Common Core Standards and Gen Next School Librarians:Creating a Visible Future

1. Common Core Standards and Gen Next School Librarians:Creating a Visible Future Dr Ross J Todd Director, Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries Associate Professor, School of Communication & Information Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey rtodd@rutgers.edu www.cissl.rutgers.edu www.twitter.com/RossJTodd

2. Todd 1 and Todd 2

3. “We set sail on this sea because there is knowledge to be gained” (J. F. Kennedy)

4. Fundamental Questions … Digital Youth. Information Worlds. Creative Technologies. Inquiry Learning. School Futures

5. The Education Landscape Increasing acknowledgement of: • Complexity and diversity of student learning; • Intellectual quality as key learning outcome; • Engagement with, and ownership of learning; • Integratedness of disciplinary knowledges and skills; • Digital media infused environment, increasingly apps driven; • Inclusiveness: cross-curricular teams; transdisciplinary instruction, negotiated curriculum, research-based learning pathways; • Common Core Standards • Baltimore: high standards

6. Think outside the box

7. Common Core Standards: Focus • Global economy and society as the destiny of learners: digital citizenship • Rigorous content and skills: integration • Application of knowledge and understanding to solve serious world problems: application • Higher order thinking skills: high level cognitive demands. Development of critical and reflective capacity: reasoning, justification, synthesis, analysis, and problem-solving transformation • Progression of learning that is meaningful and appropriate: authentic learning • Research and evidence-based practice: research-based pedagogy

8. Learning through the School Library: Visible Learning • Meta-analyses of educational research shows that the most significant impacts on student learning & achievement are: • role of teacher and quality of instruction; • developing a supportive learning environment; • engaging students in discovery, inquiry, thinking, meta-cognition, and knowledge building • (Visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement: [John Hattie. Routledge, 2009])

9. Key Dynamics • Authentic & powerful pedagogy: frameworks that support intellectual engagement, connectedness to the wider world, supportive classroom environments, and recognition of difference • Intellectual quality: developing higher-order thinking, deep understanding, deep knowledge, substantive conversations, critique of knowledge and engaging with problematic knowledge • Social, cultural & personal agency: respect for different values, knowledges, global awareness, social and ethical values, self-confidence, risk-taking, independence, interdependence; 21st C life skills – careers and living, digital life

10. Common Core Standards: ENGAGEMENT & INQUIRY

11. Common Core Standards • Informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society • Oulu, Finland Public Library: Average annual borrowing of books 33 per each person in the city

12. Reading, Writing, and Research • Research—both short, focused projects (such as those commonly required in the workplace) and longer term in depth research —is emphasized. • The standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media. • The ability to write logical arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning, and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing standards, with opinion writing—a basic form of argument—extending down into the earliest grades.

13. Key Challenge: Common Core Standards • The heart of CCS is the information-to-knowledge journey of students, a focus on developing deep knowledge and understanding through engagement with informational texts. • Ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems

14. On Becoming a Researcher

15. On Becoming a Researcher • Resource-based capabilities • Research-Inquiry capabilities • Thinking-based capabilities • Knowledge-based capabilities • Personal and interpersonal capabilities • Learning management capabilities Reading-to-learn capabilities

16. Key Information Literacy Challenges • Move from a predominant focus on skills of location, access and evaluation of sources ie resource-based capabilities to thinking and knowledge-based competencies, as well as project management. • Move from “celebrate the found” to “celebrate the understood”. • Major shift in instructional focus: The Common Core Standards provide an intensified focus on the deep critical reading of complex informational texts to build meaning and understanding of curriculum content. • Deep critical reading involves school librarians not just engaging in the evaluation of text, as well as matching learners, texts, readability levels and tasks

17. Model instructional strategies that center on …. • Engaging with strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis • Showing how themes interact and build on one another to produce a complex account • Integrating and evaluating multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats • Analyzing and synthesizing multiple interpretations • Identifying and addressing conflicting information • Writing arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence • Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience • Using technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing: knowledge producers • Development of students as digital citizens: ethics

18. Jean Piaget (1896–1980) The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered. http://www.accessola.com/school_lib/

21. Be Part of the Solution, not the Problem

22. What is a School Library? The school library is the school’s physical and virtual learning commons where inquiry, thinking, imagination, discovery, and creativity are central to students’ information-to-knowledge journey, and to their personal, social and cultural growth. 

24. One Common Goal: Student LearningNew Jersey Research Study

26. CISSL Facebook

27. NJ: Research Study: Phase 2 • Examined 12 schools whose librarians reported high levels of collaboration with teachers in Phase 1 survey of the study. • Focus groups in the schools were comprised of school principal, curriculum leaders, school librarian, and classroom teachers, including specialists such as special needs and literacy teachers. The focus groups addressed the following themes: • Theme 1: In what ways does the school support learning through the school library? • Theme 2: In what ways, if any, does the school library contribute to learning? • Theme 3: What do students learn through their interaction and engagement with the school library? • Theme 4: How do you envision the future of school libraries

28. Common Educational Beliefs • Whole school values learning and working collaboratively • Learning-centered vision of the school librarian • Focus on quality teachers and effective teachers, and librarian as co-teacher • Value complex information capabilities and expert use of media and technology to build content knowledge for work and living • Vision and leadership of school principals who see the unique learning opportunities provided though the school library, despite the cost, and have the courage to make a financial commitment to the school library • All key requirement of Common Core Standards

