Goal1_Reflection

While the Common Core is an unwieldy beast, I tried to be proactive. My personal learning plan was to work on learning more about the Common Core and how it would apply to me in the library and in my work with classroom teachers. I was in a study group with Carey Fox and Katie Michols to explore this. Katie and Carey are actively implementing the standards in their practice, and it was helpful for me to learn, study, and talk with them. It also helped me to see the direction that we (as a school) need to move in order to help prepare our students for the shift and new assessments.

In the early part of the year, I spent a lot of time and energy on the issue of text complexity. I wanted to help broaden the conversation away from judging materials solely on the quantitative lexile score and look at materials more holistically. I shared articles and my opinion about this issue frequently. I was happy to help develop a [|rubric] with which to evaluate potential classroom novels and materials that had the three pronged approach of the Common Core - quantitative measures, qualitative measures, and considerations of reader and task. While this document is still in draft form, as teachers are exploring novels for next year we have begun to use it as part of our discussions.

Toward the end of the year, we have started talking more about how to transform what we are asking students to do in order to build their critical thinking and ability to synthesize and create from a variety of sources. I was part of a seventh grade work day where we began to have these conversations. I'm really excited to continue to collaborate with Carey Fox as she works to build resource rich, multimedia experiences for her students into unit studies and then ask students to draw from all the sources they've encounter to use evidence from various texts as they make meaning and construct their knowledge.

This year in the Learning Center Director articulations we have worked to build a curriculum map and align our teaching with ISAIL (Illinois Standards Aligned Instruction for Libraries), which is in turned aligned to CCSS as well as national library and technology standards. I helped work on the ISAIL alignment with the state library organization.

In terms of the library collection, I continue to try to find high quality nonfiction materials to add to the collection and have subscribed to database services in addition to utilizing the Cook resources in order to put lots of shorter nonfiction pieces at our students' fingertips.

I see areas in which I can continue to work this summer. The Next Generation Science Standards have recently been released. I need to dig into that set of standards to identify ways that the library program and I can help science teachers as they grapple with the implementation of the new standards.