Assessment of the school library program - considering annual reports

I have thought about how to put together an annual report for the past several years. It seems to me that an annual report for the school library program is an important step to evaluating and promoting the work that school librarians do to further the teaching and learning in a school. My district library supervisor requires all of the school librarians to submit monthly reports and she provides a standard format for us. I like the regular routine; even though I dread the time pulling this together each month, I think it is a helpful document. The question remains: what items to include in an annual report and how to present it.

I particularly liked Jennifer LaGarde's blog posts in Library Girl about preparing an annual report for her middle school library. Her annual reports are concise and focus on the essentials of her program. Her goals for her 2012 annual report were:

1. "Emphasize information that's important to people OTHER than librarians.
2. Make it fun, interesting and easy to understand.
3. Focus on instruction/student impact.
4. Consider my audience at every turn.
5. Keep it positive. This has been a tough year for me. My clerk was cut. I have no dedicated budget. I've felt overwhelmed and defeated numerous times. I don't want to sugar coat those things or make it seem as though they haven't had an impact. However, if I refer to goal #4, I know this isn't the place for that conversation."

In her 2011 annual report, Jennifer kept bringing it back to "What's the bottom line." This focus helps her reflect on the meaning of the statistics she shares, what goals she has accomplished and how she wants to improve her program next year. She also made sure the visuals were engaging and easy to read, and kept each reflection short and sweet

Mgms annual report 2010 11 from Jennifer LaGarde

As I reflect on the contents of an annual report, it seems important to focus on more than circulation, collection and library usage statistics. We need to find a way to communicate the value of teaching and learning that goes on at the school. Joyce Valenza reflects on several annual reports in her blog post at The Neverending Search. She writes of Buffy Hamilton's annual report,

"But for me, the most powerful element is the inclusion of faculty quotes that describe the role of this dynamic library program in Creekview’s learning and teaching culture."

While I found Hamilton's report too lengthy, I absolutely agree with Valenza. This sort of testimony from teachers and students is essential. We need to find a way to include narrative of ways the librarian was involved in dynamic teaching. Otherwise, librarians will continue to be seen as book distributors. I like the idea of measuring student attitude toward reading or research, before and after a unit.

I particularly like the idea of organizing the report into the following areas, suggested by Loertscher and  Champlin, as described by Loertscher and Woolls (2002):

• Information literacy
• Impact on reading
• Impact of technology

For each of these categories, Loertscher and Champlin recommend gathering data from rubrics that assess learning outcomes. While I agree that this is the goal we should work toward, I think great strides can be made simply organizing our regular reporting into these sections. The simplicity of these topics would focus our reporting on the key areas that emphasize our teaching and learning. I am afraid that no administrator will read a 12 page annual report. We need to keep our annual reports down to 2-3 pages that really focus on sharing key achievements and key data.

My favorite annual report is from the Durant Road Middle School Media Center in North Carolina. Here's a screenshot of the beginning of their 2009-2010 Annual Report. Notice the first section? "It's all about student learning." That remains the focus throughout. Again, I believe that administrators need this trimmed down (12 pages is just too long). Perhaps monthly reports can be used to highlight individual programs, and the annual report can summarize key achievements. But I really like the focus, the look and the feel throughout.

It's interesting to note that this library team chose to publish their 2011-12 annual report in their blog - I wonder if they have generated a loyal readership in their school community. They divided their report into three sections: library staff - professional development, reading culture and information literacy.

DRMS Library Media Program Annual Report. 2009-2010. Retrieved from http://durantroadms.wcpss.net/media_center/annual_report.pdf

LaGarde, J. (June 19, 2012). A year in the making: My annual report. The Adventures of Library Girl (blog post). Retrieved from http://www.librarygirl.net/2012/06/year-in-making-my-annual-report.html

Loertscher, D. and Woolls, B. (2002). Accountability and the school teacher librarian. School Libraries in Canada. 22(2)7-9.

Valenza, J. (June 20, 2011). My report and a couple of (far more) stellar examples. The Neverending Search (blog post). Retrieved from http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2011/06/20/reflecting-on-20102011/

An elementary perspective on the Common Core

"I can't imagine what the graduate of 2025 is going to need to do after 13 years of formal education, but I do know that every one of those kindergarteners who come into our schools this year needs to know how to evaluate information, how to work with others, how to find answers, how to express their own beliefs, and how to develop their own wisdom. That is the core of the Common Core, as it has always been of education and learning." (Killeen, 2012)

I really like the way that Erlene Bishop Killeen focuses on the key aspects of teaching and learning in her column, Primary Voices, in the most recent edition of Teacher Librarian. Killeen asks us to think about how we can work with our elementary students to help them deepen their thinking, engage in research, and express their own ideas.

