Operation Collaboration. The Things We Keep

by Suzanne Akemi Sannwald, Anthony Devine and Stephanie Macceca, May 2021

Working in school libraries, it's common to be charged with evolving and innovating to stay relevant. With COVID-19, though, it was all of education (and beyond) that was forced to make immediate changes, and not just of the baby step variety. While there is a widespread wish to return to "normal," we challenge everyone to consider how this shouldn't be the goal. We have been changed, and there are changes we hope to keep as we move forward.

Promoting and Facilitating Use of Digital Resources

Our digital resources were an important part of our toolkit before the pandemic, but when we started distance learning they became the main show. Instead of relying on early adopters and techy educators to use what we had to offer, demand for our educational technology expertise skyrocketed. Valuable resources such as the Sora reading app, Zoom video conferencing, and a crowdsourced tech tutorial database are going to continue to be important parts of how we serve our students and teachers.

Focus on Equity

The pandemic has exacerbated equity issues, pushing all stakeholders to address the achievement gap. Our district has encouraged us to adopt equitable teaching and grading practices. We've focused more than ever on making sure our resources are accessible to all students, providing translations, creating screencast videos that may be rewatched, and more. We've got a long way to go, but we are excited to keep the momentum going.

Offering Options for Best Fit

One size does not fit all, and as we promote learning tools and design learning experiences, we must continue to offer many options to learners, including larger, systemic possibilities that include a mix of in-person, remote, and hybrid learning; new bell schedules; quarter systems; etc. Maintaining the availability of options should be celebrated by librarians who see it as part of their mission to help all learners on their individual paths of inquiry and learning.

Shared Ownership of Technology Integration

During the pandemic, troubleshooting was not as easy as sending a student to the library for help. Teachers, students, and even parents took on more responsibility. Our teachers met the challenge of planning, assigning, and giving feedback through tools such as Schoology and Google Classroom. Using technology, and keeping it running to best serve our community, is more of a team effort than it was before.

Shared Ownership of Social Emotional Learning

COVID-19 has made it abundantly clear that when students' social and emotional needs are not met, they cannot learn effectively. All of our administrators, teachers, and staff agree that SEL is vital to success. Our schools have set up stronger intervention programs, provided more community resources, and have created on-campus and virtual services to better support students. We hope that staff will continue to work together to provide more support for their students. We certainly plan to do so!

Removing Barriers of Time and Space

With technology infrastructure now in place and everyone adept at video conferencing, we can continue to overcome previous space-time limitations. For collaborating, we simply need to find a slice of time when we have the ability to log in at the same time. It is also no longer a requirement to "stop by the library" during "open" hours to get help since we can video conference with that student or parent juggling time commitments.

District-Wide Collaboration and Events

We found ourselves collaborating with not only other teacher librarians but also classroom teachers, students, and administrators across the district. Our site affiliations mattered much less than the goal of our common endeavors. This led us to hosting our first ever district-wide summer reading program and other new programs.

Humans often resist change and yet we are at the same time amazingly adaptable. Just as quickly as we shifted our entire way of being with COVID-19, we will tend to return to previous practices once we are allowed to do so. But, we hope that we will not simply revert back exactly to where we were. There is no reversing time so reversing our practices should also be out of the question. As we close out any school year, it is a good time for reflection, and that is especially true for 2020-21. What will you keep?