote seeking a focus during a
  search
• Developing formal interventions which enable
  students to stay focused and not wander away from
  the learning task
• Engaging students who perceive task of searching
  as primarily one of gathering information to a
  task of forming a focused perspective from the
  information encountered

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• Model of the Information Search Process
•  
•  
• Tasks Initiation Selection
  Exploration Formulation Collection
  Presentation
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  ------------------------------------------------?
  
• Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion
  clarity sense of
  satisfaction or
• (affective) frustration
  direction/ disappointment
• doubt
  confidence
• Thoughts vague-----------------------------------
  --?focused
• (cognitive) ---------------------------
  --------------------?
• increased interest
• Actions seeking relevant information-----------
  -----------------?seeking pertinent information
• (physical) exploring
  documenting

Professor Carol Kuhlthau
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School Libraries Empowering Learning The
Evidence

• Making concrete the links between library and
  learning
• Making concrete the links between information
  access and provision and growth of knowledge
• Practices that demonstrate tangible power of our
  contribution to schools learning goals
• Local, immediate evidence local successes,
  local improvements

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Evidence-BasedPractice (EBP)
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Origins of EBP

• New paradigm for professional service
• 1990s Medicine and Health Care fields
• Duty of Care, Informed Decision Making
  Optimal Outcomes
• Commitment to making a tangible difference to the
  lives of people
• Concept now strong in professional arenas such as
  education, social work, law

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Evidence-Based PracticeTwo Key aspects

• Conscientious, explicit and judicious use of
  current best research findings in making
  decisions about the performance of your role and
  understanding the learning needs of your students
• Combining professional expertise, insight,
  experience and leadership with ability to
  collect, interpret, and integrate valid research
  evidence to ensure significant outcomes

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Teacher-Librarians and Research

• Librarians use of research is low (McClure
  Bishop, 1989, Turner, 2002).
• Applied research that seeks to resolve
  operational concerns is most widely used.
• Research is not consulted because it is perceived
  to inadequately address the real concerns of
  practice.
• Research not presented in ways that foster
  understanding and application.
• To busy to read research.

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Teacher-Librarians and research Principals
study

• 33 of principals said that the school librarian
  made them familiar with current research of
  library programs and student achievement
• 35 of principals were made familiar with current
  research on library programs and reading
  development

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Not Engaging in the Research of our Profession

• Devalues both the profession as a thinking and
  informed profession
• Cuts off the profession from advances in
  knowledge which shape sound practice
• A profession without reflective practitioners
  willing to learn about the advances in research
  in the field is a blinkered profession, one that
  is disconnected from opportunities for
  constructing best practice the school library as
  central to the learning process.

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Research in Teacher-Librarianship Prof. Ken
Haycock

• Learn from our research and build on its precept
  in order to become the force for excellence that
  is within our grasp. We have evidence that we
  can make a difference through cooperative program
  planning and team teaching and flexible
  scheduling we have the principles for the
  effective initiation, implementation and
  institutionalization of change.
• Now we need only do it.

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The Research Challenge

• Urgent need to analyse and synthesise the
  emerging body of information-learning research
  into meaningful generalizations with practical
  utility for the whole school
• teacher-librarians, as the information literate
  experts (with information literacy competencies
  centring on the ability to analyse, organize,
  synthesise and evaluate information, and
  especially the information of their discipline)
  can surely play a central role here, bringing
  insights as the reflective practitioners to the
  research and its outcomes for practice.

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Evidence-Based PracticeTwo Key aspects 2

• Ensuring that your daily efforts put some focus
  on learning outcomes evaluation that gathers
  meaningful and systematic evidence on dimensions
  of teaching and learning that matter to the
  school and its support community
• Evidences that clearly convey that learning
  outcomes of your school are continuing to improve

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Outcomes-Based Education

• Emphasis given to specifying learning outcomes,
  establishing measurable indicators of these
  outcomes, providing feedback on achievement of
  outcomes
• Method of teaching that focuses on what students
  can do after they are actually taught(Lorenzen,
  1999)
• Learner-centered, results-oriented system
  founded on belief that all individuals can learn
  (Towers, 1996)
• Clear, observable demonstrations of student
  learning that occur after a significant sent of
  learning experiences (Spady Marshall, 1996)

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Evidence-Based Practice

• Gathering evidence in YOUR local school
• You are able to provide convincing evidence that
  answers these questions
• What differences do my school library and its
  learning initiatives make to
• student learning outcomes?
• What are the differences, the tangible learning
  outcomes and learning benefits of my school
  library?

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EBP Issues and Concerns

• Accountability Taking responsibility for the
  performance of students on achievement measures
  or other types of educational outcomes

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ACCOUNTABILITY

• Threat to professional authority and autonomy it
  questions authority and curtails professional
  freedom
• Perception that roles and responsibilities are
  immune from accountability calls
• Fear of exposing what isnt happening when
  matched against role and responsibility
  statements
• Proving our worth Push to get rid of
  teacher-librarians by publicly showing that their
  involvement in collaborative curriculum
  initiatives is quite low

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A professional guarantee of information as
effect

• ACCOUNTABILITY
• And Teacher-Librarians

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I HAVE TO BE A RESEARCHER!!

