Gina Bernacchi

Component A: Instructional Design

A highly effective teacher librarian collaboratively develops authentic learning experiences that integrate library skills/standards, promote Colorado Essential Skills, and accommodates students' unique learning needs. Library skills/standards include but are not limited to information literacy, media/news literacy, digital citizenship, and reading.

The teacher librarian plans instruction that reflects learners' goals and interests and prioritizes learner agency and engagement.

Designing Authentic Learning Experiences

My instructional focus as a teacher librarian has been to supplement/enrich what teachers are already doing in their classrooms, as well as to help students become critical consumers of information. Together with teachers in the content areas, as well as on my own, I have created and designed many different learning experiences for students integrating media literacy, critical thinking, and research skills, as well as helping students learn the subject area content and standards.

When collaborating with teachers, I first get an overview of what they are doing in their classrooms, and where I might fit into that content. For example, in AP European History, the teacher wanted students to find and analyze primary sources. We met to discuss where she was in the planning process, her goals for the lesson, students’ prior knowledge of the subject, and the academic level of the students. The teacher had pulled five primary source texts that she wanted students to focus on. I presented a lesson on using primary sources for research and how to use our school databases to find them. Together, we created a worksheet using the CAPP acronym to analyze primary sources. I gave a brief overview of CAPP, then students worked in small groups to analyze the sources. Having two teachers in the room to answer questions and help students gave them more individualized attention.

What I have learned from this experience and others is that every class dynamic is different, and even in AP classes, students have varying academic and skill levels. For example, I created this Holocaust Museum where students visited six exhibits set up around the library and reflected on each of them. I thought students would be highly engaged at each station, but mostly they worked individually on their packets, which they were required to complete for a grade. Also, some students needed a lot more time at each station, and some needed less. The next time I do this activity, I will incorporate more collaboration and talking among the students, so they are not working in isolation.

Here are some other authentic learning experiences I have created:

As I stated above, I created a Holocaust Museum (borrowed and revised from another teacher in the disrict) to use in World History classes as an introduction to the Holocaust. Students visited six exhibits set up around the library and reflected on each of them. Students were presented with multiple ways of engaging with the exhibits - reading, listening, viewing, responding, and writing. Students reflected on what they learned and gave me feedback about the activity in an Exit Ticket. (See paragraph in previous section about what I learned from this experience.)
I invited teachers to bring their students to the library for a lesson during Banned Books Week. This is a fun lesson to introduce students to the reasons why people challenge and/or ban books, as well as what materials other than books get challenged or banned. I set up five different stations with books grouped according to a theme/reason they were challenged or banned: sexually explicit; drugs/alcohol; language; violence and suicide; and religious viewpoint or LGBTQIA+. I covered each of the books with paper bags that had the reasons why each book was challenged or banned written on them (most of them had more than one reason). Students completed this worksheet while moving from table to table. They had to decide what the common theme was among all the books on the table, as well as answer questions, read about the First Amendment, and look for statistics about books that are challenged and why. I did this lesson for several years, and then decided to change it up, based on feedback I received from students, both anecdotally and verbally. I noticed that some students were struggling to keep up with the reading excerpts on the tables, and it wasn't as interactive as I would have liked. So, this year I redesigned the lesson by putting butcher paper up on the walls with photos of the top ten books that were challenged or banned the previous year, and the reasons why. After students answered the questions on this handout, they put a sticky note on each poster that said either "Ban It" or "Keep It." We compared how many people wanted to ban or keep each book, and why. This was more interactive than the first lesson I did, and students enjoyed being able to move around and make comments about the books.
I have taught several lessons over the years on media literacy and how to identify "fake news." This year, I created a new lesson in recognition of National News Literacy Week. With the growth of AI, I felt it was necessary to update my presentation to help students become more critical consumers of information. In the past, my media literacy presentation was mostly passive; I presented the information via a slideshow and discussed the topic as a whole class. This year I tried to make the lesson more interactive. I presented this slideshow on "How to Spot Fake News." As part of the lesson, I posted several headlines and students raised a green card if they thought the headline was true, or a red card if they thought it was fake. Then students worked in pairs or small groups to analyze three different websites for bias. Students were engaged and animated while looking at different headlines and websites and discussing the differences.

Banned Books Lesson

Students work in groups and rotate tables to look at different books and answer questions about why books are challenged or banned.

