Instruction

In my pre-librarian life, I was a high school social science teacher for seven years. From my experience, learning theories and instruction just don’t have to be overly complicated. I take the teaching approach that my mentor teacher taught me when he set my priorities for me by stating that kids will most likely forget most of what I try to teach them, but they will never forget how I made them feel. That philosophy became my driving force, and continues in my role as a teacher librarian. To provide students with a positive experience, where they feel welcome and cared for, and hopefully become intrinsically curious about the world around them to build a lifelong love of learning and reading. 

With my personal philosophy as my foundation, my methods of instruction follow a basic 6-Step Lesson Plan that I learned in my teaching credential program. Establish a Learning Objective, hook students with an Anticipatory Set, begin with Direct Instruction, wean them off with Guided Practice, let them fly solo with Independent Practice, and do all of the above with informal Formative Assessments, but end with some sort of Summative Assessment. In academics, the learning objective is usually standards-based, and primarily derived from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). As a Teacher Librarian, I can also tie academic standards with the library standards from the American Association of School Library (AASL) standards and CA Model School Library Standards. During lesson planning and instructional design, I can interweave various pedagogical theories such as reinforcement and feedback of Behaviorism (Grassian, 2001), schema building and cognitive load (Medical College of Wisconsin, 2022), and the collaborative powers of the social cognitive theory (Saunders, 2020). The Constructivist approach is student-centered and builds upon their prior knowledge, lived experiences, and interests. According to Harlan, inquiry-based learning includes real-world problems, investigations based on student interest, connecting school learning (standards) with out-of-school experiences, and is an iterative process using a variety of resources. Harlan hammers the importance of such strategies for teacher librarians by explaining “as information specialists, school librarians can be at the forefront of implementing opportunities for inquiry learning, with its emphasis on 21st century skills, such as collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking” (2018).

SUBTOPIC #1 Evidence: MMHS Music Research Project Wakelet Resources

In this piece of evidence, the music teacher from my school wanted to collaborate on a musician biography project. She provided a loose lesson plan based on her curriculum and a culminating assessment in the form of a Google Slides presentation. It was then up to me to create resources for the students to use, walk them through it, and assist them with their research. This was one of my first major collaborations and I decided to experiment with the Wakelt which is an excellent curation platform. Students were in either guitar or piano classes, so I included a hook video of a battling guitarist and pianist. To remind students of their learning objectives, I attached the teacher’s instructions. The assignment can be connected to the California Arts Standards for Music 7.1 of selecting musical pieces based on interest and comparing artists across cultures, genres, and historical periods (2019, p.115). Many of the resources support the research and writing process which complement CA ELA Common Core Standards, and AASL standards of thinking, creating and sharing across the foundations of Inquiry, and Curation. I created Guiding Questions throughout the curated list to help connect the items to the standards and teach effective research skills. 

On a side note, the teacher I worked with is not known for collaborating with others and I am super excited to branch out to the music department. However, I disagree with her quite a bit about this project, but I do not want to make too many suggestions that could possibly insult her and hurt future chances of collaboration. I think a lot of her requirements on the instructions are trivial and do not focus on music, standards, critical thinking, or the research process enough to make it a worthwhile project. I’m picking my battles to build our relationship and trust, and I hope to be comfortable enough with her to make further suggestions next year. 

As mentioned above with instructional design, proper lesson planning requires assessments to gauge student learning. This should never be a one-time thing, which is often thought of as the “test” at the end of a unit of study. In teacher lingo, we traditionally call the test the final formal summative assessment at the end of a unit of study. Good instructors should be constantly checking for understanding through various informal formative assessments. My go-to was Gladiator Thumbs (like the movie) when each student has to put up a sideways thumb with a hand and either point it up or down (true/false, yes/no, good/bad) based on my review questions, that way I can quickly assess how individuals and the class as a whole are doing. During independent practice and collaboration time, simple walking around and observing students is a type of informal formative assessment. Based on formative assessments like the above, teachers can gauge where students are at and determine if reteaching is necessary, which is often required and further alternative forms of instruction could benefit student learning. Even at the end, multiple forms of summative assessment should be offered as all students can not equitably demonstrate their learning with the same standardized assessment. As instructors, we are taught to scaffold our activities and provide various forms of instruction, progressive teaching calls for us to diversify our assessments as well for our diverse learners.  