This fall, I have done many of the things Killeen suggested. Here is her checklist - let's see how my activities have matched up:

1. Read the national document. Common Core State Standards Initiative, http://www.corestandards.org/; Yes. Our staff began our year by investigating the CCSS at our fall retreat.
2. Worked with a group of teachers on understanding what the standards mean, examining same test questions, text samples, and grade level competencies. No. Our staff is focusing mainly on the math standards this year. 
3. Compared CCSS with current curriculum and projects that I am involved with, lead, or would like to be included in as a co-teacher. Informally. I am trying to do advanced work observing our existing (newly adopted) literacy program and noticing where it aligns. I believe that the literacy coaches will take the district lead with this, but I think the library can play an important leadership role.
4. Reviewed the Library Media Center book collection related to some recommended lists of exemplar texts, fiction titles, and non-fiction topics. This is my next item to do. An important goal for the winter.
5. Expanded my annual book order to include needed topics, titles, and texts. My book order will focus on nonfiction. I am in the process of analyzing the books I have been collecting on my wish list and seeing the areas of nonfiction that need expanding.
6. Developed a section in our district website for links to CCSS! Yes!

Killeen, E. (2012). Ready to Learn?. Teacher Librarian, 39(6), 54. Retrieved from http://www.teacherlibrarian.com/

Advocating for the teacher librarian role

I really enjoyed reading Mark Ray's column in Teacher Librarian, "New Year's Resolution: Teach More. Librarian Less." Ray was named the 2012 Washington State Teacher of the Year. He writes of the importance of this achievement, namely that he is valued as a teacher above all else. I was very moved by Ray's statement,

"Before we proceed with the bigger fish In the advocacy pond, we need to get one thing straight, both within our profession and with the other 99%; Teacher librarians are teachers, regardless of what we call ourselves. If our states certify us as educators, then in both word and deed we must first be about student learning. It is not enough to include instruction in abstract library position statements. We need to visibly and effectively teach. We need to be judged and evaluated not as librarians but as teachers."

This is essential work, in my view, especially in California where so many school districts do not have teacher librarians at the elementary level. I bring to my school both a librarian's training and a teacher's training. And yet I need to continually change the perception about what I can and should do with students. I work daily to change this perception with the staff, but I do not often advocate for myself with the principal. Ray's article spurs me to think of ways to show the value I add as a teacher, above all else, to my principal.

So what can we do? Ray suggests two things: First of all, make our teaching role explicit. Use the visibility of the school library to show the excellent teaching that occurs there. Secondly, Ray recommends employing one or more effective instructional strategies in our work, such as learning targets, formative assessments, questioning strategies.

Moreover, we need to be an active part of the professional community in our school, talking about teaching and learning, sharing lessons and units that have gone well, celebrating effective strategies and positive experiences. Ray writes, "As a profession, we need to rise up and define ourselves as the teachers we are."

Ray, M. (2012). New Year's Resolution: Teach More. Librarian Less. Teacher Librarian, 39(3), 52.

Effective presentations

I've been working hard on developing a strong presentation for my Vision Project for a school library. My first step was thinking deeply about how I shape and share my vision. But the next step is about how I present those ideas. I want to make my presentation dynamic and impactful. I know I want to avoid a lengthy Power Point presentation, but what are some key points for an effective presentation?

Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, has a great presentation called "How to be a Presentation Ninja".  I'd like to share the slides here, so I can continue to come back to them.

How to be a Presentation Ninja from gwyneth jones

I also have taken a lot of inspiration from Joyce Valenza, both in terms of the content she shares and the way she puts together effective, clear slides. Here is a recent presentation she shared on SlideShare called "Five Forward."

Fiveforward from joycevalenza

Here's another presentation I love from Joyce Valenza, called New Rules.

Newrules from joycevalenza

Some of my takeaways from these presentations:

• Use strong visuals. Capture people's attention with pictures.
• Use Creative Commons images from Flickr and cite your sources.
• Consider purchasing a dynamic image from iStock Photo.
• Use words sparingly to focus attention.
• Use dynamic, bold fonts.
• Add clear, streamlined text to images.
• Share your presentations. Spread the word beyond the initial audience.

Choosing an eBook Platform

We have just begun experimenting with eBooks in our district. It is truly overwhelming, figuring out which platform to try. But the initial response from students and teachers has been enthusiastic. So I was very interested to find Buffy Hamilton's slides from her presentation "Choosing an eBook Platform for your K-12 School Library".

