Budgetary concerns plague most libraries. Nearly two thirds of school libraries are funded inadequately and teacher librarians are often forced to decide between resources as to their value to the collection and the community (Softlink, 2017). With monies being so tightly constrained, resources, especially expensive digital resources need to prove their value to school in order to retain their subscriptions. Teacher librarians can use a variety of indicators to illustrate the value of their collection and output measures are frequently used to determine the value of a resource and service.
Matthews (2015) defines output measures as the “degree to which a library’s resources and services are being utilised… the more the resources and services are being used the better” (p.211). Borrowing rates, subscription rates, database statistics are all measurements of how often a resource and service is borrowed and or utilised. An under-used resource is not achieving its highest potential and thus other services should be prioritised instead of it. Whilst easily quantifiable, these statistics point out how frequently a resource and service is accessed. It does not highlight though if the information in the resource was used and converted into knowledge. It also does not highlight if the resource had a positive affect. A great example of resources that have low rates but high affect would be print magazines. At my school library we have a print subscription to a few magazines that we send to the teachers lounge, once they are no longer required in the library. These magazines, according to the data, are never loaned before they are moved on, but the positive affect they have in the staff lounge is immense. We rarely find those magazines in their entirety. Quite often there will be recipes and or idea pages snipped out of them. They then migrate to the art room where they end up as collage material for students. The output data would say that these magazines have little value to the school community but the truth is very different.
Matthews (2015) points out that outcome measures are more significant and should have a higher value as they indicate how the user’s life was changed as a result of the resource and or service. The value lies in that the focus is the user/customer and not the resource itself. Outcomes include attitudes, values, inspiration, knowledge, understanding as well as enjoyment and creativity. Some long term outcomes are difficult to measure and categorise as they often happen years after the student has graduated. An example of short term outcome measurement are assessments that evaluate a user’s knowledge and skills. Whereas a long term outcome measurement could be a person’s social status, lifestyle and income. Both examples show how the measurements are transient from learning to a social and economic change. In other words, outcomes are placed on a continuum and whilst harder to measure, have a greater value in their result.
Matthews, J., (2015) Assessing outcomes and value: it’s all a matter of perspective. Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol. 16 Issue: 3, pp.211-233, https://doi.org/10.1108/ PMM-10-2015-0034 Permanent link to this
Curriculum can be broadly defined as the academic content taught within the education system. In Australia, the National curriculum is three dimensional and covers eight content areas, three cross curriculum priorities and seven skills sectors (ACARA, n.d.). This national framework is broadly defined and whilst some states have set syllabi that clearly delineate what needs to be taught, others have more freedom in the manner in which the learning outcomes are addressed. As this method of delivery is diverse, curriculum implementation falls down to state governance and individual schools to develop and create a plan that clearly outlines the teaching and learning, whilst respecting the values and ethics of the school and its community.
The purpose of schooling is detailed within a curriculum and as a result its strength and veracity will directly affect student learning potential (VCAA, 2015, p.6). Meritorious curricula are cohesive and contain connected units of work that build upon a student learning. It is not an ad hoc system of disconnected and repetitious units, as that leads to student disengagement and teacher angst. A teacher librarian is a witness to all that occurs within a school and from this centralised position, are able to see the teaching and learning from a whole school approach.
The role of a TL can affect curriculum planning in a variety of ways but the four main ways are; facilitating multidisciplinary units of work; creating LibGuides for individual classes, year levels and or units of work; embedding information literacy within the curriculum and explicit instruction. Lastly, ensuring that the school collection supports the teaching and learning practices of the school. In the first place, a TL can facilitate conversations between departments to broach a collaborative unit of work. An example would be, negotiating RE, HASS and Science to address a Sustainability unit from a triple prong approach for a deeper and more holistic learning experience, rather than just superficially addressing aspects in three separate subjects. Real world scenarios are multidisciplinary and it is frustrating to pigeon hole learning into subject areas and be unable to fully experience the scope the unit. Secondly, a TL can use LibGuides as a method in which to curate and organise resources to specific classes, subjects and topic guides. By being involved in the planning stages, a TL can create these LibGuides in anticipation of the units and thus eliminate late and often disruptive requests for resourcing.
