Collaborative Program Planning

Scholarly Article

Harvey, Carl A. “ The Teacher’s Take on the School Library Program.” School Library Monthly 26 #4 (2009): 45-47.

Working in the library I’ve had very little time to do collaborative units with my colleagues. Much of the time has been filled with teacher’s preps and a variety of other teaching roles such as working with reading and resource groups, which has meant little time to work collaboratively with teachers. Collaborative teaching has been something I’ve done in my teaching career with other classroom teachers and I’ve always considered it a wonderful experience for sharing of ideas as well as the flow of teaching that occurs between these adults while in this situation.

I wished to explore further what teachers believe are important aspects of the library program and if they feel collaboration is important part of the program.

Teachers have more and more demands asked of them each year. I think many of them feel that even more of their time will be given up when meeting to cooperatively plan and teach a unit with the TL. I believe they forget that there are some very good benefits TLs bring to this relationship. Reading the article THE TEACHER’S TAKE ON THE SCHOOL LIBRARY PROGRAM which asked teachers questions about their school library program I was pleased to note that teachers do value the TL because he “models and team teaches with the classroom teachers not only to encourage us to use these programs and services but to help us build the self confidence to try new things.” I think it’s very true we want teachers to utilize our expertise in information skills to teach to their students which takes pressure off teachers to teach skills that that are not so commonplace in their enormous teaching loads and to just sit back for these lessons, perhaps learning new ideas for themselves and in return the TL can also learn from the teachers they work with. It a symbiotic relationship. The collaborative relationships bring two brains together for more innovative ideas, a chance to work with another adult, as well as an opportunity to share the teaching and marking of work.

Another point made in this article is the initiative the TL needs to “monitor the needs of the staff in order to help them in their goal to meet the students’ needs and improve the quality and variety of educational instruction.” I feel that this area is not my strongest point. I do listen to teachers discussing their needs in curriculum and try to offer ideas on materials they can use and I even purchase additional resources if I can. I use to attend both intermediate and primary meetings but in the past year both groups have met only once, to discuss other matters than curricular. I don’t always feel comfortable being the one to start the conversation and offering ideas and opportunities to teachers, for I’m not always confident in some of the curriculum areas that teachers teach year after year. I also don’t want people to think I’m being pushy and a know it all. I tend to choose the teachers I feel more comfortable with, but I must say I don’t approach the staff as a whole, which requires a more outgoing me, than I actually am.

The final point I wish to make is that when asked about the leadership characteristics TLs should have, the outcome was “confident to share ideas and knowledge for meeting educational needs of students, communicative to professionally collaborate with the staff and cooperative to become active teaching member of each grade level team. “ These characteristics are personal goals I wish to embody as a teacher and teacher librarian. I do recognize that my job requires these skills to make myself more pro active to keep TL jobs, to make teachers and parents aware of the skills their students should have to access accurate reference and research information they can use in their daily lives. Offering teachers my knowledge and my cooperation in a non judgmental manner which invites them to ask for my help with curriculum and even tiny steps towards collaborating on a small project which opens them up to seeing the benefits of working collaboratively on a unit are goals I work at and continue to develop.