Instructional Strategies: Creative Teaching for Motivated Learners
PD Kit
School librarians are teachers and instructional partners, leaders and collaborators. Although it can be a challenge to parse a school librarian's administrative duties from the instructional, here, the focus is the teaching role. Whether "teaching" takes the form of modeling, explaining, guiding, facilitating, coaching, or something else, indeed, the teaching responsibility is prominent in the National School Library Standards for School Librarians. So then, what are opportunities for school librarians to strengthen their teaching, revamp a comfortable approach, or maybe work toward more inventive or intentional instruction in a new area? Let's consider some creative possibilities: What are some effective ways to engage students and draw out their strengths? How might school librarians build problem solving through game-play or makerspace challenges? What are some ready-to-use tips for teaching students to evaluate and use information resources? And how can assessment be motivating to learners?
To help school librarians explore the potential that lies within these questions, this workshop highlights a curated selection of strategies for teaching inquiry, facilitating students' critical thinking and creativity, and assessing student learning. From the innovative to tried-and-true, we've cultivated expert guidance for teaching in ways that motivate, inspire, and connect with your students. Workshop materials include selected segments of video instruction, webinars, and articles from the School Library Connection website.
Workshop Components:
- Part I: Motivate and Focus, guided prework to be completed by participants in advance of the first synchronous session, approximately 60–90 minutes
- Part II: Critical and Creative Thinking with Information Resources, an interactive synchronous session of about 90 minutes
- Part III: Assessment Refresh, a self-study segment comprising about 2–3 hours over the course of a month or more
- Part IV: Problem Solving Challenges, a second synchronous session of about 90 minutes
- Part V: Keep It Going, ideas for continuing professional development on strategies for teaching and learning
Each school district or system has its own priorities, needs, and circumstances, so we hope you'll consider these resources as pliable, remixable activities and ideas, ready for you to use and adapt. Exercises described as "synchronous" can be implemented with the facilitator and participants together in an on-site location, via virtual spaces through video conference, breakout rooms, and collaborative digital tools, or with some tweaking, even in a blended format. All materials are linked or provided in this kit.
Workshop Goals:
The goal of this workshop is to introduce and refresh strategies for engaging learners, analyzing information resources, conducting helpful and targeted assessments, and teaching problem solving.
Objectives for each session accompany the instructions for each segment.
Part I
- Describe cognitive, behavioral, and emotional reasons that students might show disengagement in a library lesson and identify potential ways to find out if students might be experiencing these types of responses to learning.
- Suggest "instructional nudges" to support students' engagement in learning.
- Describe examples of instructional strategies offering connections that are authentic, relevant, or personally motivating for learners.
Part II
- Practice discussion protocol for hearing new perspectives.
- Practice techniques for analyzing audio-visual primary sources.
- Discuss examples of authentic audiences for student learning processes and products.
- Analyze lessons incorporating authentic experiences, processes, and products.
Part III
- Describe what assessment looks like and aims to do (or provide) for student learning in the school library.
- Reflect on previously implemented assessment strategies and consider ways to improve in timeliness, reflective qualities, and authentic nature of the assessment methods.
- Discuss strategies for formative and summative assessment of student learning, including the application of the REACTS Taxonomy.
Part IV
- Identify and discuss skills and dispositions common to both gaming environments and academic expectations.
- Give examples of design challenges and makerspaces with challenge-based learning activities.
- Create a design challenge.
Alignment with AASL National School Library Standards
School Librarian Frameworks
School Librarian I. A. School librarians teach learners to display curiosity and initiative when seeking information by: 1. Encouraging learners to formulate questions about a personal interest or a curricular topic.
School Librarian I. B. School librarians promote new knowledge generation by: 3. Facilitating the development of products that illustrate learning.
School Librarian I. C. School librarians guide learners to maintain focus throughout the inquiry process by: 1. Assisting in assessing the inquiry-based research process.
School Librarian I. D. School librarians implement and model an inquiry-based process by: 2. Constructing tasks focused on learners' individual areas of interest. 3. Enabling learners to seek knowledge, create new knowledge, and make real-world connections for lifelong learning.
School Librarian II. A. School librarians direct learners to contribute a balanced perspective when participating in a learning community by: 2. Guiding learners as they adopt a discerning stance toward points of view and opinions expressed in information resources and learning products.
School Librarian II. B. School librarians establish opportunities for learners to adjust their awareness of the global learning community by: 1. Providing opportunities for learners to interact with others who reflect a range of perspectives. 2. Devising learning activities that require learners to evaluate a variety of perspectives. 3. Designing opportunities that help learners to illustrate diverse viewpoints.