TL are information experts as well as teaching practitioners. Their mastery of information seeking behaviour allows them to embed information literacy skills within the curriculum with ease using their knowledge of pedagogy. With the current information overload, students need to be fluent in information literacy and TL can work with classroom teachers to explicitly teach these essential skills. Some schools and TL are working collaboratively to construct a ICT and CCT skill progression framework that will allow students to build upon their current knowledge in a logical manner. Other TL and schools seek methods in which to assess these skills in various formative formats along the inquiry pathway so as to provide useful feedback. The national curriculum is explicit upon the needs to integrate the general capabilities and a TL’s expertise is definitely a benefit in the planning stage. As practitioners, a TL is able to explicitly teach these skills in discrete lessons in a team teaching scenario and or in a consultant role. Finally, when a TL is involved with planning, they can ensure that the school collection is able to support the teaching and learning. Many school budgets are constrained and a TL present in the planning is aware of what the school has currently available and can suggest or recommend resources that are already part of the collection in order to buttress the curriculum judiciously. This is even more important in a digital age when subscriptions and licencing becomes an issue should multiple e-book titles be necessary to support a differentiated learning.
TLs have been emerging as co-creators and designers of inquiry learning within schools for a long time. The somewhat recent inclusion of guided inquiry into the national curriculum has increased the importance of well designed inquiry units for teaching and learning. In collaboration with classroom teachers, TL can assist with designing and resourcing these inquiry units across the school. As an essential phase of inquiry learning requires the student to immerse and explore their task. This immersion and exploration can involved a variety of digital and authentic experiences, which include incursions, excursions, VR and widespread information collation. A TL is often the one that assists with this access to information by providing a few resources as a scaffold or explicitly teaching information literacy skills. These skills are essential students then seek information to answer their question. Education NSW (2016) is explicit in their policy in that a TL is a member of the “teaching staff and as such is actively involved in collaborative teaching and learning, school curriculum planning and program development”. The policy also is clear that TL are required to assist with planning, implementing and evaluating the curriculum at a school. Therefore, NSW public schools are required to have their TL part of their planning and programming. In this token, principals should be allocating planning time to teachers so that they can fulfill the parameters of their position. Whether this mandate is applicable across the states and territories is unknown but the NSW policy definitely sets a valid precedent. It now only is up to principals to ensure that planning and curriculum days during professional development week is actually for planning and not filled up with unnecessary meetings and emails.
Schools that use a collaborative approach with planning have the expertise of an information teacher at the table. Like other speciality teachers within a school, a TL is an information teacher and that title encompassess a wide scope of knowledge and mastery of information seeking behaviour. It is this mastery and unconscious competence that allows the TL to see the unit of work beyond the content and place the skills on the learning continuum. Schools that promote collaborative curriculum planning harness this knowledge and use this collective strength to create units of work that extend the mind and build upon those important life long skills. The absence of a TL within curriculum development is detrimental to student learning. TLs are essential to curriculum planning for multiple reasons, especially their skill in information literacy and wide curriculum knowledge. Their skills in information seeking behaviour are essential in this digital age of misinformation and their unconscious competence in this field means that they are able to create units of work that are beyond the scope of most classroom teachers. Whilst these skills are important for all students, they are essential for students from lower socio-economic households where there is already a digital divide (DIIS, 2016).
Curriculum planning ideally should be a collaborative effort and include all teachers and their disciplines. The intentional exclusion of the TL seems foolhardy as there is ample evidence illustrating their positive effect on learning outcomes. But unless a TL is willing to advocate their place at the table then it is unlikely an invitation will be issued.
We live in an information rich society. Our world is quickly adapting from industrial to one based upon the creation and dissemination of information. This economic revolution needs a society that is fluent in information literacy. Unfortunately, the education sector is resembling Cinderella with their late arrival to the information literacy ball. Even though the national curriculum was designed with the goal of active and informed citizens, it has failed to meet the task at hand.
Lupton (2014) points out succinctly that there is no information literacy embedded within the Australian curriculum in her analysis. It does seem fairly obvious that inquiry skill strands are the place to look for the elements that then link back to IL. A teacher librarian is ideally the perfect person to identify these elements and create the links due to their knowledge of the curriculum and holistic view of the learning and teaching within a school. Unfortunately, we also know that there are many schools that there is no teacher librarian and thus there is no one to make these links in an effective manner. Consequently, teachers and students are often unable to have a planned learning sequence that builds upon prior knowledge. This inability to construct new knowledge upon prior knowledge, is a direct contradiction to the constructivist theory of guided inquiry.