Banned Books Lesson Revised

Students move around the library space and read about why books are challenged or banned, then post a sticky note that says either "Keep" or "Ban."

Component B: Collaborative Relationships

A highly effective teacher librarian regularly collaborates with other teachers as a co-teaching partner and enhances students' learning experiences through co-teaching, curated library resources, and library programming.

Building Collaborative Relationships

Collaborating and co-teaching with teachers is one of the highlights of my job. I love working with teachers to create a lesson or unit that supports what they are doing in the classroom. As I said above, I believe my role as teacher librarian is to supplement and/or enrich curriculum content, as well as support teachers with research and other library skills and standards. When I first started at HRHS in 2015, I had to reach out to every department to ask teachers to collaborate with me. They didn't know me, and didn't know what I had to offer or how I could help them. This required me learning their curriculum and where I might fit in. After many years of building teachers' trust and showing them where I can support them, I am finally at the point where teachers will come to me and ask to collaborate. Sometimes teachers will have an idea and ask me to brainstorm with them to create a project; other times, I will ask teachers what they are doing in their classrooms and suggest ways we can collaborate. As a result, I have built a collaborative relationship with several teachers in the building, and am also constantly looking for new ways to collaborate. Here are some of the collaborative learning experiences teachers and I have created:

During my first several years at HRHS, I worked closely with the Social Studies department on their U.S. History Oral History Project. Students were required to interview a person who lived through a significant event in history (9-11, the Vietnam War, Watergate, etc.), then prepare a video integrating their interview with background information, which was then presented at a Community Night in the library. This project involved several components: researching an historical event; preparing interview questions and then interviewing their subject; editing the video; using technological and research tools and skills; and presenting the video to an audience. This project emphasized both content area and library standards - historical context, research, critical thinking, creativity, and oral presentation skills. I worked with students to find reliable and accurate sources for their research; develop interview questions; practice interview skills; and create their iMovie projects. Over several years of working on this project with social studies teachers, technology evolved, and iMovie became too cumbersome for students. We learned that we had to adapt to changing technology and allow, for example, students to edit on their phones instead of a computer.
I worked with an English teacher who was teaching Dracula and who wanted to do a creative final project. We discussed her goals for the project and how it would be graded. Together, we created a project called "A Vampire Primer," which incorporated the skills of finding text evidence and connecting that evidence to an argument, as well as integrating technology tools to present that evidence in a creative way. Here is the assignment I created for the Vampire Primer. I was able to teach students how to use several different digital tools to present their projects, while also supporting them in finding text evidence. Because students were able to work individually or in groups and could choose how to present their final projects, I was also able to address individual learning styles and needs.
This year was the 20th anniversary of the Twilight series, and the teacher librarian at our feeder middle school (Erica Leu) and I collaborated on a 20th anniversary Twilight party at HRHS. Erica, Angie Yearous (the HRHS library assistant), and I met over the course of several weeks to plan and divvy up tasks. We created different interactive stations: button maker; bookmark maker; Guess Who? game; Blooket Trivia; Pin the Fangs on the Vampire; bracelet making; and a Scavenger Hunt. We had the movie playing on a big screen and served vampire-themed food. At least 50 students signed in during the period (which was held during our Access time, when students can travel to get help from teachers). Together, our schools created a culture of reading and showed that our libraries are active zones of collaboration.
We collaborated with the librarian at our elementary school feeder to have National Honor Society (NHS) students read aloud to her students on World Read Aloud Day. Angie, the HRHS library assistant, is the co-sponsor of NHS, so she recruited volunteers, who also earned NHS volunteer hours. We worked with the Fox Creek Elementary librarian to coordinate our school schedules and choose books for students to read aloud. The Fox Creek librarian sent us the books beforehand, and Angie and I gave NHS students a mini lesson on how to read aloud. Students were responsible for getting their own transportation to the elementary school (they are all juniors and seniors). The elementary students loved having high school students read to them, and our students learned responsibility and how to read aloud in an engaging way.

Photos of our Twilight 20th Anniversary Collaboration

Other Collaborations

NHS student reads to Fox Creek elementary students.

For Native American Heritage Month, we collaborated with the Social Studies department to have Don Hoaglin, an English teacher at HRHS who is from the Yuki, Little Lake Pomo, Karuk, and Kashaya Pomo tribes, present to the school on contemporary Native American perspectives and how they maintain their culture.

We collaborated with our Cosmetology program to display their projects and have students vote on them.

