Mary Kay Biagini: Director, School Library Certification Program, SIS, University of Pittsburgh

1
Development of a K-12 Information Literacy
Scope and Sequence for School Libraries

• Mary Kay Biagini Director, School Library
  Certification Program, SIS, University of
  Pittsburgh
• Daniel Hood Information Literacy Fellow,
  Carnegie Mellon University
• Samuel Jackendoff Curriculum Supervisor for
  Library Info. Sciences, Pittsburgh Public
  Schools

2
Tell us who you are

• We dont have a district-wide information
  literacy curriculum
• Were working on a district-wide information
  literacy curriculum
• We already have a district-wide information
  literacy curriculum but need to update it

3
Why have a scope and sequence?

• So students can learn needed information literacy
  skills when they need them to help them learn in
  each of their courses
• So librarians can collaborate with teachers to
  integrate information literacy skills into what
  they are teaching when the students most need
  these skills

4
An effective teacher librarian

• Plans information literacy skills to complement
  the curriculum at each grade level
• Integrates the teaching of information literacy
  into all courses in the curriculum
• Teaches information literacy skills when they are
  most needed by the teacher and the studentsnot
  in isolation from the curriculum

5
Links to Higher Ed

• Collaboration
• Knowledge sharing
• Transition from K-12 to Real World
• Creating a continuum
• Standards
• AASL ACRL
• New skill sets
• AASL standards are fresh

6
About the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS)

• 29,000 students (and falling)
• Number of schools
• K 5 20
• K 8 23
• MS (6 8) 10
• HS (9 12) 11
• Teacher-librarians 53
• Site-based
• Budgeting
• Site-based hiring (Curriculum Supervisor can if
  permitted advise.)
• Site based collection development
• Centralized policies are often subject to
  policies of the principals
• Library Services
• Scope and Sequence and other curricular functions
• Centralized resource-collection for interlibrary
  loans
• Centralized purchasing of some materials (mostly
  reference)
• Book review policies database development
• Professional development
• Operations

7
Rules of Engagement

• Decide what you want to create
• Scope and Sequence?
• Fully fleshed-out curriculum?
• Some combination thereof?
• Decide why you want or need to go through
  this process.
• PPSs last curriculum was written in 1986.
• What is your budget?
• When is your document needed?
• When can you do the work? (During the year or
  during the summer?)
• How much administrative support exists?
• Do you need perfection or will a fine working
  document suffice?
• Dont go it alone. Work with a good team.

8
Committee Development

• Develop budget and timeframe
• How many people can you support and, for how
  long?
• Find members that will collaborate, work and
  laugh together
• Find people with differing
• Backgrounds
• Levels (i.e., elementary, middle, high school,
  university)
• Different kinds of schools
• Level of Experience (veterans, newbies, etc.)
• Make sure that one person has the final
  responsibility for the final product.

9
Additional Rules of Importance

• Begin with an open, accepting mindset
• Dont re-create the wheel.
• Never create when you can borrow and transform.
• Make sure that it fulfills the daily needs of
  your teacher-librarians.
• Make it easy to use.
• Maintain a sense of humor at all times.
• Take your work seriously but dont take
  yourself too seriously. It really does help.

10
Never create when you can borrow and transform.

• Great source for curricula
• Council of Great City Schools (CGCS) Library
  Media Supervisors' Network Wiki
• greatlibs.wikispaces.com Programs CURRICULA
  for School Libraries and for Teaching Information
  Fluency
• http//greatlibs.wikispaces.com/CurriculaforSch
  oolLibraries

11
We browsed (to borrow and transform)

• PPS Library Syllabus (1984)
• NYC School Library System Information Fluency
  Continuum (2005)
• Upper Merion Area School District Library K-12
  Information Literacy Skills Curriculum (2005)
• Des Moines Public Schools Information Literacy
  Skills K-12
• Public Schools of North Carolina, State Board of
  Education Information Skills, Integration
  Strategies Support Document for Elementary Media
  Coordinators and Classroom Teachers (2001)
• Public Schools of North Carolina, State Board of
  Education Information Skills, Integration
  Strategies Support Document for Middle Grades
  Media Coordinators and Classroom Teachers (2001)
• Rochester City Schools Library Curriculum K-12
  (2004)
• Ephrata Area School District K-12 Information
  Literacy and Technology Skills Curriculum
• Miami-Dade County Public Schools
  Library/Information Literacy Objectives and
  Competencies, Pre-K-12 (2007)
• Chambersburg Area School District Scope and
  Sequence for Library Research Skills / Research
  Skills
• New Hope-Solebury School District K-12
  Information Literacy Scope and Sequence

12
Des Moines, IA
13
(No Transcript)
14
NYC
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
Chambersburg (continued)
20
New Hope-Solebury School District
21
(No Transcript)
22
Never create when you can borrow and transform.