As Lupton (2014) surmises, there is an inquiry focus within the national curriculum in three KLAs; science, history and geography. Each of these areas addresses inquiry skills with slightly different applications. These mannerisms illustrate the strength and weaknesses of the curriculum to address IL. Unfortunately, these subjects are not equally structured with respect to IL and thus, the embedding of these skills are inconsistent.
This variance between KLA’s has lead to science being the weakest of the three in regards to information literacy. Whilst the research process is vigorous, the data is just gathered with the role of interpretation insufficient. The inquiry skills aspect is aligned only to the experimental procedure and there is limited correlation between the strands. There is also a lack of consideration of the social, cultural, economic context of the investigation. This lack of social context means that the investigation is often difficult for students to apply newly gained information to real world applications which in turn defeats the ‘action’ part of the process.
History KLA has strong IL embedded into its curriculum. The nature of the strands mean that both the questioning and information seeking behaviour are important. The strong dependence on primary and secondary sources means that students are constantly utilising skills in information seeking and using. There is appropriate scaffolding within the curriculum that promotes independent learners. Geography, according to Lupton (2014) has the strongest in IL because; the questioning is stronger and varied, action is required in some form and lastly, it promotes personal and social growth and that the tasks are multidisciplinary. As questioning is the cornerstone of inquiry, the Geography KLA allows for different perspectives of the same question as well as it forces the student to consider the views of the audience. It is clearly the most sophisticated and comprehensive inquiry skills based subject within the curriculum.
The problem with the Australian curriculum is that IL is not embedded within and across the curriculum in all KLAs. Information literacy is cumulative. To have an IL education, sustainable development is required across all years and areas of study. It is should be part of the content, structure and sequence of learning; and definitely not the outcome of a single subject.
Bundling is a marketing concept where complementary goods and or services are collated and marketed at a sale price that seemingly appears to be lower than the collective price of the individual prices (businessdirectory.com). For libraries, bundling seems to proliferate among the educational sector as a system of obtaining a range of resources (either print or online) to booster up the collection of the library (som.yale.edu). For a regular fee, retailers or providers, provide a range of resources that would appeal to a majority for a ‘reduced’ cost. In theory, bundling can be cost effective as the prices are lower due to the group discount and there usually is a range of sources. In reality there are a host of possible problems that can affect the quality and breadth of a library collection.
As a high school library servicing students from years 7-12 we have access to databases to ensure our students are able tor research. Like many other colleges and universities around the world, we have subscribed to a ‘BIG DEAL’ journal package. Machovec (2014) surmises that the advent of the internet and movement of journals from print to digital has lead publishers to creating “packages either in subject collections or as complete sets”. To put it bluntly, its a ‘one size fits all’ that has a fixed fee and the lure that one can easily forecast into future budgets with its often temporary price-cap time period (Frazier 2001). Carson and Pope (2009) point out that licencing thus pricing is a major issue as should a library decide against a subscription or part of a subscription, it could lead to complete lack of access to both “previously subscribed or future content” (Carson & Pope, 2009). This can have ramifications as libraries will be unable to provide the much needed access that is required by Freedom of Information Act 1982 (OIAC, n.d.).
The other issue with online journal bundling is that often essential or important journals are aligned with weaker and irrelevant titles and the library is unable to disentangle and separate the wheat from the chaff. The follow on from this ‘equality’ among journals is that lower quality ones continue to thrive as their sales targets are being met. Additionally, the seemingly successful low quality journal continues to thrive and newer, more astute publications often struggle to compete with them as they are not affordable once the libraries pay out their fee for a Big Deal package. Market control much? Libraries and librarians are unable to supply their local community with materials that are relevant to them. (Machovec, 2014)
With print books ie from Lamont books or Australian standing orders, books are preselected by the retailer and then sent to the schools for their perusal. In our school, we have Standing orders and Lamont sends over books intermittently for our perusal. What we have noticed is that all the books sent over are rarely read by our student population. Granted that there would be a few books that appeal to the demographics at our school but the majority just move to the shelves and become attractive dust catchers for the rest of their life till Marie Kondo appears. We have also noticed that controversial books and challenging books are not always in the order and we often have to go and order them separately from booktopia.com.au or bookdepository.com to add balance. This why bundling of library resources does not always work as the only source of material for a collection.
