Jo+Jo

__**CASE STUDY 1**__ __**COMMUNITY PROFILE**__ St Andrew's is a Catholic co-educational College. The student population is currently 1570 students from Prep to Year 12 employing 170 staff members. According to the information provided on the website, the buildings have been designed to enhance the natural environment of the campus and they have been grouped on the design plans to provide for the needs of Junior Years (Prep to Year 5), Middle Years (Years 6 to Year 9) and Senior Years (Years 10 to Year 12). The school has two libraries- Junior and Middle /Senior. Each of the libraries is located in the centre of their schooling phase. A qualified and accredited teacher-librarian manages each library. This case study is focused on Virginia O’Dea, teacher-librarian in the middle school library.She has been a teacher librarian for 15 years. During this time, she has seen many changes take place both in the design and layouts of school libraries and the role of the T/L in the school community. She is currently studying for her masters in order to reflect upon her own teaching practices and to continue to develop her knowledge and skills in the position. She also recognizes the need to keep abreast with the changes that are occurring in the role. __**ROLE OF THE LIBRARY WITHIN THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY**__ The role description and duty statement of the SPP site states its mission as, "Providing professional library and information services to St Andrew's Catholic College community library users through the organisation and management of the Library collection and through the teaching of Information literacy." This school places great emphasis on the pivotal role of a school library and recognizes the need for it to be run by a qualified teacher-librarian. It also recognizes how much the library and the teacher-librarian contribute to the successful delivery of the school curriculum. This is evidenced by the fact it has two libraries with three qualified teacher-librarians. The school board has ratified role statements for each teacher-librarian. This reflects the school’s commitment to quality-based education. The school has three separate websites for each area of the school- Junior, Middle and Senior. The theme for the Middle school is “The Learning Journey”. Common headings exist between the three libraries of the school, which reflects common goals, and the desire to have consistency across its year levels of Prep to Year 12. These headings include About Books, Assignments, Research and Study, Skills. The website is user-friendly and provides access to all members of the school community. The website has a an extensive range of pathways to help students with their current assignments, new books, search engines, links to the local, Cairns library and State library, games and competitions. It has information helping to celebrate Book Week and the books nominated on the short list. The school library opens from 7:30-4pm allowing students to access the learning hub before and after school. __**THE ROLE DESCRIPTION OF THE TEACHER- LIBRARIAN**__ The T/L believes she has three main roles in the library – teaching information and literacy skills, managing staff and resources and promoting and developing a reading culture. These are articulated in her library goals and also in her role description and duty statement. Firstly, she believes it is her role to work collaborativly with the administration team, curriculum support and staff to assist students achieve academic success. She believes with the enormous amount of information for students to be able to access today, students need to be specifically taught the information and literacy skills needed to gather information, evaluate, analyze, synthesis and create information. She emphasized the importance of teaching her students high order thinking skills for life-long learning. Secondly, she manages the library resources and facility with the library staff consisting of library assistants, a qualified librarian and an accounts clerk. Lastly, she believes her role is to promote a reading culture in her school. The T / L states that she is continually referring to the ASLA standards as a guide to her role description and the role of the library in the school community. __**LIBRARY LAYOUT**__ The T/L was in a very fortunate position that she was able to contribute to the design of the library from its beginning construction. She helped design both the junior and middle/senior libraries. She helped to choose all the furniture, colours, workspaces etc. It is evident that much consideration was given to the design and use of the library. Library space is designed to cater for a range of groupings and is aimed at collaborative learning. There are a variety of spaces for flexible learning – quiet and noisy spaces. There are rooms for whole class learning using interactive whiteboards, small rooms for small group learning e.g viewing videos, benches for students to read and look out over a courtyard. There is a workroom for library assistants. The T/L stated that the library was designed with an inquiry based teaching focus in mind. __**PEDAGOGY**__ __**STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND COLLABORATION**__ Working collaboratively with teachers in implementing, teaching and assessing curriculum is of great importance to the teacher-librarian of this site. Her philosophy is to work closely with those teachers who seek assistance and always maintain an open door policy to others. She also believes that when teachers see the benefits and rewards with working with the teacher-librarian they soon seek collaboration. Preparing well delivered lessons is imperative in presenting to teachers the value of a teacher-librarian. The teacher-librarian regularly emails teachers new resources usually through emails. The T/L cooperatively plans and teach units of work with subject and classroom teachers to develop information literacy. She combines Kathlu- ISP and the Big 6 as her information and literacy models. She usually plans with curriculum coordinator and then meets with teachers to talk