renee's blog

Today was the first day of school! I am teaching a high school media studies class this year. In it, we will produce the school news program in addition to daily digital displays featuring school announcements. The class went ok. The students seem excited about the potential to create a news program, especially as I have left it open for them to create their own content. I did make the mistake, however, of allowing too much time for class conversation without a developing enough discussion points. My mistake was in my assumption that students would contribute more then they actually did. My solution will be to create a more structured lesson for next time.

Today I experienced teaching a lesson on a lesson plan to a room full of teachers. Let me explain - My school is adapting a program based on personality types. Students will be given Myers-Briggs personality tests and grouped together based on their results. Those groups - whom we are calling culture groups - will meet every two weeks during a block schedule. Part of the agenda during those meetings is a reading seminar. Our goal is to encourage our students to read for pleasure more often, and we're hoping that by discussing reading with peers that share the same inclinations toward reading they'll discover better reading habits and/or new book genres that appeal to their tastes. So, my lesson today was to introduce the idea to the teachers and to share a lesson plan I developed for the culture group reading seminar. This particular lesson delves into whether or not we read for pleasure, why or why not, and what the class may collectively have in common pertaining to read...

In my last post, I brought up some lessons I learned from my failed attempt at a summer reading program. For this post, I bring to you lesson number two - Programming and Promotion. Programming In relation to last week's post on planning, programming will take a lot of time and, hopefully, collaboration. You will need to think about themes, topics, classes, outreach and more. I would have liked to have my summer reading program based on a theme with a book selection that promoted the theme. From that, it would have been cool to offer special programs on open library days. Say the theme was graphic novels - I could have held a session on design, animation, or character development. Again, this all goes back to planning ...and starting early. At least I have a start for next year! ALA has many great ideas on Summer Reading Programs Promotion I feel I really dropped the ball, too, when it came to promoting my summer library hours. I did make a really neat poster which I wi...

My observations included an elementary and a middle school librarian, and academic librarians in the IT, reference, and circulation departments. I have been working in some capacity in a library setting for some time now – 10 years – so, I approached my observations as both a student and a colleague. The questions I asked were from a position of someone who is in and knows the profession, but is curious about other perceptions of the job. Additionally, I took this opportunity to learn from my colleagues, focusing on areas in which I know I need a polishing up. My first question to all librarians was, ‘do you feel your job is rewarding?’ I have found this question to open up conversation as to whether or not people like their jobs, what they do and don’t like about them, and so forth. Of the five librarians I worked with during my observation, four found their work to be rewarding. I found that to be very affirming. When pressed on what they found rewarding about their jobs, most m...

My experiment with opening the library to students over the summer has been ... not so great. I am sad to report that not a single student came to visit the library this summer. Keep in mind, the idea to open up the library during the summer was definitely a last minute one. In fact, there were only two weeks of school remaining when I we first approached the subject. The last two weeks of school . Even my most avid library visitors barley feigned interest, and I know they only did that to appease me (they're so good). Even still, who can blame them for not being excited to come back to school during the summer? This is the first time our school has done something like this (at least that I know of). For the students, summer meant vacation from school. Not more school. Oh well. So, while I was able to complete a lot of needed work around the library, and plan for the year ahead, I did not check any books out to my students. However, I am taking this to be a learning experience. ...

For my first observation, I visited a small, public elementary school library. I knew I was going to assist the librarian in developing curriculum for her gifted students. As I have been working with the gifted teacher in my own school, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions specific to working with gifted students. 1. How does teaching gifted students in the library differ from other students? 2. What are some ways in which the library can best support gifted students? 3. Does the library host resources especially for the gifted students? The librarian had answers for all three questions, but I did do a little research on my own after the visit to follow-up on my own professional curiosity. Much of my research backed up the actions and beliefs of the librarian. For instance, when addressing differences between gifted students and other students, the library pointed to the seemingly endless curiosity of the child. She also said that they typically like to read muc...