Notes on Ch. 7-11 Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd Ed. by David Loertscher

1. How often does collaborative planning take place in a normal school day? Well I know it isn't 50%, that is for sure! "Many groups may come to the LMC to work on projects of which the library media specialist has only cursory knowledge and in which there is very little planning invested" This is the case the majority of time right now.

2. What is the spread of collaborative planning throughout the faculty? Wow, I already did one of the suggestions before I reached this question. I do plan on talking with administration about patterns I see. One of the most obvious patterns was that most of the teachers who have not collaborated at all are math and science teachers. A surprising pattern was that many of the teachers who have not collaborated with me are the senior teachers on the staff. This makes me wonder if they have had bad experiences in the past, or their perceptions of the LMC are just more entrenched. It could also mean that these are the teachers who don't need to bring their class into the library as way to take a break from the class room.

3. What type of teachers plan with the library media specialist? Two of the teachers who collaborate the most with me are very far on the constructivist side of the continuum. The other two are closer to the behaviorist side but are close to center I would think. While subject matter may be an indicator for teachers who are less likely to collaborate, it doesn't seem to be an indicator of those who collaborate the most- Religion, English, History, and Science are all represented by high collaboration.

4. What subject areas seem to be affected the most and the least by collaborative efforts? Math is clearly the least collaborative subject and History closely followed by English and Religion is the most collaborative subject. I like the idea of having P.E. and Math collaborate in the library using spreadsheets.

5. What organizational factors seem to encourage/discourage collaborative planning? One of our English teachers habitually comes to the library to do his grading--I could also use this time to create a collaboration with him. It is very difficult to get out of the library if no one is available to take my place since the library always has students in it. Not having a support staff means that if I leave, the library closes-- this is just not an option, so most of the time I am bound to the library.

"Collaborative planning with teachers and students (during a constructivist project) is the most powerful link between the library media program and raising academic achievement."-- I'll be making this my mantra.

I'm starting to see why I was balking at the idea of an LMC that was open to students at any time without class appointments. "For example, Mr. Smith's students were disruptive, lost, and confused. The library media specialist and teacher plan to spend 10 minutes before the next LMC time to make sure that students understand their project before they are turned loose in the LMC." It was this disruptive, lost, and confused behavior that I was trying to avoid. One class like this is difficult enough. Now imagine three classes in the library at the same time and none of the teachers had planned with the librarian ahead of time. This happened to me multiple times during my 1st year, before I complained enough to stop that practice from happening. I'm completely happy to have students from multiple classes droping in when they have time, when they (and I) know what they are working on!

"Both teachers and administrators must realize and support the notion that preplanned learning activities deserve the best treatment in the learning laboratory."-- I need to make this planning my first priority.

A list of all the things tha might build avid and capable readers in the school:
1. One community, one book (I need to start planning it for next year and make the proposal to the curriculum committee.)
2. Find out the status of our SSR program in C-blocks--coordinate visits to C-blocks to do book-talks (perhaps I could even get students from the book club to do book talks)
3. Video tape book comercials for new books that could be played during homeroom.
4. Check with the English teachers about independent reading projects-- do more planning with them on this
5. Corporate-sponsored reading motivational activities

Chapter 10 was basically expanded in the New Learning Commons and In Command-

It would be interesting to have students study the topic of "research", log their own Anomalous States of Knowledge (ASK) during a typical week and how they found the information that they needed. Then talk about the research process. The idea is that students should see the research process separate from class assignments first.