about the unit discussing the unit design and how it could work and how the T/L can help from an information literacy angle. Even if not teaching, T/L might still suggest ideas and ensure suitable resources are made available for teachers and students. When a unit is developed further, the teacher-librarian is given a copy and starts developing her lessons. These are usually forwarded to teachers and she arranges lesson times. During before and after lessons, TL might informally meet with teachers to discuss changes, ideas, individual students etc. St Andrew’s College is a pilot school for the Australian Curriculum in English, Science and history As such, units of work have already been developed with an inquiry-based focus. __**DELIVERY OF LESSONS**__ Lesson groupings vary depend on the purpose of the lesson - teachers using the library also work in a variety of ways - small groups, whole class, individual and sometimes a mixture. The teacher–librarian assists students to seek, critically evaluate, synthesize and present information by planning with teachers so that tasks are designed to do this. In the delivery of lessons, she will take into consideration what elements of information literacy need to be taught and specific activities are created to do this. For example, a lesson evaluating websites for research, students would complete a grading sheet for the website or tick boxes. This information would then be shared with others. __**CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT**__ Working collaboratively as part of the Curriculum Advisory Committee and through conversations with curriculum coordinators whose role it is the teacher-librarian remains abreast of curriculum development. She regularly attends professional development in-services in teacher-librarian management and curriculum development.eg QSA. __**INFORMATION AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT**__ The teacher-librarians from each of levels of the school have developed their own scope and sequence from P-12 for information and literacy development. It reflects the school’s deep understanding of how information and literacy skills must be taught in the earlier years and consolidated in the later years. This document is being reviewed in line with the up and coming Australian curriculum. The school is using web2 tools such as blogs, wikispaces, delicious and creative tools e.g photostory for students multi-modal responses. __**LITERATURE PROMOTION**__ The promotion of literature is seen as an important role of the teacher-librarian at this school. There is an expectation that students will read particularly in the secondary years. Through the T/L’s reading she stated that research shows in year 7 reading begins to drops off. She suggests the integration of learning areas helps to promote literature reading. Books and class displays are attractively presented around the library as well as posters highlighting the importance of reading. Some of the many ways the T/L promotes reading is through the development of literature circles, reader’s cup awards, presentations on speech nights, book displays, through the school library website. The T/L will ask students to advise her what is a good book they have recently read. __**LIBRARY MANAGEMENT AND SERVICES**__ According to the T/L Internet acceptable use at this site is a whole school policy and has not been developed through the library. They do have a plagiarism policy but as yet is not approved ??? There has been discussion of digital citizenship but nothing of great consequence from library covered also in IT lessons. Part of the T/L’s role is to develop and administer library budgets and be accountable to school administration. There are project requirements in all areas of budget e.g books, subscriptions, licenses stationery, furniture, ad equipment and IT/AV. The Principal and business manager work out the budget and the T/L will reapply if more money is needed. There is an accounts person in the Library 2 days a week and the T/L does this all this with her. Library assistants manage the automated library system and technology under the supervision of the teacher-librarian. __**EVALUATION**__ The T/L recognizes that the evaluation of teaching practices is necessary in maintaining successful ongoing learning for students and staff. She is constantly reviewing practices and updating management services. She completes evaluation surveys e.g SWAT with staff and has them complete service satisfaction surveys. The school library policy is part of the whole school strategic plan which presently is being updated. It will be reviewed annually as part of the school's three-year review cycle, in consultation with all members of the wider school community. All goals from the last plan have been checked off. __**VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE**__ According to the T/L in the future inquiry based learning will much more about creating information for students and integrating IT as there is too much information out there for students to synthesis on their own. The teacher-librarian describes her own library as a learning hub as it is the place where collaborative learning takes place. She believes libraries are becoming humming hubs of activity, with students interacting as they learn with all sorts of resources to create information using technology. A library is a place where books are still valued but there are now other ways to read - audio and ebooks are part of the way students learn to love literature. Students are now using web2. for sharing and colloborating on group work where ever they are: at school, at home or when they are travelling. She believes that the 21st century teacher-librarian is excited about learning and loves helping students and teachers to use any tool that suits the occasion but is always willing to challenge and extend learning methods. Teacher-librarians are not just helping others to learn but are constantly learning themselves.
 * Where**: St Andrew’s Catholic College Redlynch Cairns
 * Who**: Mrs Virginia O’Dea (Teacher-Librarian)

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