Presentation for the AERA Vancouver 2012 Conference and the FSU COE Marvalene Hughes Research Conference.

1. Extending Our Reach:
Librarian/Teacher Partnerships To Ensure
Student Attainment of 21st Century Skills
Shelbie Witte, School of Teacher Education
Melissa Gross, Library and Information Studies
Don Latham, Library and Information Studies
2012 Marvalene Hughes Research in Education Conference

2. Overview
• Preparing Teachers and Librarians to Teach
21st Century Skills Project
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills
• Preliminary Findings
2

3. Preparing Teachers and Librarians To
Teach 21st Century Skills Project
• A collaboration between the School of Library and
Information Studies and the School of Teacher
Education at FSU, funded by CRC Planning Grant
• Assess the extent to which we are preparing our
students to foster 21st Century Skills among students
• Create a synergy between educational and library
initiatives by bringing teachers and librarians
together to orient them to partner in the goal of
ensuring that students are able to achieve the skills
outlined in the 21st Century Skills framework.
3

4. Partnership for 21st Century Skills
4

5. Research Questions
1. What are the information literacy skill levels of students
graduating from the Master’s program in Library and
Information Studies (LIS) and of preservice teachers in the
College of Education at X University?
2. Where in the LIS curriculum and the Education curriculum
are 21st Century Skills currently taught?
3. What do faculty in LIS and Education say about how 21st
Century Skills could best be incorporated into their
respective curricula?
4. What do faculty in LIS and Education say about how teacher/
librarian partnerships could best be fostered?
5

6. Methods
• Assessment of graduating students’
information literacy skills
• Curriculum maps
• In-depth interviews with faculty focused on
the incorporation of 21st Century Skills and
librarian/teacher collaboration into the
curricula for public, school, and academic
librarianship and K-12 education.
6

7. Syllabi Mapping
Analysis of all syllabi in SLIS and secondary
certification programs coded against the 21st
Century Skills framework
•Secondary education certification programs
– English education
– Science and mathematics
– Social studies
•Library and Information Studies programs
– Core courses
– School Library courses
7

9. Health Literacy

10. Be Responsible to Others

11. Global Awareness

14. Interviews with Faculty
12 faculty were interviewed
– 6 in School of Teacher Education (representing core,
math, science, social science, English)
– 6 in School of LIS (representing core and school media)
Previous experience
– All Education faculty had been former middle/high
school teachers; none had been librarians.
– One LIS faculty had been a former teacher; one a
substitute teacher; two school librarians; one a children’s
public librarian; and one a corporate and academic
librarian.
14

15. Best strategies to ensure 21st C Skills are being taught
to pre-service teachers & librarians
• In classes, ideally across the curriculum
– Individual & group activities
– Instructors modeling 21st C Skills
• A class that enrolls both Education and LIS students
• Field experiences
– Internships
– Service learning projects
• Professional development
15

16. Faculty experience collaborating with
teachers and/or librarians
Previous experience with collaboration:
– Varied widely
– Some teachers described the school library as a place for detention, faculty
meetings, student group work—but not as a resource for research
– Former teachers and former librarians recalled collaborating on developing
assignments and/or collections
– In general, collaboration was described as “challenging”
Experience with collaboration in current position:
– Both Education & LIS faculty work with their library liaison
– Types of collaboration:
• Developing assignments, presenting workshops to students, inviting guest
speakers to classes
• Librarians assist faculty with research—mostly locating sources
• Faculty in LIS collaborate with librarians on grant proposals
16

17. Where teacher/librarian collaboration is
taught in the curriculum
In LIS:
– Primarily in School Collection Development and
Instructional Role of the Information Professional
– Collaboration, more broadly defined, is taught in
Foundations, Marketing, Management courses.
In Education:
– Various courses require students to use the library to
complete assignments & also discuss the importance of
resources for K-12 students.
– Very few specific examples were provided.
17

18. Where teacher/librarian collaboration
could be taught in the curriculum
In LIS:
– Perhaps a course could be developed that both Education
and LIS students could take together.
In Education:
– Methods course
– Introduction to Education
– Introduction to Technology
– Writing & reading courses
– Through experiences in the Education resource center
18

19. Best strategies for teaching
teacher/librarian collaboration
• Simulated assignments
• Field experiences
• Professional models (best practices)
• A class that Education & LIS students take
together
• Guest speakers: Education faculty talk to LIS
students; LIS faculty talk to Education students
19

20. Challenges in achieving
teacher/librarian collaboration
• Usual challenges of collaboration: territoriality, identifying strengths, defining
roles
• Information/Media/Technology skills are “the bridges between the silos of core
subject courses [in K-12], but it’s hard to measure the strength of those bridges.”
• “There’s no reward for risk-taking in schools; it’s all about improving test scores.
This stifles creativity and maybe collaboration too.”
• Pre-service teachers are undergraduate students; pre-service librarians are
graduate students.
• Defining 21st C Skills: more than one interviewee asked, “What are 21st C Skills?”
• From an Education faculty member: “We don’t teach our students how to work
with school psychologists or guidance counselors either.”
• From an LIS faculty member: “What’s the distinction between providing [library]
services to a sub-group of users and collaborating with them?”
20

21. References
American Association of School Librarians. (2007). Standards for the 21st Century
Learner. Available at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/stan
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information Literacy
Competency Standards for Higher Education. Available at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm
Kent State University. (2011). Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills
(SAILS). Available at: https://www.projectsails.org/
National Council of Teachers of English. (2008). 21st Century Curriculum Assessment
Framework. Available at:
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentframework
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2009). Framework for 21st Century Learning.
Available at:
http://www.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120
Latham & Gross / CAIS 2010 21

22. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank:
– FSU for funding this work through a Planning Grant.
– Our faculties for supporting and participating in the
project
– Our graduate research assistants Michael Ferrarro,
Jonathan Hollister, Rebecca Kuitems
Latham & Gross / CAIS 2010 22

23. Thank you!
Melissa Gross
mgross@fsu.edu
Don Latham
dlatham@fsu.edu
Shelbie Witte
switte@admin.fsu.edu
23