Standard 4: Advocacy and Leadership
Candidates advocate for dynamic school library programs and positive learning environments that focus on student learning and achievement by collaborating and connecting with teachers, administrators, librarians, and the community. Candidates are committed to continuous learning and professional growth and lead professional development activities for other educators. Candidates provide leadership by articulating ways in which school libraries contribute to student achievement.
4.1 Networking with the library community
Candidates demonstrate the ability to establish connections with other libraries and to strengthen cooperation among library colleagues for resource sharing, networking, and facilitating access to information. Candidates participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners.
Being a leader for the students and showing other teachers that they too can use the library in ways they might not have thought about before was one of the biggest take aways I pulled from this Goal Project assignment. Many times, the librarian can be a leader in new or not thought of ways to help students out. This goal project helped me show other teachers and the principal a different way to use the library for our students’ learning. Being a leader for our students shows them that they can become leaders too. They can become a leader for their own reading and learning. They can take charge of these aspects and can set goals for themselves.
Using a student’s learning styles and abilities to tailor a lesson to, allows the teacher to make sure they are teaching to that student’s abilities and learning styles. The librarian as teacher, working with the classroom teacher collaboratively, can also help the librarian accomplish this as well. This goal project uses the student as the source of learning style.
I learned that when I was the teacher, I needed to tailor my lessons to individual needs and that this was the most beneficial way for the student to learn. We are all created differently with different learning styles, and librarians and teachers need to be sure to tailor their lessons to these individual learning styles. This goal project did just that. While it was more work at the beginning stages, the results were more beneficial to that student.
This has helped teachers become aware of the ability to use the library as another source or extension of classroom learning. Learning/ teaching is geared towards an individual student rather than towards pacing guides or standardized tests. “The more our students read, the better their comprehension, vocabulary and fluency,” (Bridges, 2015).
4.2 Professional development
Candidates model a strong commitment to the profession by participating in professional growth and leadership opportunities through membership in library associations, attendance at professional conferences, reading professional publications, and exploring Internet resources. Candidates plan for ongoing professional growth.
I have completed a Professional Development Plan that I hope to put into effect within the next five years. Having a PDP allows me to set goals and then hold myself accountable for these goals or the progress made towards achieving them. This standard calls for librarians to set goals for themselves through the use of a PDP as well as be involved within the library and librarian community. By clicking on the link above, you can see my PDP. Below are some key steps I need to take in order to help me meet my goals.
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Continue subscription to School Library Journal, reading articles and book reviews to stay current on issues, trends, and materials of relevance to school libraries
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Continue American Library Association (ALA) membership
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Continue North Carolina Library Association (NCLA) membership
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Attend at least one professional conference
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Continue subscription to School Library Journal, reading articles and book reviews to stay current on issues, trends, and materials of relevance to school libraries
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Read professional journals received through ALA and ALA sub-memberships (ALA’s American Libraries and AASL’s Knowledge Quest) to stay current on issues, trends, and materials of relevance to libraries and school libraries
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Participate in county school employee/media specialist workshops and meetings for school librarians for training, gaining, and sharing ideas
4.3 Leadership
Candidates are able to articulate the role and relationship of the school library program's impact on student academic achievement within the context of current educational initiatives. Utilizing evidence-based practice and information from education and library research, candidates communicate ways in which the library program can enhance school improvement efforts.
Creating an Advocacy Plan for the school library gives ammunition to the librarian when bringing forth their concerns to the administrators or school board. This plan focuses on a need or problem within the school library, targets an audience, and then bring about solutions with evidence to back up the plans.
An Advocacy Plan is best used to show the needs of the students and the impact the library and its resources can have on those needs through research and data. This collection of evidence can then be brought before the people in charge of allocations and funding to show how and why these solutions are necessary to help better the library and meet the needs of the students.
When writing up this Advocacy Plan for my school's library, it gave me a clearer picture of how the need I had found could be met and how meeting this need could help increase the reading output of the students. The collection of data methods that I utilized were similar to other research methods I had used in other assignments. Pulling all of the data together made it easier for me to present the solutions to my administration and help start up the new reward system for the Accelerated Reader program.
4.4 Advocacy
Candidates identify stakeholders within and outside the school community who impact the school library program. Candidates develop a plan to advocate for school library and information programs, resources, and services.
Using the community information and the data collected from them allowed me to advocate for the programs and materials in the library.
Being an advocate for the people that use the library is what librarians need to focus on rather than on being an advocate for the library. We must be involved in the community and get the community involved with us. Advocating for the users of the library is our job. We must involve the community in our library program, so as to create a better, more useful, library system.
The Advocacy Plan that I created to improve involvement of first through sixth graders in the Accelerated Reader program helped me to present my ideas and thoughts to my administration, and then to the school board. While it may seem a small step in nature compared to other library needs, this was going to have a direct impact on the students that use the library. The Advocacy Plan gave me the ability to present my case in a well thought out and well drawn out manner.
Having documentation of a library's needs helps the librarian bring a more presentable case to the people in charge, and many times to the leaders of the community surrounding the school. This is an invaluable tool that I can see myself using in the near future when I hope to present my case for other library needs that will have a direct impact on the students.