LLED 462-63A Learning Curation Post #1: My Essential Question?

Week One: Creating your Essential Question

When starting a new Teacher-Librarian course I am always excited to dig into whichever new topic we are covering; this time, admittedly, I was a bit confused. The course is titled "School Library Resource Centre Programs" (rather broad), and like my other recent courses is more of an inquiry style course, which means that we are able to explore areas of interest rather than being designated specific topics. We are tasked with completing a Learning Curation which documents our learning through the course themed around an essential question. So, in an effort to maintain my blogging style of demonstrating the difficulties I encounter in my own learning journey....here are my initial thoughts (please keep in mind these are very rough first thoughts....the raw research process at its best!).

• When starting new in a library what should the action plan for the year include realistically? 

  

  "Inquiry and the Research Process"
  from Edutopia

• There are so many potential areas of focus - what needs to be figured out/ dealt with first? The administrative tasks alone could be overwhelming but I would want to be able to dig my feet into something more creative as well
• If a library is not already a learning commons - how to begin that transition? If it is how to continue the transition
• I love the notion of moving to a learning commons but if a library isn't already there....how do you start?

For a brief moment I saw the potential for a TL position this year and the above questions were what weighed the most on my mind;  however the school year has begun and I am back on the casual list so I have been gifted the opportunity to think deeper about these questions. After glancing at our first couple of modules I see that the transition to a learning commons is addressed, so for now I will focus on the first question with one caveat - this will probably change. I think this is a good broad question, however I am very open to the idea that something else grabs my attention during the course and moves me in a different direction. 

The joys of inquiry!

Week Two: Recipe for a Successful Library (in regards to Literacy and Learning anyway)

For this week's post we were challenged with coming up with our own recipe for learning inspired by Terri Hayes' article "Library to Learning Commons: A recipe for Success" (2014). I loved reading the article and found that each of Hayes' points really resonated with me, but I didn't just want to copy her points. After giving the article some breathing space I jotted down what I thought were the main components of a successful library and I surprised myself by narrowing it down to three:

• Collaboration - the ability to successfully work with students and staff in a variety of ways
• Flexibility - being able to quickly adjust your approach as necessary, and for the space to be able to meet a wide variety of learning needs
• Culture of Learning - for the library to be the "hot-spot" for learning for both students but also educators, and to promote a sense of lifelong learning for all patrons

After I came up with these three points I decided to try a presentation tool that was new to me called WordArt. Here I input my top three words but also added other words that fit my ideal library. I was able to choose the shape that I wanted the words displayed in and other details to generate the image below. 

In the process of brainstorming the words above and creating the image of a successful library I thought of another potential essential question - using the library to successfully foster an environment of learning for educators too. I love the notion of the library being the true resource hub of the school for both students and staff and other than physically (and digitally) housing the resources....what is the best way to go about promoting that? Something to ponder on...

Resources 

Hayes, T. (2014). "Library to Learning Commons." [online] EdCan Network. Available at: https://www.edcan.ca/articles/library-to-learning-commons/ [Retrieved 5 Sep. 2018].

"Inquiry and the Research Process." Edutopia. [image] Available at: from https://www.edutopia.org/article/inquiry-and-research-process [Retrieved  Sep.5, 2018]

"WordArt." (2018). WordArt. [software] Available from wordart.com/create