Last Post

I have been delaying writing this post to the very last moment.  I just hate to acknowledge that the practicum experience is over.  It was a tremendously valuable and enjoyable experience.  I had so much fun and learned a great deal from my practicum supervisor, Shawn Mauser.  Shawn was such a great model of how to be a deeply imbeded, beloved and essential staff member.  I got to practice so many wonderful new skills including weeding, re-arranging, shelving, collection development, reference work with students, library instruction and so much more.

My only comment for future improvement would be about the overall practicum project.  While I enjoyed working on the websites, they turned out to be much less integral to the overarching program.  I would have liked to have developed some technology or resource that could have been used by the students right away -- something that really filled a need.  I think future classes should either have the benefit of hearing about past successful practicum projects, or should be matched with a supervisor who has thought out a particular goal or project that they need assistance in completing.

Also, on a related note, I am not sure that the poster project is really the best product of all that I experienced and learned in my practicum.

Overall, however, I loved every minute of my time with Shawn and the Ann Richards students.  I learned so much and have a much better understanding of the essential duties of the school librarian and I am far more comfortable with the students after having spent so much time in their space and enjoying their library.

Sarah Dessen in 'da house!

When Shawn told me that Sarah Dessen was scheduled for an author visit--I was just as excited as the students!  I am a total Sarah Dessen fan!  And I could not wait to meet her and listen to her speak about her writing process.  Shawn knew this was a huge coup for her students and as she went around letting her readers know that there was a special surprise in store for them, she got a wonderful array of over the top reactions!  Some students even cried they were so happy!  Overjoyed!  It was such fun to let them in on the secret!  Shawn was smart to have her iPhone rolling to capture the excitement.  It made for great social media!!   Students were not only thrilled to attend the speaking event, they were responding to Shawn's Twitter challenge to send her the reasons why they should be invited to the special select group meeting with Ms. Dessen.  One of the best responses Shawn got on Twitter was from a student who wrote, "Seeing Sarah Dessen would be so amazing...just like seeing a real live Unicorn!"

So, not only did Sarah Dessen agree to speak to the students at large (in the cafeteria--the only space big enough to hold them!) but she also came early to speak to a smaller group of young women who were the most devoted fans.  I was lucky enough to be included in the first group and I had the great good fortune to listen as Ms. Dessen spoke about her writing life.  She let us in on her process for formulating characters, book ideas, good plot lines and the rest.  She was very candid not only about her great successes, but she also addressed her failures.  She said that sometimes things get in the way.  One time it was her own gut instinct that prevented her from publishing a completed manuscript.  She said, "It just didn't feel right."  I so appreciated that she had that message for the young women--that we have to follow our own best instincts.  It wasn't right--so I didn't.  I hope that message sunk in for them, as it did for me.  We were in awe of her complete casual-ness.  Her complete normal woman-ness.  She could have been a friend, or a mom from my daughter's school.  And yet, lurking beneath that regular gal facade, was the mind of a romantic writing genius!

It was one of the best author visits I've ever attended.  And again, the Ann Richards young women did not disappoint.  They were all engaged; asked great questions; and responded with good humor and good cheer to every part.

Library Displays

On one of my first days in the library, Shawn took me to the district printing portable--just behind the  Ann Richards buildings on campus and taught me how to operate the cricut cutters.  After a quick tutorial, she left me with very broad instructions to create a "New and Recommended Titles" poster and left me to be creative.  It was a lot of fun trying out all of the different designs on various crafting paper supplies.  I could have spent hours there making new display signs for everything in the library.  Its a tremendous resource to have available so close!  But it is time consuming and somehow even the short distance becomes un-workable when you feel tied to the library.  

Shawn mentioned wanting to re-vamp her signage in the library and it was a project I wanted to help with--but as I got immersed in the day to day library activity, the signage seemed to lose priority.  Also, when I reflected on the signage--I considered that it might be best to make a uniform message with the signs.  It could be theme based or at least coordinated effort with color and size.  

The Ann Richards Library already has general signs for Non-Fiction and Fiction sections prominently displayed--and the smaller signs noting specific dewey sections are all uniform in blue and white.  Overall I think they are easy to read and clear.  The Library space is noticably welcoming.  The design is open with flexible seating (which we learned from Elizabeth Pope--is the new trend in library design) and attractive neutral color schemes that follow the Ann Richards Maroon and Blue school colors.  The actual starburst mural design was painted by Shawn's husband Griffin Mauser.  Many people comment on the welcoming enivronment in the library and I can personally attest to its high level of student use and activity.  

