Student Learning Outcome 5

Professional Development & Service

As a school library candidate, I am evaluated using the ALA/AASL Standards for Initial Preparation of School Librarians, which address professional development through the following standard:

Standard 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. (ALA, 2010)

Professional development can take a variety of forms, being individual or collaborative, formal or informal, and librarians are expected to take part as well as lead professional development for others in their fields(this can include other librarians, teachers, and other information personnel). We are also expected to maintain memberships in professional organizations, which include access to multiple resources and opportunities for continued learning that might not otherwise be available.

Some professional development can be done on one’s own, such as keeping up with current research, learning new skills and software, listening to podcasts, and participating in online courses or webinars. It can also take place in a group setting, such as professional conferences or smaller sessions through local organizations.

​Since my specialty is school libraries, I joined the American Association of School Librarians shortly after starting the MLIS program. This allows me to keep up to date on news and research related to school libraries, and provides access to tools and education opportunities relevant to my interests. As part of my membership, I receive the association’s publications for school librarians, including the bi-monthly journal Knowledge Quest and the online research journal School Library Research, as well as monthly newsletters and blog posts. Since AASL is a sub-organization of the American Library Association, I also receive newsletters and alerts from ALA. All of these publications help me stay up-to-date on library and education research, trends, and resources that I can use to improve my teaching and how I run my future school library program.

​So far, travel expenses have kept me from attending any professional conferences, though I have included several in my Professional Growth Plan to attend once I am working full-time in a school library, including the 2019 AASL Conference in Louisville, KY. Until then, there are other ways I can seek professional development. Many conferences later post recordings of sessions and related articles online which can be very useful in staying up-to-date on what is going on in the library community. Another alternative is webinars: online seminars or short group classes lead by an instructor. Webinars are a great resource for busy librarians; most are under two hours, free, and accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, and they cover a wide range of topics to improve library instruction.

Several courses in the MLIS program have touched on the topic of leading professional development, usually in the context of a school librarian leading professional development for other education professionals. While initially a daunting prospect, leading professional development is an essential skill for librarians since we are in a unique position to share information and knowledge with others.

The first step in leading professional development is to consider your audience. Are you working with a handful of other librarians or a large group of classroom teachers? The size of the group and their common characteristics, as well as any difference between their background and your own, will play a large role in the way you plan your session. Your topic should be relevant to your audience, whether it is a technology tool that would improve a lesson, an explanation and demonstration of a library service, or a presentation of research results that impact instruction. No one wants to sit through a presentation or discussion of a topic that has nothing to do with their life and needs.

During my final practicum, I designed and led a professional development session for the 8th grade teachers at the school I was placed at. This was going to take place during a regular school day, so it was immediately clear that the session needed to be short enough to take place during the teachers’ planning period without taking up all of their time that is usually devoted to planning for their classes. In this case, I was giving the teachers an introduction to a program available through our public library to give them and their students access to a variety of digital resources. Though obviously it would be ideal to have teachers using all of these resources in their classes, having me go through all 129 resources would have been nonsensical and a complete waste of time. Instead, I opted to explain the purpose of the program, how to access it, and then gave a deeper explanation of 4 of the best resources that could be used by teachers for a variety of instruction purposes.

REFERENCES

ALA. (2010). ALA/AASL Standards for Initial Preparation of School ... Retrieved fromhttp://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aasleducation/schoollibrary/2010_standards_with_rubrics.pdf

ARTIFACTS

ONEACCESS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SLIDES