Our Creative Writing Club hosted a reading to celebrate the publication of their literary magazine.

Collaboration and Professional Development

I love attending our district library PD days, because I always leave with new ideas for library programming and teaching. We have a highly collaborative group of high school teacher librarians, and we share ideas and learn from each other. Many of us have presented on best practices in our libraries during these PD days. I presented on Increasing Circulation through Dynamic Shelving. In addition, the district library staff does a great job of preparing a day of learning, sharing, and collaborating. Here is the Library Professional Development Agenda for our last meeting. Sessions offered included Collaborating to Foster a Culture of Reading and Exploring Practical Strategies for Increasing Database Usage, as well as time to connect and share ideas.

Our district high schools (with one or two exceptions) have switched to a common Friday schedule to allow time for PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) to meet. In the past, teacher librarians have been a member of one or two PLTs (Professional Learning Teams) at their schools. For example, I was a part of the English department PLT for several years. This year, in an effort to make PLT time more beneficial to library work, I created a PLT for district high school librarians. We meet virtually every Friday morning during PLT time. Here is our working document/agenda. This year, the district library goal is to “Create a culture of reading.” So, we decided to also make that our PLT goal, using a specific metric: “To create a culture of reading as measured by a 10% increase year over year in circulation as measured by check outs in Destiny.” Over the next several weeks, we discussed what “creating a culture of reading” in our schools looks like, and shared ideas of how to implement and measure that goal. From these discussions, I decided to create a Staff Team Reading Competition in my school for the fall. Twenty-seven staff members on seven teams participated. Teams entered their books into a Google form, and earned points based on different criteria, i.e. genre read or number of pages. One of my “side goals” was to increase Sora usage (our district ebook app), because my school’s numbers have been historically low and the district has pushed us to increase usage. I gave an extra three points for every book read or listened to on Sora, which resulted in a 452 percent increase, or more than 5.5 times as many books as the previous year!

Another professional development collaboration I participated in was a Colorado State University class for librarians and science teachers to create a lesson utilizing primary sources through the Library of Congress (LOC). I created this lesson plan called "Do Masks Help Stop the Spread of Disease?" to teach in an AP Environmental class. I worked with the AP Environmental teacher to choose a unit (Infectious Diseases) that would be relevant to what's happening in the world today (this was right after COVID). The science teacher and I then presented our final projects and what we learned to the staff on a PD day. After taking this course, I had a better understanding of how to use primary sources in lessons, and I was able to show teachers and students how to use them for their research.

In addition to these collaborations, I have sought out other learning experiences and best practices to improve/grow our library programming and impact student achievement. I took a course through the ALA called “Leadership for School Librarians,” which used the book, Leading for School Librarians: There is No Other Option by Hilda K. Weisburg. I served on the CDE committee to revise the state rubric for teacher librarians. I have also participated in several book studies through the District Library Media Center (DLMC) and our school, including:

An Introduction to Collection Development for School Librarians by Mona Kerby (through the DLMC)
Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom by Renee Hobbs (DLMC)
Becoming an Embedded Librarian: Making Connections in the Classroom by Michelle Reale (DLMC)
Heart! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader by Timothy D. Kanold (HRHS)
Concise Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Professional Learning Communities at Work by Mike Mattos, et al. (HRHS)
I created and taught a book study on the book, Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving, for which staff received relicensure credit through the district. I created this class because HRHS is the most diverse high school in the Douglas County School District, with 35.65 percent of students coming from diverse backgrounds. Although HRHS is in an affluent area, 13 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. Before this class, I had started an affinity group for students of color, so that they had a safe place to talk about the challenges of living and going to school in a predominately white setting. I felt it was important for teachers to learn more about how their own backgrounds and beliefs manifest in the classroom. If teachers are more aware of their own beliefs about race and how those beliefs affect student learning, students of color will feel more seen and heard, thus improving their academic success.
I co-created and co-taught a book study on the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta L. Hammond, for which staff received relicensure credit AND which met the CDE's requirement for 45 clock/contact hours or 3 semester hours of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Education professional development. My goals for this class were twofold: 1) to help teachers meet their CLD requirement; and 2) to help ELL students succeed.

Whether I have collaborated with my district colleagues, taken a graduate course, participated in book studies or led a book study, all of these PD experiences have influenced my growth and practices as a teacher librarian, because they have enabled me to reflect on my practices and modify what I do, both as a librarian and as an educator. I believe that continual reflection, collaboration, and learning is essential to being a Future Ready Librarian, and I love learning and implementing new ideas in the library and the classroom.