When I was researching library design for class and for my practicum in general--I found that pinterest was a great resource for researching and collecting images of library display and design ideas.  Many educators and librarians have shared their successful display concepts on pinterest and they appear to be easy to understand and implement.  Shawn seems to shy away from overt book display areas--integrating themes or holidays--but she always has a nice collection of interesting and highly acclaimed books on the top of the shelves.  Its invting and a great opportunity to grab students interest and spark curiosity in a good book.  

Another change or improvement in the library design and fuctionality is the addition of the iPad 1's to the library shelves.  Ms. Mellen, Shawn's clerk, was inspired to use the somewhat outdated and mostly useless iPads to serve as an onsite catalog resource on the shelves.  Now students searching for a book can turn to the iPad to look up authors or title names if they are having a hard time finding a resource on the shelves.  Its a great idea--easily implemented and very useful for students!  I've even used it myself many times!

Research

March 18, 2013

When I mentioned to Shawn that I really wanted to incorporate some more student interaction into my practicum experience she was immediately responsive and invited me to join her in meeting with the senior students as they did research on their inquiry projects.  This ongoing Senior Language Arts project is set to culminate with a term paper in just a few weeks.  While most of the seniors have much of their research and reading under their belts already, we were invited up to the classroom to do a check in with them on their resources for any part that they had yet to complete. 

When we arrived in Ms. Sokolo's classroom the students were getting some papers back and making a transition to working on their inquiry projects.  Ms. Sokolo did a great job of offering students a visual organizer for their progress on this journey.  Each student could clearly see what the expectations were and what was missing as they moved forward in their inquiry process.  Several students seemed to be missing one or two of the essays required.  Once I understood the parameters that the teacher wanted us to take into consideration (ie: an academic, popular or newspaper article on their topic), we went to assist students with finding these sources.

We used the EBSCO databases through the library website to access the articles.  Many of the topics seemed to fit well into the Psychology and Social Sciences databases.  So, we looked up topics.  As I did the searching, I talked through my process and asked the students questions.  What are you looking for?  What kind of information do you think you need to support your thesis?  What kind of perspective would be useful?  Together we came up with some search terms.  As we narrowed down the articles, I would point out the useful selection tools.  Our conversations went like this: "wow, 2,000 results, that seems high.  How can we narrow this down?  What if we look for just peer reviewed articles in journals.  Okay, great now its just 200.  Now what if we narrowed it to just the most recent results, like since 2010.  OKay, great!  10 results, that will make it much easier to sort."

The students were incredibly patient with me and they were very open to my suggestions.  I think we found some good things and I really enjoyed hearing about their inquiry projects.  Doing this kind of work will be so important for helping them to feel prepared for this kind of requirement when they reach college.  I hope they will remember how to do their own research--and most of all I hope they remember to go to the library and ask a librarian if they ever need help!

On My Own at the Library

Feb. 1st, 2013

Today both Shawn and Mellen were out of the library and I was on my own in the library!  Subbing at the library was great!  I had been thinking that I would like to develop more student interaction--but they already know to go straight to Ms. Mauser or Ms. Mellen when they have questions--so its been sometimes difficult to catch them to offer reader advisory or assist with any problems.  Today was my opportunity to see and be seen!  I tried to stay out in the circulation desk area during the busy morning before school and lunch times.  Students pretty much seemed to adhere to their regular in and out schedule, but I did notice it did seem quieter today. 

In the down times between student rushes--I was able to focus on a few administrative tasks.  Shawn had asked me to start a consideration list for her end of the school year book purchase.  She tends to purchase books throughout the year--but she is coming to the end of her allotted stipend from the Ann Richards foundation--so she is going to need to have a plan for the rest of that money this spring/summer.  Shawn told me her strategy for keeping track of consideration lists.  She tends to use two sources: 1. Permabound and 2. Follett.  Follett is particularly useful because they keep a list of the entire catalog on file and when you search for a title, it will tell you if you already own it.  Follett also offers an inventory analysis program which alerts you to the older titles in your collection and where you may want to spend time and funds rebuilding. 

