IL and an enviable example

On the train to the SCONUL meeting on Tuesday I finally got a chance to write up a couple of the sessions from the ANZIIL conference held at teh Southbank Institute Brisbane (photo shows mosaic floor at Southbank). First of all, one about school libraries, but one with interesting lessons outside of school (so to speak). Helen Reynolds gave a very interesting description of what she has achieved as Senior Librarian at the Southport School, a boys school in Queensland. She freely admitted that she had a “generous budget” which many would envy, and she has staff who cover some of the more traditional aspects of school librarianship. All the same it’s good to see what can be done in a school where there has been a real drive for information literacy.
She uses the Information Literacy Planning Overview developed by two Queensland teachers and now sold via the Curriculum Corporation, Queensland, as mentioned in an earlier post. It is based round the Six Steps of the Information Process: Define; Locate; Select; Organise; Present; Assess. There is a good deal of supporting material (e.g. worksheets to use with students) which she found very useful.

Helen is a teacher librarian and she works with teachers and classes. In response to a question after her talk she gave a nice example of how she would progress skills in “Defining” an information problem through three years. A key approach for this aspect is getting pupils to identify “focus questions” (the how/what/why etc. of the task or topic) and concept maps. At the first level, she would provide the focus questions as a starting point for the work. At the next level, she would facilitate a brainstorming session in which the pupils identify the focus questions. At the third level, she would tell pupils to identify focus questions and produce a concept map for themselves - but this is still something that could be done in class, as an explicit part of addressing the assignment or task.

Helen has worked assertively in her school, and she has influenced the curriculum to an extent that many academic librarians would envy: though still she felt that information literacy had permeated some subject more than others. She showed us the template for teachers who are writing assignment task sheets, which they have to use for assignments with younger pupils. “Proof of the research process” is one of the elements that students should be required to include with their assignments.

Helen described the variety of ways in which she makes sure that information literacy is on the agenda: posters in classrooms, IL worksheets easily accessible for staff to take in the staff room, a newsletter and website, getting hold of student teachers straight away, holding lunchtime sessions for older boys (“people learn better when they’re well fed”), doing evening classes in IL for parents so they can help their children. As Helen said “I market all the time.”
The theme of the ANZIIL symposium was “transitions”, and although Helen didn’t spend so much time on this aspect, what she had to say was still telling. She had praise for the University of Queensland’s Cyberschool initiative (where they negotiate access to academic databases for schools and have a schools portal). She encourages students to become familiar with the websites of the universities they are aiming to go to, so that the students are in familiar virtual territory when they arrive. She also has feedback that the good IL education that her school provides is appreciated by the universities and by the boys themselves, who feel they have a head start in tackling academic work.

The Southport School website is at http://tss.qld.au/library/library.asp also recommended http://www.edna.edu.au/ as having “fabulous websites for kids.”
Another of her references which I’ll pick out is:
Lonsdale, M. (2003) Impact of school libraries on student achievement: a review of the research. Canberra: ACER. http://www.asla.org.au/research/