• Browse and borrow both content and format
• If the format that you like is in a .pdf
  filecontact the authors to see whether they
  will send you a .doc file.
• Attribute good ideas
• Ask permission before borrowing entire chunks.
• Note that if you are building this document with
  public funds (i.e., your salary), it is a public
  document.

23
We browsed to borrow and transform.

• The committee finally decided to borrow and
  combine elements of the curricula from several
  districts -
• especially from
• Upper Merion School District, PA
• The general format
• Much of their content (subject to a lot of
  editing)
• Enduring Understandings (which became our
  Concepts for Life Long Learning)
• Glossary

24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
Develop an Outline

• Use MS-Words Outline tool to create your
  outline.
• That will eventually become your Table of
  Contents

28

• 1 PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTS
• 2 CONCEPTS FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNING (CL3)
• 3 ORIENTING STUDENTS TO USE THE LIBRARY AND ITS
  RESOURCES
• 4 ENCOURAGING READING AND THE LOVE OF LITERATURE
• 5 TEACHING STUDENTS TO ACCESS INFORMATION
• 6 TEACHING STUDENTS TO IDENTIFY AND EVALUATE
  RESOURCES
• 7 TEACHING STUDENTS TO SEARCH FOR INFORMATION
• 8 TEACHING STUDENTS THE RESEARCH PROCESS
• 9 TEACHING STUDENTS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

29
Develop a Template for your Document

• Decide upon
• Overall outline of document
• Standard format verbiage to use throughout

30
Develop a Template for your Document

• We decided upon
• Overall outline of document
• Standard format verbiage to use throughout
• Chapter Title
• Appropriate Concepts for Lifelong Learning (CL3)

31
(No Transcript)
32
Develop a Template for your Document

• We decided upon
• Overall outline of document
• Standard format verbiage to use throughout
• Chapter Title
• Appropriate Concepts for Lifelong Learning (CL3)
• Concepts Instructional Timeline- All concepts
  were presented as SWBATs

33
(No Transcript)
34
Develop a Template for your Document

• We decided upon
• Overall outline of document
• Standard format verbiage to use throughout
• Chapter Title
• Appropriate Concepts for Lifelong Learning (CL3)
• Concepts Instructional Timeline- All concepts
  were presented as SWABATs
• Concepts with Discussion and Guided Questions
• All were mapped to PDE and AASL standards

35
(No Transcript)
36

• What Wed Like to Add Update
• The AASL Standards utilized throughout our
  document are the old ones. The new Standards
  werent finalized until we had finished all but
  the final editing and the approval. We could not
  afford to go back and re-edit this. We solved
  this by listing the new standards after the old
  ones in the appendix.
• We did not have time/budget to add a column for
  the eligible content for PSSAs.

37
Create your document

• Once the outline and template have been created,
  fill them with your information
• Wherever possible, work with the team to fill it
  in.
• Send it out for review.
• Get as many eyes looking at the document as
  possible. Get input from as many as will give
  it.
• Use their suggestions
• It builds buy-in
• It makes for a better document
• Reconvene to approve the suggested changes.

38
Develop your Preliminary Documents (Preface,
Acknowledgements, etc.)

• Explain the reality of your situation

39
Explain the Reality of Your Situation

• This document was created by and at the behest
  of Pittsburghs teacher-librarians to help them
  to address the needs of our school-learning-commun
  ity.
• Pittsburgh, like many other urban school
  districts, has a mobile student population. The
  teacher-librarians want to help to provide a
  uniformity of skills learned during the students
  progression through the grades, so that no child
  will be left behind when (s)he moves between
  grades, teachers or schools.
• There are differences among schools within the
  Pittsburgh Public Schools. These differences are
  based upon some combination of the following
• The physical differences of the school buildings
  
• The demographics of the student population
• The academic and social needs of the students
  within those buildings
• The differences in the site-based budgets
• Mandated services
• Mandated usage of varying resources and/or
• The scheduling of student classes.
• Consequently, there are great differences among
  the school levels in the school libraries and
  the roles of the teacher-librarians from
  school-to-school. Some elementary and middle
  schools have a full-time teacher-librarian. Other
  schools have a teacher-librarian on faculty only
  half-time, or even just one day per week.
  Several schools have no teacher-librarian at all.
  Some elementary and/or middle school
  teacher-librarians teach each student once per
  week, while some teach each student three or even
  five times per week. In fact, within any given
  school in the District, there may be differences
  as to how various grade levels utilize the
  library. This is at the discretion of the school
  schedule and the principal.