Choosing an E-Book Platform that Works for Your K12 Library from Buffy Hamilton

I must say, I'm still flummoxed by all the choices. My biggest takeaway from this presentation is the list of questions that Buffy suggests schools ask before they head down this road.

• Are you thinking of making ebooks available for pleasure reading, or for nonfiction content reading? 
• Do you want students to be able to do research and take notes? 
• Do they need to be able to save those notes after they finish reading?

It's also crucial to think about the value messages we are sending about the purchasing and access decisions we make.

Leveling books in the library

Last week a librarian at another elementary school sent the following message to the list serve for the Bay Area Independent School Librarians (BAISL):

Hi all,
I am new to Baisl. What a great resource!
Was wondering if anyone has leveled their library using Fountas and Pinnell? If so, is there an efficient way to level our library?
Looking for strategies other librarians have used - purchased a program to help put the information into our catalog system? Parent volunteers to relabel the books? An ideas would be helpful.
Thanks,
Debbie Hughes

This is an area that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and so I wanted to make sure to reply. Here's what I sent to the BAISL list serve:

Hi Debbie,
Our school also uses Fountas and Pinnell leveling, and we added this to Destiny. The F&P level shows up on the first search results screen, which teachers and students appreciate - otherwise, the information is buried quite deep in the individual title record. (come visit our library site)
In terms of arranging the physical layout of the library, I have used the F&P levels to create more clearly defined groups or sections in my fiction collection. The beginning readers now covers the band I - L. The chapter book section covers books M - Q. Fiction covers R and above. This means that if a student or teacher is looking for a level, I can direct them to the appropriate section, but they have a larger band to look in.

I believe quite strongly that books should not carry the level on their spine in the library. The levels are not precise and not available for many books. More importantly, students need the practice of judging for themselves if a book is "just right" for their reading level. In the library, we want to support students' right to choose books, but we also need to balance this with our educational mandate supporting classroom instruction. By focusing on a band (a group of F&P levels), we can support the students by narrowing their choices. This really helps a student who's supposed to be choosing an "O" book (mid-3rd grade, for us), but who always chooses books much too hard (R, S from the fiction section). I can ask them to choose one of their books from the chapter book section.

I still find that I need to make individual adjustments, based on watching students. The levels are not precise. For example, Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon is leveled at R, so I originally put it in my fiction section. But I noticed that many 3rd graders and lower 4th graders were checking it out - kids who also read the Time Warp Trio. So I moved this collection to the chapter book section. I've also noticed that this rearranging helps lost books get noticed. Bunnicula and Spiderwick Chronicles weren't circulating in the fiction section - these small books get overlooked. When I moved them to the chapter book section, they started getting noticed by kids who wanted shorter, easier books and their circulation jumped.

Best of luck,
Mary Ann Scheuer
Librarian, Emerson School

I feel very strongly that libraries should not place a book's level on the spine. While this is common practice in classroom libraries, I firmly believe that students need guided practice on choosing "just right" books for themselves.

How Teens Research in the Digital Age - results from recent Pew research study

The Pew Research Center supports a strand of research investigating the impact that the Internet has on American families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. Their most recent study investigated high school teachers’ views on the impact that Internet and digital devices have had on teens’ research skills. My biggest takeaway from this is the critical importance of continuing to teach digital and information literacy skills to all children.

“Three-quarters of Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers say that the internet and digital search tools have had a "mostly positive" impact on their students' research habits, but 87% say these technologies are creating an ‘easily distracted generation with short attention spans’ and 64% say today's digital technologies ‘do more to distract students than to help them academically.’” (Purcell, et al., 2012)

The survey of 2,000 middle and high school teachers found that while the Internet has made information readily accessible to students, most students have come to expect easy, quick answers and are not prepared to dig deeply and think about information critically. Teachers recognize that the amount of information available to students is overwhelming to most students. There is strong support amongst teacher for including content focusing on digital literacy in every school’s curriculum.

It is interesting to dig into the meat of the study itself, beyond the front page headlines. Most notably, the study found that the Internet has changed the very nature of research itself and what it means for students to “do research.”

 “Teachers and students alike report that for today’s students, ‘research’ means ‘Googling.’  As a result, some teachers report that for their students ‘doing research’ has shifted from a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment.” (Purcell, et al., 2012) 

 It would be very interesting to take some of the survey questions that Purcell and her colleagues developed and administer a local survey of teachers’ opinions of students research skills. It seems that this would bolster the role for the library and the virtual learning center in being an integral part of students’ information seeking practices.

Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Heaps, A., Buchanan, J., Friedrich, L., Jacklin, A., ... Zickuhr, K. (2012). How Teens Do Research in a Digital World. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Student-Research/Summary-of-Findings.aspx