I am a relatively new researcher, and I tend to base my research interests on topics with a personal connection to me and my experiences. Two of my three boys and both of my older brothers have color vision deficiencies (aka – colorblindness). They are not alone. In fact, 8-10% of the male population has some form of color vision deficiency (CVD). Statistically speaking, there could be at least one child in every classroom who does not differentiate between colors like someone with normal color vision. To add to the confusion, it is not common for children with CVD to know they see things differently and CVD is not considered a disability for which students would receive accommodations.

Why is this important to school librarians?

Think about how color is used in your library. Color might provide information.

• Do you use a color-coding system to label the reading levels or genres of your books?  If so, you are using color as a symbol for the reading level, providing information for the library user through the color alone. However, if a number of your students cannot differentiate between the colors, they are missing the information. The simple solution is to provide the information in an additional way, such as writing the reading level number on the label.
• Do you organize things in your library based on color? As an elementary school librarian, I dismissed students to check out books by colors they were wearing – “If you are wearing green, you may check out books.” I wonder how many students did not know they were wearing green?
• Do you use color-coded maps in your library instruction? Students with CVD may not be able to determine the color codes on the maps. Add another indicator, such as a pattern, to the map sections. Suddenly, the color does not limit these students from joining in the activity.

Color might be used aesthetically.

• Do you use color in your library to make the environment more attractive and welcoming? Great! For most of the library users, the color matters and helps to create the environment you intend. Aesthetic use of color does not provide information, and therefore does not serve as a stumbling block for those with CVD.
• Be sure you use high contrast on your signage. For example, choose a light background with dark letters (or vice-versa). Avoid color combinations that are difficult to differentiate, such as red/green, blue/purple, brown/orange. Here is a great blog post about the use of color in advertising that gives you a good idea of colors that might be difficult or confusing: http://www.sitepoint.com/10-troublesome-colors-to-avoid-in-your-advertising/
• Allow students to choose colors that look good to them. Does it matter what color the student uses to draw or highlight? If the color does matter, provide markers or crayons that are clearly labeled with the color name. My boys refused to use any crayons that did not say “blue” or “red.” They wanted to be sure they were using the right color. Creative color names on some crayons were lost on my children.

If children are not aware they have CVD, how are educators to prepare?

• Design your library space and library instruction to be accessible to all learners. Anticipate that there will be some students with CVD or other vision issues and create a your space and instruction to be usable by all. Universal Design for Learning is a way to prepare for all learners: http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl
• Talk to the school nurse, the classroom teacher, and special educators to find out about the needs of students. Go to them if you suspect a child might be having difficulties and keep the lines of communication open.

To read more about my research related to what elementary school librarians know and believe about color vision deficiencies: http://works.bepress.com/karla_collins/subject_areas.html

For more information about color vision deficiencies, check out some of these websites:

http://www.colourblindawareness.org/ – A foundation in the UK dedicated to raising awareness of color vision deficiencies. The video clip above is from this website.

http://nosuchthingascolor.com/ – A short interview with an adult with color vision deficiencies. This is a brilliantly done look into what it is like to see colors differently.

http://colorvisiontesting.com/color4.htm – Helpful tips for teachers, parents, and school nurses.

http://www.neitzvision.com/content/home.html – Done by leading researchers into color vision. “The Basics” link has two presentations with great visual examples.

Do you have any experiences with color vision deficiencies? Share them in the comments section.

Earlier this week, I introduced a couple of fun picture books that I found at the ALA conference in San Francisco. Today I will highlight a few more children’s books that have a direct curriculum connection.

First, some science: Like many people, I have fond memories of laying in the grass on a warm summer day watching the clouds turn into recognizable shapes. Cloud Country, by Bonny Becker, brings us back to those summer days. Gale is a young cloud who loves to gaze down from the sky and watch humans. It turns out (spoiler alert!) this is a rare trait in clouds – not many of them have the imagination needed to watch humans and make shapes humans can identify. Gale is indeed special! This fun picture book with illustrations by Noah Klocek, a Pixar animator, if full of meteorological words. This would be a fun addition to a primary grade weather unit. The perfect companion book would be It Looked Like Spilt Milk, by Charles Shaw. An oldie but goodie!

Now let’s look at a couple history titles. I freely admit that I should have paid better attention in history class as a student, but these two books introduced me to history that I had never thought about. They look at moments in history from lenses that are not often used in history books and provide something new for students to consider.