As a school library, we are mandated by ALIA’s tenants that our collection suits our students and staff. Breeding (2019) points out that library staff “should be able to evaluate and acquire preferred products in each category and not be locked into a bundle”. We know what our students want and need, it feels that our collection should be based upon the ‘wants and needs’ of our community. It appears that bundling, whilst a cheaper option up front, may not be necessarily the best.
Frazier, K. (2001). The librarians’ dilemma: Contemplating the costs of the ‘big deal’. D-Lib magazine, 7(3), 1–9. doi: 10.1300/J123v48n01_06
Machove. G., (2014) Consortial and the future of the big deal journal packages. Journal of Library Administration. Oct2014, 54 (7), p629-636. DOI: 10.1080/01930826.2014.96403.
Owned resources belong to the library. Positives include that bar accidental mishap, the library will always have access to the resource. It can be borrowed multiple times, though often not by multiple users. The cost is usually upfront and no further money is required to maintain access to it. Unfortunately, the resources also becomes outdated from the moment of publication. Obviously for fiction and some aspects of non-fiction this is not too much of a dilemma but for cutting edge non fiction such as nanotechnology, science, engineering and law as well as journal articles, access to new information is important.
Content via online access has its benefits through universal access, multiformat capability and presence of new material. The challenges it presents though, can be quite critical for libraries. Tillack (2014) says that “libraries have transformed from owners to renters of increasingly larger and larger proportions of their collections”. The summary of this, is that the budget previously kept for the acquisition of resources is now allocated to their rental. But it is not a lifetime rental. Most licences do not confirm indefinite access to materials for indefinite periods of time and this means that access to these materials can be easily cut off or priced out of most library budgets. It is obvious to me that online access benefits the publisher and retailer more than the consumer.
The presence of online access to resources is a major budgetary concern to most libraries. By committing to the cost of online journals or eBooks via Wheelers, the library is not only proportioning money this year BUT every year. With budgets constantly under pressure from school boards and department authorities, is it wise to commit a large chunk of funds to a resource that you have not guarantee to?
Tillack, T., (2014) Pressures, opportunities and costs facing research library acquisitions budgets: an Australian perspective. The Australian Law Journal. 63 (3) p206-219 . DOI: 10.1080/00049670.2014.915498.
The lure of a bookstore is a siren call to many including myself. Shelves filled with stories and adventures beckoning you forward with teasing front covers and titles. Brightly coloured displays featuring best sellers line the walls to show the world what is popular and what is not. They beguile and tempt readers both adult and child.
Today bookstores are shrinking. Both in quantity of stores and in the quantity of products on the shelves. The advent of Amazon and its incestuous relationship with Google, Facebook and Apple have forever changed the way readers pick up a book. Gone are the days of browsing shelves to discover new authors and titles as Shatzkin (2016) points out. Instead the modern citizen tends to use social media ie Facebook, search engines ie Google and online merchandising as reference points. Compared to previous times where book reviewers, book store buyers and collection developers were the ones that promoted books to the public (Shatzkin, 2016).
The advent of ebooks and audio books (text to hear) have also had their impact on the bookstore. The vicious cycle of purchases online only leads to lower sales in bookstores and then the inevitable reduction of shelf space and then the buyer heads online to find their elusive title. With reduced shelf space Shatzkin (2013) points out that publishes lose out on the ability to market to their readers. The death noll is tolling for many publishing houses across the world as its more efficient for authors to self publish and market their own books than wade through publishing house red tape (Shatzkin 2013).
But what does this change mean? To put it bluntly, the evidence is pointing to a grim future for the humble book. Amazon currently has over half the sales of books whether they be online or physical as Esposito (2014) points out. This is only going to get larger with the steady increase in ebook sales. Such a monopoly on an industry is ominous. With their strength, one could predict Amazon placing pressure on publishers to print books that they deem ‘viable’. Smaller publishing houses will struggle to ‘muscle’ their way into this industry as the margins are ever shrinking (Shatzkin 2013). Combined with the aforementioned entangled relationship between Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple, the publishing market is being strangled slowly.