40
Develop your Preliminary Documents (Preface,
Acknowledgements, etc.)

• Explain the reality of your situation
• Make sure to build in flexibility in your
  language. Make sure that your document allows
  you to retain the flexibility required to do a
  good job

41
Build in Flexibility

• this document has been designed to be used as a
  set of recommended guidelines and lessons
  rather than as a list of requirements for the
  individual teacher-librarians.
• As mentioned previously, it is understood that
  due to the lack of uniformity within the
  District, not every teacher-librarian will be
  able cover every topic listed in the
  Instructional Timelines for each grade every
  year. This means that the teacher-librarians
  need to monitor and reassess their students
  abilities and needs each year, and throughout the
  year. If a student or a class didnt learn a
  prerequisite skill, then the teacher-librarian
  should actively introduce or reinforce the
  missing skill or knowledge.
• It is important that it be understood that the
  Instructional Timelines in each chapter are
  strictly guidelines, and teacher-librarians
  cannot be expected to adhere to them without
  deviation. For example, in Chapter 6 it is
  suggested that bibliography/Works Cited be
  formally introduced in fifth and sixth grade,
  with the topic to be reinforced after that.
  This is not to say that the general topic cannot
  be introduced informally or even formally, if
  the students can handle it at a much earlier
  age.
• Along with each concept, questions are suggested
  to help stimulate learning activities and
  discussions. These are only suggested questions,
  as each teacher-librarian will have to adjust the
  questions to the level of the class and the depth
  to which that class can comprehend the conceptual
  framework and the material. Also within these
  matrices is a listing of which of the
  Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE)
  Academic Standard(s) correlate(s) with the listed
  skill or knowledge.

42
Find a descriptive title
Utilize an appropriate vocabulary to be
descriptive, to grab attention and to ensure
acceptance.
43
Develop a Rationale

• There is a great likelihood that the
  administrators that have to approve your document
  wont take the time to read it.
• Many administrators and teachers may find your
  document scary and threatening you are
  proposing to teach material that falls into
  everyone elses curricula (research, reading,
  science, etc.)
• A Rationale, stuck at the beginning might be all
  you need to push the document through.
• In our case, it was.

44
Rationale for Information Literacy for Life-Long
Learning

• Skills and techniques learned and practiced in
  the library will lead our students towards
  information literacy, i.e., the wherewithal
  needed to collect, evaluate, process and
  appropriately utilize information of all sorts
  throughout their lives. While the library may be
  at the center of the web of learning, the
  long-term mission of the Pittsburgh Public
  Schools (PPSs) library program is to provide
  our students with the resources and skills needed
  to succeed in todays information-based society.
  
• Methods and strategies for information retrieval
  and processing as well as the love of
  literature and reading promulgated by the PPSs
  library program cannot stand in isolation, and
  should not be considered ends in themselves. The
  teacher-librarians of the District are fully
  cognizant of this, and expend a great deal of
  time and energy working collaboratively with
  other teachers in the learning community. In
  other words, the entire library experience should
  supplement not supplant any learning done
  within other curricula.
• This scope and sequence created for PPSs
  library program provides teacher-librarians
  with the roadmap needed to plan our students
  library experiences, thus ensuring students an
  exposure to the range of information literacy and
  library-specific skills needed for life-long
  learning.

45
Stick to your timeline - FINISH

• Be willing to accept a document that suffices
  instead of toiling for a perfect document.
  Otherwise you will never finish.
• If you dont finish, you wont be able to have
  the document approved.
• Without approval you wont have your document to
  use.

46
Quick Technical/Mechanical Note (1)

• For your protection and sanity Store multiple
  versions of your document as you work, changing
  the version number every time you make any major
  changes. E.g.
• v1ScopeNSequence.doc
• v2ScopeNSequence.doc
• v3ScopeNSequence.doc
• .
• .
• v20aScopeNSequence.doc
• v20bScopeNSequence.doc
• v20cScopeNSequence.doc
• This allows you to go back a version or two if
  you lose a paragraph or mess up some formatting
  and copy what you need into your new version
• Do this either with ltFilegtltSave Asgt or with
  ltF12gt
• (Ill be happy to give a quick tutorial on this
  after the session.)

47
Quick Technical/Mechanical Note (2)

• During any group editing process, use MS-Words
  Track Changes feature
• ltToolsgtltTrack Changesgt or ltCtlgtltShftgtltEgt
• (Ill be happy to give a quick tutorial on this
  after the session. Or press ltF1gt for help.)

48
Quick Technical/Mechanical Note (3)

• Start with an outline in MSWord
• Once you have the outline you can have MSWords
  Table of Contents feature
• ltInsertgtltReferencegtltIndexes and TablesgtltTable
  of Contentsgt
• (Ill be happy to give a quick tutorial on this
  after the session. Or press ltF1gt for help.)

49
Quick Technical/Mechanical Note (4)

• If your document can be broken into several
  distinct sections, number the pages of each
  section beginning with page 1
• 1-1, 1-2, 1-3
• 2-1, 2.2 2-8
• 3-1
• 4-1, 4-2.
• 5-1, 5-2. 5-7
• This way, when updating one section you dont
  have to reprint the entire document.

50
(No Transcript)