It was enjoyable taking the plan to the next step. Here is a link of my Linoit with my Blue Sky thinking of how I would like my plan to take action. I follow 4 main ideas: Connection, Communication, Curriculum and Comfort: Linoit
Design Challenge: Design a space that is comfortable, flexible, with areas to work individually and collaboratively, as well as a space to be creative and innovative so students and teachers have a place to research, ideate, read, plan and explore their passions.
ADST: Design Thinking/Human-Centred Design Thinking
Doing, designing, discussing and demonstrating are all actions that students should be participating in daily to increase the developmental skills in all areas at school. The Design Cycle is one framework that is developed to ensure students are critically thinking and using 21st century skills in their lives at school. After watching a video from a school in Maine called, “Maine School Engages Kids With Problem-Solving Challenges”, I see that my past school was on similar paths, however, my new school is not and that we need to continue to work towards a goal that will empower students to problem solve more often with more real life challenges.
Design thinking isn’t new to me considering I have been working in a PYP International Baccalaureate School since 2009, where inquiry has been at the forefront. We had to have such images much like the one beside us up on the wall. Students were asked to wonder, investigate, share their thinking, reflect and act and change due to reflecting. One thing I would discuss with my students is that it is not a cycle that only goes around. It goes from one stage, back to the previous stage such as asking more questions, making decisions by exploring, investigating, sharing thinking and back to asking questions etc. We would find open ended provocations that would allow students to inquire into, wonder, discover, reflect and evaluate.
What we found we were missing however, was true real life designing. So we went further and moved towards something very similar that the school of Maine was doing. We used an image much like the one below:
Students need hands on design projects that will allow them to discuss, plan, design, create, develop, evaluate, design again, reflect and continue identifying problems and developing a design that will beat all problems until they have a finished product they are proud of……or not and can explain why and what they would do different.
It is the thinking, collaborating, problem solving and the reflecting that is the most important, not always the finished project. Students work together to come up with solutions that may or may not work. We are developing critical thinkers that are flexible and creative. They are 21st century thinkers that will be able to think outside the box.
This year I will look forward to introducing more teachers to the Design Cycle and feel we need to make it our goal to allow the students more time to be creatively designing and implementing their ideas, failing along the way, reflecting and listening to feedback to improve their original ideas into better ones.
As a student who grew up nervous in the library, overwhelmed with row upon row of books, without a connection to reading and lacking the skills to even know where to start, I see the Teacher Librarian being the forefront of making a library and students thrive. She/He needs to be able to identify students who need the guidance to find the love of reading and literature and to help find authors they connect with. An open-minded, caring, understanding Teacher Librarian who thrives on communication and connection with all individuals is key to a Learning Hub and “in moving the learning agenda forward” (P.2, Kennedy). In order to be this exemplary instructional partner, I believe this individual must encompass the following critical elements: caring communicator, empathetic collaborator; instructional leader; designer of the physical space; promoter of reading/lifelong learning; and manager/provider of digital and print resources. I look forward to working with our new Teacher Librarian this year, as I have heard she has these qualities to build our library into a more dynamic hub for learning, creating and chilling.
Once the Teacher Librarian is established, their role is to be a designer of a warm, caring physical space where students, teachers and community feel like they belong. The “Hub” of the school should include comfortable, flexible seating, areas displaying students art and inquiry projects, tables to work individually and collaboratively, as well as a space to be creative and innovative much like a maker-space (3D printer, lego wall, robotics, ect.). “School librarians create a caring and warm environment where students have a place to explore their passion and have their point of view honored” (P.3 Martin and Panter). The things we need to consider in our library is the lack of individual seating for quiet reading, researching and space to be on one’s own. We only have group tables and as much as this is great for collaboration, we need to consider the needs of those needing quiet time on their own. Ideally we would like to design a space for everyone to enjoy: creativing, designing in the makerspace on their own or with others, for collaborating with small groups and reading and researching on their own.
The TL must be a promoter of reading, lifelong learning and 21st century skills. By implementing the Red Cedar reading program, book clubs, reading intervention groups, and assisting teachers with reading assessments, the TL will be in touch with students reading levels. Collaborating with colleagues to promote the ADST curriculum, SAMR and TPACK is another important consideration when designing the library. I would like my colleagues to feel free to use the library to collaborate and co-teach with myself and other colleagues in the Library Commons. Myself as the Learning Support Teacher, along with the Teacher Library, we hope the teachers will consider reaching out to us for support, allowing us to help move activities and assignments through the SAMR stages, ultimately having many landing in the refining stage. Our goal is to increase students 21st century skills and for all to believe that, “A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life” (Henry Ward Beecher). 
Teachers are to consider the library hub as place where students can practice and perfect these 21st century skills, and lead them to being well rounded, successful and responsible digital citizens. Students will practice interpersonal skills, independence and respect, as well as practicing to ideate, prototype, test, make and share.