Component C: Measuring Impact and Growth

A highly effective teacher librarian regularly collects evidence that measures learner impact and growth; evidence includes formative and summative assessments of learners and feedback from teachers.

The teacher librarian analyzes evidence, engages in self-relfection, adapts instruction, and communicates instructional improvements to educational staff, including building administrators.

Using Assessments and Feedback

I mainly use formative assessments to adapt my lessons, except when I am required to create a summative assessment for my administrative evaluation. My formative assessments include observations, quick check-ins with students, exit tickets, and KWL tickets (What I know about the topic/What I want to learn/What I learned). For example, here is the exit ticket I created for the Holocaust Museum activity, which helped me to assess what students learned, what needed to be taught in a different way, and how the activity was received overall. As I said above, I thought students would be highly engaged at each station, but mostly they worked individually on their packets, which they were required to complete for a grade. Also, some students needed a lot more time at each station, and some needed less. The next time I do this activity, I will incorporate more collaboration and talking among the students, so they are not working in isolation.

I have learned to always give teachers a feedback form to complete after I present a lesson for their classes. Their feedback helps me identify what went well and what needs improvement. For example, I presented a lesson in a social studies class on how to use databases for research, and there were several ELL students in the class. Although there was also an ELL co-teacher in the room, it was very challenging to explain a lot of the concepts to students with limited English proficiency, even when the ELL teacher had translated the materials beforehand. I learned that I needed to confer with the ELL co-teacher before the lesson to get a better understanding of the ELL students’ academic levels and needs. For any lesson or activity I teach, I always learn something new about pacing and how well students interact with the materials. Here is an example of a feedback form I created for teachers.

More formally, I worked with my English PLT to create a goal to help students identify evidence in reading. Our goal for the year was:

By the end of the year, we will support our students' academic achievement by having 80% of the students show growth on the skill standard of Evidence as measured by our common assessments on CommonLit. We will achieve this by collaborating in PLTs to do two complete data cycles during PLT time, to create a clear intervention program/system for students who struggle, and to have at least two specific strategies to extend the learning for students who have already achieved proficiency.

We created a common assessment and, when needed, I administered the assessment to students. Based on the results, I helped identify areas where students were struggling or needed more instruction. We then created intervention strategies. Because I am not a full-time teacher and do not have my own classes, I was able to pull students who scored low on the assessments and work with them in small groups in the library. This enabled me to help students better understand the skill and improve their assessment scores. Here are the final results of the common assessment. We set target scores for each student, and 15/18 students met the target. This is an example of supporting students' academic growth, which aligns with our school goal.

Every week, we met to review our goal, analyze data, and discuss strategies to help students who were struggling. This work was data-driven and focused. We used this document and our data to communicate our work to our administrative evaluators, as well as to other PLTs in the building.

Communicating Instructional Improvements

Feedback from both my colleagues and students helps me to reflect on my practices and to make adjustments and improve when necessary. I like to meet with teachers before and after co-teaching a lesson to reflect on what went well and how we can improve the lesson for the next time. Because I don’t work with the same students throughout the school year, it is difficult to assess whether one lesson I did with them in, say, the fall had much effect on their learning in the spring. So, I mainly use formative assessments to have students reflect on their learning and give feedback. I have found that students and adults alike - especially if the evaluation is anonymous - appreciate the opportunity to reflect and share what they have learned. When students are asked to reflect on their learning, my experience has shown that they often surprise themselves with what they have learned because they write it down and share it with another person. The process of pausing before moving on to the next class or lesson gives them the opportunity to integrate the new knowledge and, hopefully, use it in their future learning. These assessments help me, too, to reflect on how well the lesson went and how I can improve for the next time. Here is an example of an evaluation I gave to my Waking Up White book study participants.

My main form of communication with my administrators is through my formal evaluation conferences. After an observation, I write up a post-observation summary and share it with my evaluator. We then discuss what went well and what could be improved the next time. For example, I taught this lesson on lateral reading to a sophomore English class, which my principal observed. In our post-observation meeting, we both agreed that the lesson did not go as well as I had hoped, and we discussed why. We decided that the lesson was too advanced for the age group, so the students were confused and had a hard time following the lesson. I rewrote the lesson so that it used more accessible articles and gave students more opportunities to use different learning styles and work together.

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