My efforts today were to go through the School Library Journal and a few other library publications reading book reviews and establishing my list for consideration.  My default strategy was to include all of the recent award winners.  Also, knowing I had just weeded out the hard sciences, I searched for any recent publication that seemed like they might be topical or useful.  However, especially in this section, one may not want to invest too much money since they do tend to become obsolete much faster than other choices. 

 I had to note that most of the titles I searched on (especially award winners and other notable titles) were already in the Ann Richards inventory.  I have to say that Shawn has been an incredibly good steward of this library and she has curated a beautiful and very relevant collection for her student community.

Girl Start and Re-shelving

Feb. 26, 2013

Today the library was host to a team from Girl Start who came to instruct the students from sixth and seventh grade math classes on how to create video games.  There was a great deal of enthusiasm for this project among the students.  Though I was surprised by how few of the students actually admitted to playing video games in their spare time for fun.  As I was re-shelving books in the fiction section, I listened as the instructors walked the students through a plan for creating a video game--they had to think through all stages.  What would the game be able to do?  What would the moves be?  What would the consequences be for each of these moves and how would a player win/lose the game?  It was a great early introduction to both analytical concepts, planning and the fundamentals of basic computer programing.  At least from my perspective, it seemed to be a great success.  And once again, I was completely impressed with the maturity and respect that the students displayed for a new teacher and a special opportunity.  They are truly a special group of young women who are so fortunate to be in an environment that is nurturing them and teaching them so many important skills and character building traits.  I continue to be in awe of this community and the teachers, administrators and volunteers who support them!

Also, today the celebration horn blew to announce another student's college choice--one of the seniors had gotten into UT's Engineering program! 

www.girlstart.org

Reality Rules

Ann Richards School

Feb. 19^th 2013

8:30-5pm

Came in at 8:30 and experienced the chaos of early morning library time.  The girls club has open hours in the library before school starting at 7:30, but the rest of the school is also free to use the library during the time before the first bell rings at 9am and classes begin.  So, in that last 30 minutes, the library is a buzz of energy and activity.  

Mellen starts to round everyone up with a fifteen minute warning before the bell rings—and it takes just about that long for everyone to finish what they are doing, put their books in their backpacks and head for the door.  

Following that burst of energy we usually have a lull at the library until the first classes begin—but today was the all school assembly, so I trotted along behind Shawn to attend and see what the ASA was like.

On this day, several students were recognized for Art Awards and for running in the Austin marathon over the weekend!  I was totally amazed that the running club had sponsored the students in both the half marathon and the marathon and that nearly 20 of the students participated and finished!

They also announced that the 52 graduating Senior students had just cleared the $1 Million dollar mark in receiving scholarships for College in the fall!  What a huge accomplishment!  So exciting!! 

Most of my work in the library today was on the blogs—just tweaking them and showing them to Shawn for her feedback.  Things were going well.  I would take breaks every now and again to ask Shawn some questions.  

I asked her about School Librarian evaluations—since we had just had a class on this topic the day before and I was curious about how AISD operated.  Shawn told me that she and a group of librarians headed by Elizabeth Polk had just finished doing a complete overhaul on the evaluation process this fall.  They had worked to align the evaluation process more with the Power of Information book that we are reading.  There had been some difficulty with the previous evaluation process because it was not specifically suited to librarians—it was more of a support staff or counselor evaluation—and did not take into account many aspects of teacher/librarian work that was essential in the position.  Shawn said the new evaluation is still under review—but that she hoped it would be put into play soon because it would be very helpful for professional development.  

Toward the end of the day, I read a new professional text that came in: Reality Rules II: Guide to Teen Non-Fiction Reading Interests by Elizabeth Fraser.  I was really excited by this book which seemed to be well organized and offered a number of good and current titles in Non-Fiction.  Since I had just weeded out the 500’s and 600’s I was curious to see if there were any spots that we might need to fill at ARS.  So I checked the RR suggestions against the ARS catalogue to see what we might want to order in the future.  I was not surprised to find that Shawn had already done a pretty terrific job of including some of the most well known and well regarded titles.  The ARS library is already stocked with an excellent library of award winning books in all genres and subjects.  But I did find a number of suggestions that might be worth considering in the future and I established a list on the Follett site so that Shawn could go back and pull them as needed.  I am enjoying working in Follett—I can see how librarians come to rely on this source since it does a great job of keeping track not only of your existing catalogue, but of items you’ve already purchased as well as items you would like to purchase.  It’s a very helpful resource.