Technology is always a consideration when designing a common learning area. We house the laptop and ipad carts as well as the 8 new laptops and headphones with microphones. These extra 8 laptops are positioned in the library for teachers to advocate for their students who need support with writing, reading etc. We are trying to work on a system so all teachers remember to reach out and use these tools to support students in need. We also hope to increase students independence where they advocate for themselves and will come forward and get the headphones, for example,when they need a quieter environment and to help remind others they are focusing.
Overall the considerations are endless. Together we hope that everyone in the school works at building this common space into being the heart of the school. It is a place for all to come to learn, read, play, create, design and simply relax.
Resources:
Martin, Ann M., Panter, Suzanna L. The Paradox of our Profession. Education Evolution. URL
Kennedy, Chris. (23, 05, 2011) My Take on Librarians. Culture of Yes. URL
Roles for Teacher Librarian Image: URL
Here is my research summary on ADST curriculum for all ages and how, I as the TL, can contribute to implementing the curriculum through Connection, Communication, Collaboration and involving the Community.
Popplet Link
After exploring the following online networks, I have decided to join Google Educators since I feel it best supports my PLN goals.
ISTE Professional Learning Networks
How did I determine which PLN to join you may wonder?
Well the good thing is that all 4 of these online communities have so much to offer. If time, I am considering joining all 4 to see how they compare, but for the sake of being so green with networking, I will stick to one. Each community can help us all get out of our own classroom, collaborate with other like minded professionals, connect our ideas and begin conversations about things that we really want to learn about. What is important is that we find a trusted community. These communities would serve a great purpose, but choosing one, I would choose to be connected to Google Educator.
ISTE Professional Learning Networks After researching into ISTE Professional Learning Networks, I feel they had a very simple, efficient and informative site. I was ready to join, when I noticed the fee. This has deterred me from joining. However, I have chosen to follow them on twitter and this was I know will have an impact on my teachings, as I have seen so many articles to read and share on @iste. This will accomplish my one goal of: spending about 30 minutes a week total to start networking, reading and posting.
Apple Teacher: has many great features and seems easy to join. I am interested in learning more in depth about many apps and the many ways they can function. They have step by step video and instructions on apps you would like to learn from. It comes with curated resources, learning collections, product tips, lesson ideas, and inspiration from other educators.
Microsoft Educators Community: is definitely a close second. Key features about Microsoft was the Skype classroom – which I feel is worth joining for. Take virtual field trips around the world, collaborate and discuss issues and ideas with others in your own language or language of study. To me this is a similar community with Google in that there is free teacher training, online classroom and online resources (which seem extremely engaging for all students).
Google Educators: is where I will put my time into for now. They have groups that you can join and the one the I have joined is the Alberta one. They have a vast range of materials and resources that they share. I have been a Google Ed school for 9 years before leaving the school and google apps seem to speak my language. I feel this community will be able to help me accomplish my PLN goals with ease and little frustration that a rookie PLN may typically have.
Thanks for joining me! I look forward to wondering, reading, researching, collaborating and learning more about how technology can be used in a tidy, teachable way.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
After watching the SAMR model created by Candace M, SAMR in 120 seconds, I found I understood a lot more about each level. What I also really liked about the video was the example that she gave. I am a learner that needs to see this in the practical world.
As the Teacher Librarian (TL), I would look forward to collaborating with my colleagues to develop lessons and assessments that would incorporate the latter stages; Modification and Redefined. I feel that Substitution and Augmentation are used often, mostly because they are relatively straightforward conceptually, that we will need longer collaborative time at first learn how to improve our lessons to include Modification and Redefinition. I think that as we move our lessons or assessments into the Modification and Redefined stages, we will have greater buy in from the students. I can see how more skills are required, and this would lead to easy RTI planning.
To me this cycle is similar to Anderson and Krathwohl’s “Bloom’s Taxonomy” an ordering of cognitive skills. As you move through it’s levels, more skills are also required and these thinking skills are needed in the latter stages of the SAMR Cycle.
As the Teacher Librarian/Learning Support Teacher, I would collaborate with each teacher to see how we can plan their lessons and assessments using the SAMR stages. Here is example:
Original lesson: Review printed copies of Email Etiquette concepts and guidelines.
As the TL, I hope to have time to prepare lessons such as the example above with each teacher. We have a professional development day coming up on July 28th and I hope to present SAMR to them. It would be nice for our school to have the understanding that it’s more than just replacing a paper lesson with a digital one but instead “evolving it in a beneficial way and exploring new possibilities” (Walsh, 2015).
As much as an App can be classified by SAMR stage, you can be creative and use an app for many of the stages
August 12, 2018:
TechnologyTidy 