School Librarian II. C. School librarians facilitate experiences in which learners exhibit empathy and tolerance for diverse ideas by: 1. Giving learners opportunities to engage in informed conversation and active debate. 2. Guiding learners to contribute to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.
School Librarian III. A. School librarians facilitate collaborative opportunities by: 3. Organizing learner groups for decision making and problem solving.
School Librarian III. C. School librarians promote working productively with others to solve problems by: 2. Advocating and modeling respect for diverse perspectives to guide the inquiry process.
School Librarian III. D. School librarians foster active participation in learning situations by: 1. Stimulating learners to actively contribute to group discussions. 2. Creating a learning environment in which learners understand that learning is a social responsibility.
School Librarian IV. D. School librarians show learners how to select and organize information for a variety of audiences by: 2. Formulating tasks that help learners to integrate and depict in a conceptual knowledge network learners' understanding gained from resources.
School Librarian V. A. School librarians foster learners' personal curiosity by: 2. Challenging learners to reflect and question assumptions and possible misconceptions.
School Librarian V. B. School librarians stimulate learners to construct new knowledge by: 1. Teaching problem solving through cycles of design, implementation, and reflection. 2. Providing opportunities for tinkering and making. 3. Modeling persistence through self-directed tinkering and making.
End of School Librarian Frameworks. Begin School Library Frameworks.
School Library I. B. The school library enables generation of new knowledge by: 1. Providing experiences with and access to resources, information, ideas, and technology for all learners in the school community.
School Library I. C. The school library provides learners opportunities to maintain focus throughout the inquiry process by 3. Engaging with measurable learner outcomes and with data sources to improve resources, instruction, and services.
School Library I. D. The school library ensures an inquiry-based process for learners by: 1. Establishing and supporting a learning environment that builds critical-thinking and inquiry dispositions for all learners.
School Library II. A. The school library supports balanced perspectives through resources and learning opportunities by: 1. Providing challenging and authentic opportunities that address the needs of the broad range of learners. 2. Offering diverse learning experiences that allow for individual differences in learners.
School Library III. A. The school library facilitates opportunities to integrate collaborative and shared learning by: 2. Leading inquiry-based learning opportunities that enhance the information, media, visual, and technical literacies of all members of the school community.
School Library IV. A. The school library provides problem-based learning experiences and environments by: 1. Using resources and technology to foster inquiry and scaffold mastery of skills necessary for learning to progress. 3. Focusing on the effective use of a wide range of resources to foster information skills appropriate to content areas.
School Library IV. B. The school library promotes selection of appropriate resources and tools for information use by: 2. Providing opportunities for all members of the school community to develop information and technology skills needed to promote the transfer of information-related problem-solving strategies across all disciplines.
School Library V. A. The school library supports learners' personal curiosity by: 1. Providing resources and strategies for inquiry-based processes. 2. Fostering opportunities for learners to demonstrate personal curiosity and creation of knowledge through engaging with a wide variety of resources and technology.
School Library V. B. The school library facilitates construction of new knowledge by: 3. Establishing and maintaining a learning environment conducive to independent and collaborative exploration and problem solving.
School Library V. D. The school library assists in the growth and development of learners by: 2. Anticipating learners' needs and adapting the learning environment in accordance with evidence-based best practices. 3. Embracing new skills, knowledge, and standards in the profession as they relate to teaching, learning, technology, and innovation.
School Library VI. D. The school library supports individual responsibility for information use by: 1. Providing an environment in which the school librarian can effectively develop, direct, and promote resources, services, policies, procedures, and programming aligned with current standards, ethical codes, and principles of the education and information professions.
Alignment with ISTE Standards for Educators
1. Learner. Educators: 1.a. Set professional learning goals to explore and apply pedagogical approaches made possible by technology and reflect on their effectiveness.
2. Leader. Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning.
3 Citizen. Educators inspire students to positively contribute to and responsibly participate in the digital world. Educators: 3.b. Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.
4. Collaborator. Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems. Educators: 4.a. Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.
5. Designer. Educators design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability. Educators: 5.a. Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs. 5.b. Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning. 5.c. Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning.
6. Facilitator. Educators facilitate learning with technology to support student achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students. Educators: 6.a. Foster a culture where students take ownership of their learning goals and outcomes in both independent and group settings. 6.b. Manage the use of technology and student learning strategies in digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces or in the field. 6.d. Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections.
7 Analyst. Educators understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals. Educators: 7.b. Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provide timely feedback to students and inform instruction. 7.c. Use assessment data to guide progress and communicate with students, parents and education stakeholders to build student self-direction.
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Instructional Strategies: Creative Teaching for Motivated Learners." School Library Connection, January 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Turnkey/2268966?topicCenterId=2247904.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Turnkey/2268966?topicCenterId=2247904
Entry ID: 2268966