The undertone of this monopoly is evident. Since the profit margins from ebooks is significantly higher than print editions, Amazon can in actuality force the consumer from physical to electronic resources. This has wider implications on readers, both recreational and academic. This isn’t just “the death of a bookstore, but the slow succumbing death of the book itself” (College.Candy.com 2011)
The Shatzkin files paint a dismal picture for the local school library. The demise of publishing houses will only lead to a few print copies that are unsuitable for ebooks. Libraries, should they still exist, will now be hosting a larger ebook collection compared to print copies. This change in resources means that more effort must be made to equip students with digital literacy in order to engage with suitable material. Reading digitally or using audiobooks requires more from the reader to be vigilant from distractions and lacks the sensory satisfaction a book can give (Copyright Agency, 2017 and Schaub 2016).
Our school library has nearly 100 000 print texts on its shelves. Unfortunately, even though our library is well stocked, it is underused by our school community. Resources were acquired based upon the presumption that was what the students and teachers wanted. Instead the books, databases and audiobooks have languished on shelves and data servers, completely under-utilised. I have previously mentioned this phenomenon of Tsunkudo. So whilst I am not going to rehash the other post, I will focus this blog post on budget aspect of managing a collection. SMLS (n.d.) lists three roles a TL must consider when they are managing a budget for resourcing; a collaborator, a steward and a thinker. This blog post will elaborate further on these roles and how it relates to collection development.
When a teacher librarian is being a collaborator with resourcing, they start with the community they are resourcing for. Our school is currently suffering from Tsundoku so in an effort to change this we are collaborating with the staff and students to access and source resources that will ‘spark joy’. The first section we addressed was the Religious Education collection. As a Catholic high school in the MSC tradition, Religious Education is mandatory till year 10 and then most senior students continue to study the subject till year 12 in varied formats. Therefore it is an essential part of the collection. Unfortunately most of the current range of print books are outdated and unappealing for the student body. In an attempt to alleviate this lethargy for library services, we organised several brochures and sample book packs delivered to the school. One of our team members organised the RE departmental meeting to view these samples so that orders could be made. The HOD of RE and the Library managed to thrash out an agreement where the funds would be shared between both departments but the books would reside in the library to ensure equity of access. As our school is affiliated with the MSC order, we managed to secure some funding from them to access newer editions of Jules Chevalier biographies and other MSC materials. This additional funding was ample enough to cover the purchase of a two print biographies as well as one in an audiobook for our differentiated learners. Ideally, one print copy would stay as teacher resource for new staff that may need an understanding of the MSC ethos and the other would be in the general collection. This collaboration has allowed us to purchase a greater range of resources and fulfill the needs of our community.
A teacher librarian in a stewardship role is responsible for the management of the library (Cambridge dictionary, n.d.). As such, they are responsible in ensuring the value of the collection is maintained whilst responding to the needs of their community. In this role, a TL uses a variety of methods in which to select resources for the collection. They can range from book lists such as Magpies, teacher recommendations, popular best seller lists as well as SCIS, Scootle and other educational blogs. Acquisitions of resources are naturally dependent on the parameters of the selection policy. An astute TL will be able to identify resources using the policy and add them to the collection.
Lastly, the teacher librarian needs to adopt the role of a thinker in managing the collection. Some schools allow for dialogue between the principal and TL about the budget allocation for the year. Other principals just delegate funds and leave its dispensation to the discretion of the TL. Either way, the TL has to manage the collection in whatever funds are available. A clever TL is aware of the curriculum and is aware of the teaching practices across the school. This knowledge of curriculum and student learning, when combined with an ability to engage with multiple staff members, maximises the scope of funds available. In our school, the Dance teacher and the Food Technology teacher were both doing units of work on multicultural practices in Year 8. So my HOD organised sample book packs to be delivered for both teachers to peruse. The result was that both teachers have combined their funds to obtain a series of books about nations and their cultural practices. This combination of departmental monies has enabled us to address the needs of two departments, increased value to our collection, and all without us having to spend our budget allocation. My HOD was rather pleased with herself at this point.
I enjoy setting up displays that showcase what is happening in our school community. As you can see, it’s the season of Easter and the most important religious event in the Christian year.
I’d like to wish everyone a happy and peaceful Easter weekend.