Let’s go to New Orleans in Freedom in Congo Square, by Carole Boston Weatherford with lively illustrations by R. Gregory Christie. In 18^th century New Orleans, Sundays were holy and even slaves were given Sunday afternoons off of work. Slaves and free people of African descent would gather in Congo Square to share stories, traditions, music, and dance. In Congo Square, they could temporarily put aside their struggles and celebrate their culture. “Congo Square kept African music and dance alive in New Orleans, never really dying out.” (Branley). A foreword by historian Freddi Williams Evans provides additional information about Congo Square. This is a great addition to the study of African American history and culture or the roots of jazz music.

How many times have we read about and taught lessons related to World War 2 and the Holocaust? There are so many great books that describe this horrendous time in world history. However, I do not remember reading a book about a child in East Berlin as the Berlin Wall was being built. A Night Divided, by Jennifer Nielson is that book. 12-year old Gerta lives with her family in East Berlin. She knows tensions are high, but she is shocked to wake up one morning to a new fence on the border between East and West Berlin. She is even more saddened when the fence is replaced by a wall, and her father and brother are one the other side. As I read this book, I found myself wanting to know more about this time in world history. I remember the wall coming down in 1989, but I had never given thought to when it went up and the lives of the people living behind the wall at that time.

I would have done so much better in high school history if it had been told through these and the many other amazing children’s books that are out there now!

The books:

Becker, Bonny. Cloud Country. New York: Disney Pr, 2015. Print.

Nielsen, Jennifer A. A Night Divided. New York: Scholastic, 2015. Print.

Weatherford, Carole Boston. Freedom in Congo Square. New York: Little Bee, 2016. Print.

Sources of additional information:

“Berlin Wall.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 16 July 2015. <http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall>.

Branley, Edward. “NOLA History: Congo Square and the Roots of New Orleans Music – GoNOLA.com.” GoNOLAcom. New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, 02 July 2012. Web. 16 July 2015. <http://gonola.com/2012/07/02/nola-history-congo-square-and-the-roots-of-new-orleans-music.html>.

So far this month, Judi talked about co-planning and Lucy addressed co-teaching.

An important, but often left out, step in a collaborative relationship is co-assessment. The teacher and librarian have planned together and taught together, so it seems natural that the team should also assess together. However, time and other commitments often are allowed to get in the way of this step and the assessment is often left to just one of the educators.

In Lucy’s post earlier this week, one of the descriptions of co-teaching was “Both professionals coordinate and deliver substantive instruction and have active roles.” The same is true for co-assessing. One model for co-assessing might look like this:

• The teacher assesses the content, the librarian assesses the library skills, and together they assess the product.

Assessment is not something that is just done at the end of the lesson or unit. Best practice is to continually assess for learning so you know the students are learning the intended information and making progress toward the lesson objectives.

A recent blog post by Angela Stockman describes “10 things you don’t know about formative assessment.”

http://www.brilliant-insane.com/2015/06/10-things-you-dont-know-about-formative-assessment.html

Stockman’s first tip is “Formative assessment is a verb, not a noun.” It is something we do in order to learn about the student; it is not a thing. Assessment is active and continuous. Good assessments inform good teaching. Assessments are directly related to the learning objectives. After you spend the time planning and teaching, you need to know that your students have learned. You need to know that your collaborative teaching experience had a positive impact on the students. Once you have collected data related to student learning, you can use this to show the importance of your effective school library program. You can also use this data to encourage other teachers to join in a collaborative relationship.

One of the best parts of co-assessing is that the librarian has the opportunity to see the project through to the end. So many times a class comes in for the research part of a project but the librarian does not see the final product. When you are co-planning, be sure to set aside time so you can be there for the presentations at the end. This goes a long way in building trust and relationships. It shows the students (and the teachers) that you care and that their hard work matters to you.

How do you assess learning in a collaborative lesson? Do you divide the assessment responsibilities or do you work side-by-side to assess together? What is your favorite formative assessment strategy in the library?

Stockman, A. (2015, June 15). 10 things you don’t know about formative assessment. [Blog]. Retrieved from http://www.brilliant-insane.com/2015/06/10-things-you-dont-know-about-formative-assessment.html

Photo courtesy of PNASH via Flicker.

Hello everyone! I have just returned from an amazing Georgia Library Media Association Summer Institute, an event that showcased incredible school library media specialists (this is the title of the profession here in Georgia) and the co-teaching and collaboration they are engaged in while serving Georgia students. It is an exciting and challenging time for our profession!