SUBTOPIC #2 Evidence: INFO 250 Instructional Design Plan - Library Orientation  

I created this project with a partner, who also is a colleague of mine within the same school district. We completed it equally, each focusing on certain sections (I did most of the writing, she completed the video/screencast), but I also took on a leadership role in creating organizational hyperdocs for us to collaborate on asynchronously and synchronously. For this instructional plan, we followed professor Kaplowitz’s 7 Steps for Effective Teaching, which was honestly a bit cumbersome for us experienced teachers with all of its sub-sections. For this competency of assessments, it reflects the use of both stated learning objectives, and the two-pronged approach of formative and summative assessments. This lesson calls for teaching students about my colleagues' library through an orientation of the library digital catalog and physical space via a scavenger hunt. Throughout the lesson, opportunities for formative assessments are abundant via informal questioning and observations. The true outcome-based summative assessment is for students to successfully navigate the digital catalog and subsequently find and check out a book on their own. If students are identifying books of interest via our digital LSM, finding them accurately with assigned call numbers, and checking them out without assistance, our learning objectives have been achieved. I utilize the same outcome-based assessments in my own still-developing library orientations.

As an actual teacher, I once attended a professional development that really hit home for me. The presenter stated that the best teachers in the world could only reach about ⅔ of their classes with a single lesson. He explained the real reason why they are the best teachers is because they use a variety of instructional techniques to reach a different ⅔ everyday. Variety is the spice of life, and it also applies to our students. I do not buy into learning styles like VARK, but we do all learn differently, and understanding that fact is necessary to effectively teach. 

In the LIS world, there is a close and inseparable correlation of learning theories and information-seeking behaviors. Modern models of information-seeking behaviors like Kulthau’s Information Seeking Process directly correspond to Humanist learning theories that take into account an individual’s background, immediate context, and real-life needs (Grassian, 2001). Collaborative learning also emerges with information-seeking behaviors with Dresang’s Radical Change Theory, which emphasizes teenage preference and effectiveness of social learning. As librarians rely upon understanding of information behaviors to solve information needs, teacher librarians can also rely upon similar principles found in learning theories to teach our students and satisfy their diverse academic needs. To do so, librarians must know more about their patrons which can be accomplished with community scans, and resources like school demographic date. For instance, demographic data from my high school of Mount Miguel reflects a low-income neighborhood, high ethnic diversity, and many English learners and students with disabilites. As such, instruciton should be culturally responsive to these backgrounds and individual learning needs of particular students.  

Subtopic #3 Evidence: MMHS Student-Choice Lit Circles

Utilizing multiple instructional techniques within the same single lesson can be difficult. It is easier to spread a variety of strategies over numerous activities. However, there is a growing call to teach differently at each and every step. My own school district is encouraging this in the form of Universal Design Learning, which emphasizes equity in instruction and grading. A big component of this is student-choice in instruction and assessment, this allows for a wide-range activities and resources for diverse student populations. This concept is applied in the Lit Circle program I have established at my school. I purchased an initial special collection of 35+ high-interest Lit Circle titles for teachers to bring in their classes and have students select their own books to read and collaborate with classmates. From the selection of the book to the assessment, it is all student-choice based. 

The books themselves offer many options to my diverse student population and I have since added to the collection to customize it to their needs. See our growing Lit Circle Collection embedded above. We have and are adding books in Spanish for our large EL population, graphic novels that are more accessible to variety diverse students, books in verse that are also more accessible, high interest - low readability (Hi-Lo) books for our student that read below grade level, advanced level non-fiction for advanced students, and more. All of these titles stress many diverse characters and perspectives that hopefully reflect our diverse students and other cultures and experiences of the world. During Lit Circles, students are grouped by the books they have selected, and will read the book alone, but come together to collaborate. Students rotate through a number of roles during group book discussions (leader, illustrator, quote collector, to provide further diversity of instruction. The student-choice assessments for the Lit Circle projects, which is linked above, offers many options for our diverse students to display their learning. From traditional presentations and essays, to authentic #BookToks and GoodReads reviews, to more creative movie trailers, theme parks and music playlists (embedded above). Offering such a diverse variety of instruction and assessments ensures a more equitable learning experience for all.