This was my final week at my primary site. The task was to deliver an Information Literacy unit to twenty fifth grade students. I delivered instruction over 2 days. Students took a pre assessment quiz and received direct instruction on day one. I used the smart board in the media center to deliver content. The students were very engaged in the lesson and asked great questions. On day two I reviewed the concepts and vocabulary from day one. Next the students divided into groups for interactive instruction. During this time students manipulated the tools found in the pathfinder, to create five electronic note cards on their topic. The note cards will be used in preparation for their socratic seminar. Finally students were given a post assessment test. The results showed a marked improvement from the pre assessment.
I returned to my primary elementary site this week. My task was to prepare for the Candidate as instructional partner task. In preparation for that task, I met with the media specialist, and the classroom teacher to discuss the unit that I would collaborate on. The gifted teacher requested some additional training for her fifth graders on topic narrowing, note taking, and citations. These topics would be needed as students prepared for a socratic seminar discussing extra terrestrials. Other time was spent assisting the media specialist with circulation, and shelving duties.
Upon completion of my second week in my assigned high school media center, I must say that my opinion of high school media centers has changed drastically. I did not think that students would be very engaged with the media program, but that was not the case at LHS. I found the environment to be very nurturing for the students and it offered a great deal of opportunities for students and faculty to engage in 21st century learning scenarios. The task that I focused on during this week was to identify and write a grant proposal for the media center. I met with the media specialist to determine what her needs were for the media center. For this particular media center the specialist identified the need to create a more student friendly creative commons for students to read, do research, and collaborate on projects. I spent time researching many grants offered to libraries and found the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education Grant would fit their criteria. Once I started the application I needed to meet with the media specialist again and drill down into more specifics to fulfill the grant application requirements. With the help and supervision of the media specials I was able to deliver a well-crafted grant application for funds from Lowe’s Toolbox for Education.
This was an awesome first week at my assigned high school. I was very impressed, and surprised with this program. I must admit that I assumed that the high school media center would be a very inactive place. I found that assumption to be incorrect based on the media program at my assigned high school. In this school the media center is a very active/productive classroom. This activity is a direct result of the program developed by the high school media center. Students are involved as media aides, iPad support technicians, as well as in the Helen Ruffin reading bowl team. The media center is the location of the school store, and one of the schools computer labs which keeps a steady flow of class visits. This week I was able to participate in many aspects of the program. I was able to complete Task2 of Candidate as Program Administrator. During the process of evaluating the media center, I was able to interview the media specialist and learn about many of the policies and procedures that govern the facility. I was also able to complete Checklist Item 2 and attended a meeting at the county office with the high school media specialist, the technology team that supports the media centers and an Apple representative. The focus of this meeting was to discuss the issues that have developed since the county moved to a 1 to 1 iPad distribution for all high school students. The meeting was very informative and helped me to understand the added technical support and training responsibilities of the high school media specialist. Week 5 Reflection
This week I worked at my assigned middle school. I started the week by meeting with the middle school LMS. We discussed task1 the flipped classroom model. The LMS identified the Language Arts department as the group that would most benefit from the flipped classroom model. Upon meeting with the LA teachers we have identified the following modules to produced flipped content for, evaluating websites, note taking and creating note cards, and an introduction to Galileo. All of the flipped content is located on an easy to access wiki. I also assisted in circulation activities which included shelving, check-ins and check-outs. This was a great opportunity to learn about procedures in this middle school media center. Each media specialist creates their own internal processes for collection organization and circulation, being able to observe these processes is very valuable. My first week at my assigned middle school site was very rewarding. Along with working on the assigned practicum task, I was also able to contribute to the daily circulation tasks by helping with shelving, shelf reading and processing check outs. This week I focused my attention on completing task 2, checklist item 1 and Cheklist item 2 of Candidate as Information Specialist. For task 2, I used a wonderful infogram website called Piktochart.com to create an infogram poster about plagiarism. The LMS will post the infogram in the media center as well as the halls of the school. For checklist items 1 and 2 I was able to inventory a portion of the country section of non-fiction and then weed 52 books from that section. I also fully processed 5 books by cataloging them and adding them to the collection.
Another action packed week in the elementary media center! This week I was able to design and deliver staff training on Weebly. Full details and lesson plans can be found under the Candidate as leader entry on this website. For the Weebly training all teachers rotated through the media center during their planning period. I was able to train a group of kindergarten teachers and a group of 5th grade teachers. Each group had very different levels of technical knowledge, so the training had to be adjusted to meet the needs of each group.
I was able to show more advanced features.to the 5th grade teachers because of their technical knoledge. Other practicum hours were spent assisting with circulation, and planning the professional learning unit. Week 2 Reflection
This week I was able to attend a county wide SLM Specialist meeting. The focus was primarily on the new library management software that the county installed. It was great to see how the media specialists were able to share ideas and information about the software with each other. They were also able to agree on protocol for use of the software, because they were all sharing a central database housing the collection. During this week, I also assisted in the book circulation process including re-shelving, check in, and check out of materials. There were several questions concerning the task Candidate as Instructional partner that had to be answered this week. I was able to obtain answers to those questions from both the county that I am working in, and my professor. Once those questions were answered, the SLM specialist and I met, and identified an area of need based on a teacher request for additional information literacy training for some of her fifth grade students. We will meet with the teacher to assess the learners and discuss the deliverables for this lesson. I had a great first week at my primary school! It was very productive. I met with the supervising SLM specialist and we discussed the tasks that I would accomplish in that school’s media center. I quickly got to work on planning a reading enrichment/enjoyment unit for a class. I choose the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. The SLM spoke to a 2nd grade teacher who was happy to allow me to deliver this unit to her class. This was also the week the SLM specialist was conducting orientations for all of the classes in the Elementary school. I was able to observe many of those orientations and noted the differences in the detail and delivery of information for each grade level. I was also impressed with the interactive aspects of the orientations, which kept the students engaged. During this week, I was also invited to observe an orientation in my assigned middle school, and gained quite a bit of insight on the information that middle school students need verses elementary school students. I also completed the checklist item of creating a display that addressed a school wide theme. More details about the Task and Check List items are included in the blog and on the website. Overall it was a great start to my practicum experience.
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AuthorJanet Leahr Archives
November 2013
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