Teacher - Librarian Collaboration: Discipline and Skills Building

I had a productive meeting with our Dean of Faculty last week. 

What started out as a consultation on the updating of library guidelines on student discipline inside the library branched out into concrete plans for skills building. We were able to agree on putting in the Student Handbook the library's essential agreements and the belief that a library is a shared space. My takeaways from our meeting is that skills building requires discipline and that the library is part and parcel of this process. 

Specifically, I spread out and proposed a structure for skills building through the library.

1. Teacher Librarian welcomes ASquads who will schedule sessions with her on research and use of library resources. ASquads can advise students to plot Librarian Assisted Study Time during their free time in consultation with the Teacher Librarian.

What skills can the Teacher Librarian assist in or help students learn: development of topics for research, identifying potential sources in line with the statement of inquiry, how to develop, use and revise search strategies from a variety of media and tech sources, evaluate sources and information, advising or consultations on referencing, citations, knowledge of Creative Commons and copyright and documentation of sources.

2. Bibliography of Journal and Periodical articles, arranged or categorised by reading levels - low, average, high. 

Instruct and mentor BA Lib Assistant in the creation of book lists and academic articles following a standard citation or bibliographic format. This will be communicated to faculty and students on a regular basis. Teacher Librarian will catalog and curate the lists into directories following the MYP and DP subject groups. 

Teacher Librarian will seek interns, college students, BA students who can participate in this project as CAS activity hours.

This is how we are in the Beacon Academy. We strive to make connections in learning.