Schools are generally thought to be institutions of learning. From the days of Aristotle, young people were sent to learn about the mysteries of life from their revered elders. Today’s schools are very different from their ancient counterparts but the essential core is the same. Schools are learning organisations with their primary purpose to educate the new generations and prepare them for their future. Kools & Stoll (2016) identify seven dimensions that characterise a school as an organisation of learning. These include; a shared vision; staff learning opportunities; promotion of collaboration among staff; establishing a culture of inquiry and innovation; information collection and knowledge exchange; partnerships with community and modelling positive leadership (Kools & Stoll, 2016, p11). All these dimensions serve to build a positive teaching and learning environment for both students and staff.
Humans are social in nature and learning is a social construct. When individuals learn in a social context, the knowledge is constructed as a group has more significant learning outcomes than when knowledge is constructed individually. Most educators agree that the efficacy of learning is improved in collaborative groups, but they rarely extend that principle to themselves collaborating with their peers. Kools & Stoll (2016) even go as far as to argue that the practice of teaching is larger than an isolated teacher in their classroom. They surmise that collaborative practice encourages a professional growth experience in which teachers learn and teach simultaneously with each other. It is in the sharing of expertise and knowledge that has the greatest potential.
Unfortunately true collaboration is often missing in a school dynamic. Team activity is commonly confused as collaboration (Kools & Stoll, 2016, p40). Ezard (2019) points out that co-existence and coordination are often mistaken for collaboration as well. Rather, it is in the co-creation and collective capacity that is the basis of true collaborative practice. For a partnership to be symbiotic, there must be a willingness to think and act together. Ezard (2019) highlights three main requirements of a collaborative relationship including, a growth mindset, a compelling environment and authentic dialogue. Lack o these will only inhibit teaching and learning practices.
The reality is that many classroom teachers are reluctant to work in partnership with their teacher librarians and or any other staff members outside their department for a variety of reasons. One reason is that teachers are often pigeon holed into subject silos or year level cohorts. Their level of expertise is viewed at only applicable to that year level and subject. The other major reason is fear. Fear of failing, fear of judgement and shame. Many teachers reject a culture of observation as they fear they will be deemed as falling short of an ideal practitioner. This is especially true in a world where many teachers are on contracts and wish to still have employment in the next teaching cycle. There is a true sense of fear that any mistakes or miss-steps could result in unemployment. So these teachers often hide themselves away in their isolated silos and inadvertently distance themselves away from collegian relationships as a protective mechanism. This distance, and lack of connection further exacerbates the inability to collaborate. After all, collaboration without connection is just compliance (Ezard, 2019).
Time is another most common reason why staff do not collaborate. It seems futile to ask staff to work together constructively but not actually give them release time to do so. This is especially true for primary schools where teachers rarely get any time off during the day to co-create units of work. Another aspect that executive can assist with collaborative practice is to create a safety net for staff thus allowing them to try new pedagogical practices. Teachers who have job security are more likely to be willing to take risks and try new teaching and learning programs as they do not fear unemployment. Heads of department and senior teachers can encourage the try a variety of teaching styles and thus enable, enourage and motivate them into trying new ventures. Staff that know that they will have a safety net if they fail are more likely to attempt big and wonderful things.
Teacher librarians can affect a collaborative change in other ways. Firstly they can use their position in the centre of the school and as a curriculum leader to create multidisciplinary units of with in collusion with their peers. Due to their access and knowledge of resourcing, TL are able to obtain resources that require teachers to co-create their units of work. TL are also able to create productive learning environments, by promoting learning in an environment that embraces opportunities. They can also be curious rather than defensive when assumptions are challenged. TL can co create a vision that appeals the the whole school, by modelling best practice. Due to the nature of the position, TL can set an example of classroom observation and encourage staff to face their fears of judgement and shame. Ezrard (2019) suggests changing the dynamics of shame and failing to compassion and learning. Afterall, it has been proven that regular classroom observation only seeks to improve the increased professional learning of the teacher.
Whilst teacher librarians can affect some level of change, the biggest influence of collaborative practice within schools is in leadership. Executive teachers can influence teaching and learning practices a great deal as they are the ones that control a great deal of the factors that affect staff, for example, collaboration time for teachers. Teachers get to meet each other and have a dynamic productive relationship.