29. NJ: School Library as a Learning center • For students, the primary focus of SL is on building capacity for critical engagement with information and producing knowledge (not finding “stuff”) • For faculty, SL is a center of learning innovation, experimenting with technology and information; enhancing teaching skills using information and technology, developing inquiry and research capacity of students; focus of cross-disciplinary learning • The role of the school librarian as co-teacher is the most powerful dynamic in the sustainability of school libraries • Teachers recognize the instructional expertise of school librarians and actively seek out this expertise, and consistently highlighted the sustained, active use of the school library by them and their students

30. NJ: The Pedagogy of the School Library • Inquiry-based instruction implemented through instructional teams • Mutuality of working towards one common goal – enabling core curriculum content standards • Gives emphasis to intellectual agency for developing deep knowledge and understanding • Builds excitement, interest and motivation for learning • Engages students as content providers who work on- and off-line to produce creative products • Staged process of inquiry-based learning; students are not left to their own devices to undertake substantial research projects • School library portrayed as a common ground across the school for meeting individual and special needs • Literacies include visual literacy, print literacy, media literacy, digital literacy, and technological literacies –best described as transliteracies

31. Inquiry-Based Pedagogy Prof. Carol Kuhlthau Kuhlthau, C, Caspari, A., & Maniotes, L. (2007) Guided Inquiry:  Learning in the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.  Kuhlthau, C.C., Maniotes, L.., & Caspari, A.. (2012). Guided inquiry design: A framework for inquiry in your school. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

32. Information-to-Knowledge Journey Information Search Process Carol Kuhlthau Tasks Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation Assessment --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion clarity sense of satisfaction or (affective) frustration direction/ disappointment doubt confidence Thoughtsvague----------------------------------------→focused (cognitive) ----------------------------------------------→ increased interest Actions seeking relevant information-------------------------------→seeking pertinent information (physical) exploring documenting Zone of Intervention: the critical point / need for instruction GUIDED INQUIRY Kuhlthau, C, Caspari, A., & Maniotes, L. (2007) Guided Inquiry:  Learning in the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, P. 19

33. Designing Inquiry-Centered Pedagogy • Icons from Kuhlthau, C.C., Maniotes, L.K., & Caspari, A.K. (2012). Guided inquiry design: A framework for inquiry in your school. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

34. Inquiry-Centered Pedagogy and Common Core Standards Students develop capacity to: • pose insightful and purposeful questions (Identify) • apply strategies to uncover meaning and make reasoned judgments (Gather) • think beyond the immediate situation to consider the ‘big picture’ before focusing on the detail (Immerse / Explore) • suspend judgment about a situation to consider alternative pathways (Immerse / Explore) • reflect on thinking, actions and processes (all stages, Evaluate • generate and develop ideas and possibilities (Identify) • analyze information logically and make reasoned judgments (Gather, Create) • evaluate ideas and create solutions and draw conclusions (Gather, Create) • assess the feasibility, possible risks and benefits in the implementation of their ideas (Gather, Create, Evaluate) • create meaningful representations of their deep knowledge Create, Evaluate), Share

35. Baltimore Models of Excellence • The Awakening: Grade 11 / English Language Arts • National Anthems: Middle School / Music

36. Implementing Inquiry Design Strategies • Focus on identifying and solving real-world problems • Initiated though compelling situations which provide challenge and opportunity. INSPIRATION • Connect with students’ background knowledge. • Exercise some choice over the topics, specific questions they want to answer and how to present their new understandings. • Instructional activities involve the students in thinking, acting, and reflecting, discovering and linking ideas • Instructional activitiesmodel and provide opportunity to experiencethe knowledge construction process. • Opportunities for sustained dialogue and feedback

37. NJ: School Librarians as Co-teachers • Principals are willing to support the acquisition of resources for the school library with an adequate budget because they perceive the school librarian as a good teacher who actively engages in curriculum planning, instruction, and inquiry-based research • Teachers expressed deep emotion about how school librarians helped them to be better teachers, and saw them as integral to quality teaching. • Principals recognize the need to provide professional development for school librarians that enables them to be good teachers and good teachers of teachers

38. NJ: School Librarian as Teacher of Teachers • Considerable in-school training of teachers, delivering effective professional development with ongoing support • Primarily takes place in instructional collaborations • Plays a dynamic role in building collaborative and collegial relationships among staff members through sharing of information-learning expertise, ideas, problems and solutions: critical to implementation of CCS = cross-disciplinary teams • School libraries as part of a “culture of help” • COMMON CORE STANDARDS AND INQUIRY-BASED RESEARCH: KEY OPPORTUNITY FOR SLs

39. School Librarians Rock!!!! • We’re still in a time where [the public] doesn’t believe our information centers are as powerful as our educators believe. Our librarian is a powerful educator. Our information center is as good as the teaching that goes on there. (Principal) • I really think that because the librarians are co-teachers, for the most part, the kids get to see us working together… They get to learn how to collaborate, how to be curious and how to work through problems together. (English Teacher) • [The school librarians] spent a lot of time with us understanding the components of discovery – a metaphor for good research. … They made sure we knew process and the tools and how to use them in the context of any class where a teacher would want to use research. We can model effective research for the students. (Supervisor of Instruction)

40. A TIME OF BOLD ACTION Edna St Vincent Millay 1892-1950 “Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour Rains from the sky a meteoric shower Of facts, they lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill Is daily spun, but there exists no loom To weave it into fabric.”