• EBP demands precision in identifying learning
  outcomes, establishing indicators, analysing and
  synthesising evidence to establish specific
  achievements in learning outcomes
• intellectual skills required to undertake
  evidence-based practice are not formal
  quantitative and qualitative research
  methodologies and complex statistical analyses

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Evidence-Based Practice is

• Examining and identifying specific student
  learning goals and needs
• Selecting appropriate learning outcomes
• Identifying indicators of these outcomes
• Establishing systematic approaches to locating
  and gathering evidence of achieving learning
  outcomes
• Analysing and synthesising the evidence
• Presenting and celebrating the learning outcomes

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• Evidence-based practice is about IDENTIFYING,
  LOCATING, SELECTING, ORGANISING, PRESENTING and
  ASSESSING INFORMATION. The information process
  that has guided the information literacy
  initiatives of school libraries and which has
  been the espoused educational platform for almost
  two decades is the very process of evidence-based
  practice.
• Evidence-based practice is thus a call for
  teacher- librarians to be pedagogical exemplars
  of their rhetoric to practice what they preach.

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EBP AND LIFELONG LEARNING

• Our goal is lifelong learning, so how can we
  identify outcomes?
• Lifelong learning is not some distant, elusive
  endpoint, but a process made up of multiple
  moments in time, from now till then
• Providing learners with explicit feedback on how
  they are learning in their formative years is
  fundamental to effective teaching and learning

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EBP DETRACTS FROM THE JOB

• Concerns about limited staff, budget
• Not able to get my job done as it is, without
  taking on board EBP
• This begs TWO questions
• What is my job?
• What are the potential implications and
  outcomes of not engaging in EBP?
• If there is no personal motivation to engage in
  in professional initiatives that enable the
  profession to construct its preferred future,
  then we need to consider why we are in it, and
  what we might be better of doing

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Benefits of EBP

• Articulates concrete links between librarys
  initiatives and learning outcomes
• Shows how library can play a key role in shaping
  attitudes, values, and development of
  self-concept
• Models information process to teaching colleagues
• Basis for targeting time, energies and scarce
  resources
• Helps you not to do things that do not work or
  that do not matter
• Reflective, iterative process of informing
  instructional process it informs, not misleads
  or detracts from day-to-day practice
• Job satisfaction and confidence in the central
  role that library plays in the school

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Benefits of EBP

• Provides evidence at local school level that the
  school library program makes a difference to
  student learning outcomes
• Moves beyond anecdotal, guess work,
  hunches,advocacy, touting research findings not
  connected to local actions
• Takes away the uncertainty surrounding role,
  value and position

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Seeing is Believing

• Many people, including educators, are suspicious
  of research and researchers. Research conducted
  closer to home is more likely to be considered
  and perhaps to be viewed as trustworthy
• (Oberg, Access, 2001)

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But the Principal Wont Listen!!!
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But the Principal Wont Listen!!!
Then tell someone who cares
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Evidence-basedpractice
What is the finger print of your library on
learning?
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Collecting the Evidence

• Identify specific learning outcomes
• Establish indicators of outcomes
• Gather evidence through assessment test,
  assignment, project scores checklists, rubrics,
  journals, portfolios library data, system wide
  test scores other data collection instruments
  used by schools
• Systematic analysis and synthesis of evidence
• Establish clear statements of outcomes
• Inform school community and celebrate
• Reflect on evidence to improve teaching
  approaches

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LOCAL EVIDENCE

• Not a cook book approach
• Will vary from school to school
• Acknowledges and integrates local processes, ways
  of doing
• Not just assessment it is analyses and syntheses
  of assessment to create learning outcomes
  profiles, and articulate differences and impacts
• Building strategies into collaborative
  initiatives that enable you to show the impact /
  outcomes

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Alternatives to Evidence

• Beating around the bush
• Jumping to conclusions
• Throwing my weight around
• Dragging my heals
• Pushing my luck
• Making mountains out of molehills
• Bending over backwards

• Jumping on the bandwagon
• Running around in circles
• Mouthing on
• Pulling out the stops
• Adding fuel to the fire
• Going over the edge
• Picking up the pieces

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My Vision for Librarians and School Libraries

• Inquiry learning is the central philosophy and
  practice of school library
• The school library an open invitation for
  mystery, intrigue, discovery - an invitation to
  dance the knowledge dance
• Some focus on measuring student outcomes
• Strong evidence that we make a difference to
  student learning outcomes

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Leadership is action, not position

• formational
• transformational
• informational
• Instructional
• evidential
• constructing
• connecting
• empowering
• envisioning
• scaffolding
• energizing

• i

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Björk New Worlds in Selmasongs album

• If living is seeing
• Im holding my breath
• In wonder I wonder
• What happens next?
• A new world, a new day to see