Learner Centered Librarianship
As educators, it should be our goal to empower students to take ownership of their learning. Since technology has changed so dramatically, our students require a new set of skills to find and evaluate information to fulfill their learning needs. Often, this requires that librarians and teachers step outside of their comfort zones, and provide students with opportunities to explore, create, and learn in ways that are different from the educator's school experience.
Part of the transition into this technology-rich, and student-centered learning environment is for teachers to design purposeful lessons that will guide students to the information that they need, but also encourage them to utilize online resources.
This use of online resources also required direct instruction, and follow-up instruction regarding copyright, fair use, and citations to avoid plagiarism. Below are a few artifacts that demonstrate this principle of student-centered learning.
An Alternative to Book Reports
This lesson plan is a ten-day unit of study over the book "Moon Bear" by Gil Lewis. This lesson demonstrates a student-centered lesson integrating technology to increase collaboration and student accountability. Because this artifact was designed to be an alternative to the traditional book report and focuses on the students and their personal interests, I have chosen to display this artifact under "Learner Center Librarianship".
Library Standards Evaluation- Using Mind-Mapping to Make Meaning
This artifact is a mindmap that I created to analyze the library standards that are tested on the TEXES School Librarian Certification exam.
Using this mind map exercise, I was able to make the connection between mind maps, as a student-centered method of evaluating, interpreting, and reflecting upon information, and the exercise itself, which required that I synthesize my interpretation of the library standards. As a librarian, this is an option to help teachers promote student reflection and connection-making during the learning process. Therefore, I have chosen to categorize this article under "Learner-Centered Librarianship".
This artifact is a mindmap that I created to analyze the library standards that are tested on the TEXES School Librarian Certification exam.
Using this mind map exercise, I was able to make the connection between mind maps, as a student-centered method of evaluating, interpreting, and reflecting upon information, and the exercise itself, which required that I analyze my interpretation of the library standards, and create a map of the interconnectedness of those ideas.
I chose to classify this artifact as "learner-centered" because librarians are able to assist students with this tool to reflect upon their ideas and learning and make the connections between the concepts they have learned and discovered.
Makerspaces as a Tool to Develop Reasoning and Critical Thinking
The maker space in the library is the perfect place for students to develop problem-solving and collaboration skills. The maker space also encourages students to find and use online resources to find information or hints that they need to solve a problem that is fun, interesting, and that captivates their imagination and curiosity.
The next few items showcase my experience with truly student-centered, exploration activities, that caused me to think deeply, apply knowledge from previous projects, and recognize the thinking skills I developed during these projects. I chose to share these items because they demonstrate the process of developing critical thinking to solve increasingly difficult, and multifaceted problems; skills that our students need to develop.
These tasks allowed me to understand the "feeling" of a student-centered learning activity, from the perspective of the student, and therefore learn how to apply this method to my teaching repertoire.
