This research has two main purposes:
1. To replicate a previous study that used a simple measure to assess the impact of teacher librarians who partner with classroom teachers on learning experiences that take advantage of the information and technological resources of the library learning commons.
2. To recommend to teacher librarians and other professional staff of the library learning commons a simple tracking method to regularly assess the impact of these professionals on teaching and learning throughout the school.
The research design is to look across at least 100 K-12 schools to micro document the results of individual learning experiences conducted by the classroom teacher and the teacher librarian. The participants are volunteers. No randomization is attempted. The researcher wants to know how many learners participated in the learning experience and how many of those learners met or exceeded both adults expectations.
In some cases, an instructional coach, a technology integration specialist, an administrator, or other professional specialist might join in for part or all of the learning experience. The judgment of whether individual students meet or exceed expectations comes from whatever normal assessments, both formative or summative, are used by the adults. A particular assessment is not required by the researcher. The researcher assumes that normal assessment practices are at work and are done according to normal local procedures.
The differences between this research and other designs are: