TLNing (teacherlibrarian.org)

A community for teacher-librarians and other educators

Urban school challenges for TeacherLibrarians

I am looking to connect with TeacherLibrarians who are working in an urban school setting; to share experiences and collaborate.  I would be interested in how you handle urban school issues that seem to disrupt much of what I plan to accomplishes. 

Maybe you could share your success and works.  One thing our school does not have is the technology needed for a satisfactory program. I look forward to hearing from you.  Melody

Views: 192

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

I don't know if this is a help or off-topic, but at AASL I heard various inner-city librarians talk about the difficulty of students being taught computer-based research skills when they essentially only have cell phone-based Internet access. This issue is something I can strive to address in my work, and I want to start thinking about what appropriate phone-based search/research skills would look like, and how they might best be taught. Love to engage with you and others around this, if you think it would be helpful to you and your students. I am happy to take on the role of collecting best practices, ideas, etc., and trying to pull it together into useful content. tbm [at] google [dot] com of the Search Education team

Hi Melody, 

I would be happy to share with you!  Fortunately, my school does have the technology, however that doesn't make students better readers, or parents that have the time or skills to assist in their children's education at home.  I  work in a PreK - 8 building, & what really seems to help is when the teacher & I are on the same page and are teaching the same things.  I just had a teacher say the other day that it is so helpful that I teach what he teaches in the classroom, and our other support staff also tries to do the same.  The students quiz scores reflected our collaboration.  However, I don't have that with all of the teachers.  I'm not sure what urban issues you are speaking about specifically but I would love to keep the lines open and see how we can help each other!

Hello -

I'm a new teacher-librarian and new to the middle school I'm at.  It is urban, and we also have similar technology issues.  I just got the laptop cart up and running - but was told I'll need power strips to plug in many of the laptops - old batteries.  I also have found that many of my students also have Internet access via cell phones, which really limits their abilities to use technology in a setting that could be very successful for them. 

 

My other issue is that many of my 6th graders are coming to MS with very limited library knowledge.  I would like to collaborate more with the teachers, but I see the students every other week (homeroom is a very busy time to exchange books - I've worked hard on that) so collaboration can be tricky, plus I have to teach them library basics first.

 

Hope thi becomes a lively discussion!

 

Claudia

In addition to the lack of technology, I have behavior issues to deal with, especially with the 7th and 8th grade.  While I take the job of teacher-librarian, many of the students to not believe that library time is instructional time.  Library time would carry more weight with the students if we gave grades.  We do not give out grades for library, because we do not have a curriculum.  Is it beginning to sound like a vicious cycle?

What is the cause of not having a curriculum? What would you feel it most important to teach if you had the opportunity to set up a curriculum?

Some students asked me if I gave grades - they knew I didn't but wanted to make sure I knew they knew they weren't going to do anything during library because it's not graded.  I told them my grade is part of the subject teachers grade, she backed me up.  As far as a curriculum, I'm creating mine as I go!  Between snow days (already) and other missed days because of prof. development and testing, it's very hard to follow a set curriculum.  I have been fortunate to have already collaborated with 2 teachers on 2 different research projects, I really enjoy doing that, and it helps the kids to understand why searching a database instead of Google is easier (research in context vs. research as part of a set paced curriculum)!  I'm hoping more teachers will ask for extra library time for research. My best supporters - the science teachers!

RSS

A Learning Revolution Project

Twitter feeds

TL Scoop.its

Teacher Librarians of the 21st Century Curated by Mrs. N Ideas and Resources for the 21st Century Teacher Librarian

Libraries as Sites of Enchantment, Participatory Culture, and Learning Curated by Buffy J. Hamilton Ideas and resources to develop the concept of libraries as sites of participatory culture and learning

Personal Learning Networks for Librarians  Curated by Donna Watt

Staying ahead of the game, managing your own professional development, joining the dots

SchoolLibrariesTeacherLibrarians Curated by Joyce Valenza News for teacher librarians

What is a teacher librarian?  Curated by Tania Sheko Defining the role of teacher librarians for those who think we just look after books

Teacher librarians and transliteracy Curated by Sue Krust Explore the evolving role of the teacher librarian

Teacher-Librarian Curated by Librarian@HOPE Best sites and resources on the web for teacher-librarians

ResearChameleon on School Libraries Curated by Kathy Malatesta Teaching, mentoring & leading in today’s school libraries

Student Learning through School Libraries Curated by lyn_hay Building evidence of impact through research and professional practice

SCIS  Curated by SCIS News and resources about school libraries

Educational Technology and Libraries Curated by Kim Tairi In libraries we teach, we learn and many of us are early adopters of technology. This is your scoop on those things.

21st Century Libraries Curated by Dr. Steve Matthews all things 21st Century library related

Join our Diigo Group! VIsit TL Daily!

Coming soon

Events

Members

#tlchat: #tlchat your tweets!

© 2024   Created by Steve Hargadon.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service