Ezard, T., (2019) Leading the Buzz in your school. ASLA 50th Conference. Canberra
Kools, M. and Stoll L. (2016), “What Makes a School a Learning Organisation?”, OECD Education Working Papers. No. 137, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlwm62b3bvh-en
Standardised testing has been present in Australia for almost two centuries. From parochial schools and their itinerant school inspectors; external examination boards and modern day NAPLAN; testing was designed to determine the quality of teaching and learning (Munro, 2017). This trend has lead to schools and teachers being held accountable for what students learn and achieve within the classroom, often to the detriment of learning. Often this scenario is described as high stakes, as test scores often correlate to level of status for student, teacher and school. Unfortunately, this accountability has inadvertently forced many teachers and schools to ‘teach to the test’ to bolster up their average scores. Teaching to the test as Popham (2001) points out is when teachers use learning activities that mimic the test conditions in that the cognitive demand is unchanged between the learning activity and the test.
A curriculum based on content is easier to teach and to test. Facts and figures are straightforward to assess compared to creativity and critical thinking which require understanding of nuances and emotional intelligence. This is especially true for automated tests in which answers are displayed in a multiple choice format. But are standardised test truly identifying if learning is actually occurring?
Education is changing and it is inevitable in this information age that fundamental basis of teaching and learning practices is to prepare students for the future. This preparation should include the opportunity to generate ideas, build creativity and encourage critical thinking as a process in order to create either a product or an idea (Markham, 2013). Markham (2013) even goes further to suggest that skills based assessments will eventually overtake content as markers of achievement.
Skills that are easily acquired, explained, evaluated and estimated are known as hard skills. These skills can be quantified and scaled against other people’s results. As this competence can be taught in stages, it can also be assessed with ease. Soft skills though are harder to teach as it requires more than just rote learning (Doyle, 2019). It requires a student to actively engage with the information and using their own cognition, construct this new information into their knowledge bank in order to create something from it. In this process of learning, students assemble their own learning content and develop a mastery of skills. Constructivist pedagogy is based upon the theory that people build or construct their own understanding of their world based upon what they already know and experience and what they discover in their learning (McLeod, 2018). Constructivism is the foundation of inquiry learning.
Inquiry learning as defined by LEQ (n.d.) is a constructivist approach in which the goal of learning is that students construct their own meaning from the task. As the learning is student centred, it requires the teacher to set the parameters and guide the students through the process as their motivation is intrinsic. The Melbourne Declaration of 2008 clearly describes the goals of education as enabling young Australians be successful in their learning, confident and creative in their endeavours and active and informed citizens (MCEETYA, 2008). Therefore, this form of learning has been included into the Australian national curriculum but only recently aligned with subject areas (Lupton, 2014). Whilst the research shows the widespread benefits to inquiry learning in schools there are a several barriers into implementing this process across the country.
The main issue with the implementation of inquiry learning is that it requires the teacher to hand over control of the learning to the student. The power of a content based curriculum lies within a teacher, and it’s entrenched traditions of ‘chalk & talk’ and ability to control learning outcomes within a prescribed time frame. It requires the teacher to understand that each student will maximise their learning if it is their individual third space and that collaboration is essential. Another facet of this disinclination in implementing inquiry learning is that teachers can be confused as to what aspects of the content needs to be taught explicitly and what strands need to be discovered. This is a fine art as Markham (2013) points out. In some circumstances, content is best taught explicitly before and or during an inquiry project. In other times, it can be taught at at the end of a unit as a ‘mop up lesson’ to address any learning outcomes that were accidentally missed. In some cases the skills need to also be taught such as the ability to question prior to commencing a task. This shift of educational thinking is more psychological rather than logistical.
Inquiry learning requires teachers to work along with their colleagues and para-professionals. Once again, it is a psychological shift in thinking that forces a teacher to realise that they are not the only font of all information but rather it is the collaboration of minds that build the best teaching and learning experiences for students. Classroom teachers who practice inquiry learning in its entirety need to be open to collaborating with their teacher librarian and other teachers. They need to create a safe learning space for their students to engage with other members of staff and not feel like its a personal rebuke. This can be difficult for many practitioners who through their teaching years have isolated themselves within their departmental and or classroom silos.
Inquiry learning requires redefining success within teaching and learning as measures of success cannot be simplified to a percentage or a score, but rather a demonstrated ability on a rubric (Markham, 2013). A performance rubric that identifies a students level of expertise in an individual strand. As the current standardised testing is aimed at an individual’s ability to address content, it needs to evolve to identify student’s cognitive ability along a continuum of growth and not restricted to age levels like the current system of NAPLAN.
Learning through the Library 