When we discuss collaboration with classroom teachers, we often think about co-planning, but not as much about co-teaching or co-assessing. The first time I truly understood co-teaching in the school library context, was after reading an excellent book chapter written by Dr. Stephanie Jones, my colleague here at Georgia Southern, and two school library media specialists from the Cobb County School District. It was called: “Special Collaboration: Establishing Successful Partnerships Between School Librarians and Special Educators.” In this chapter, I found a detailed explanation of co-teaching. Over time, I ran across other great resources, many of which referred to co-teaching by general education and special education teachers. I encourage you to review these resources because they are easily applied to the field of school librarianship. Here are two I highly recommend:

1. The National Educator Association 6 Steps to Successful Co-Teaching

2. Bucks County Intermediate Unit #22 Training on Co-Teaching

The second resource has a handout on page 7 that clearly explains what co-teaching IS and what co-teaching IS NOT. Several of these statements jump out at me. See if they describe any of the co-teaching you have observed or engaged in:

Co Teaching IS…

“Both professionals coordinate and deliver substantive instruction and have active roles.”

Co Teaching IS NOT…

“A general educator plans and delivers all of the lessons while the special educator circulates.”

Co Teaching IS…

“co-teachers instructing in the same physical [or virtual] space.”

Co Teaching IS NOT…

“teaching teams that plan together then group and instruct students in separate classrooms.”

Interesting isn’t it? Both of the resources linked above also discuss the different models of co-teaching. I encourage you to explore these models and consider if any of these co-teaching approaches would support student achievement and mastery in your next collaborative project. The most important characteristic of co-teaching is that it pulls the skills, knowledge and background of two educators and applies these in much more powerful, instructional ways. As we have said before, together – we are stronger!

During the month of May, the BACC posts have revolved around the Texas Library Association’s webinar with the co-bloggers which took place on May 19. Over 60 participants from around the country attended the webinar . In addition to Texas, there were participants from Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, Virginia, and more; at least one person joined us from Germany! It was exciting to see so many people all coming together to share ideas and discuss collaboration in the school library.

Judi Moreillon kicked things off by asking, “Is your school collaborative?” In an informal chat poll, the response was almost evenly split. We still have work to do. Why is collaboration important? Judi said it perfectly, “Working together, we can achieve more than we can individually.”

The discussion continued and soon the chats were filling up with ideas of what collaboration looks like in your school library. These ideas showed the changing image of school libraries:

What would a new person see when they come into your library?

• Welcoming greeting
• Talking
• Buzz and flurry
• Co-teaching
• Students working in groups
• Teaching on online tools

 Where is student input reflected?

• Music
• Student art
• Smiling faces
• Comfy chairs
• Hours of operation
• New coffee shop
• Group study rooms
• Student display boards
• Student book trailers
• Casual corner
• Lunch/socialization
• Student work on website and in library
• Reading buddies
• QR codes
• Book spine poetry
• Chatterpix Kids on website
• Science research and poster sessions
• Stop motion animation
• Students submit designs for website banner

This is not the library of yester-year!

Next, we were encouraged to think outside of just the traditional classroom teacher/librarian collaboration. Who else could be a collaborative partner? Again, participants shared great ideas:

• Art
• Curriculum coaches
• Sped
• PE
• Music
• PTA
• Coaches
• Bilingual teachers
• Theater
• Preschool teachers
• Student teachers

The consensus was that collaboration is about cultivating relationships. A great place to start is with new teachers. Rebecca Morris recently published an article about this in the June/July issue of Knowledge Quest, “You’re Hired! Welcoming New Teachers to the School Library.”

So, how do you earn their trust?

• Become a curriculum expert – you are first and foremost a teacher
  • Melissa encouraged us to, “Teach more, librarian less.”
• Ask to go to curriculum training sessions, even for areas outside a typical library focus
• Train teachers after you attend conferences
• Offer to do “little things” to make friends and build relationships
• Service at the point of need. We are in the business of “servant leadership”
• Use online tools to organize content, such as Symbaloo or LibGuides
• Above all, stay focused on the student

One participant said, “Teacher do not always realize the depth of which we can help them. They think we are only there for the students.” One of the AASL dispositions for school librarians is “perseverance.” This may be the time to practice this disposition! Don’t give up – let them see the great things the librarian can do for the teachers with the ultimate goal of positively impacting students.

A final take-away for collaboration with teachers: What is your elevator speech for collaboration?

Ask the teachers: How can I help you? How can we together make an impact in increased student learning?

Judy Kaplan next reminded us of the importance of collaborating with the administrators. After all, the librarian often has the same “big picture view” as the administrator.

Find your entry point:

• Find a daily chance to interact
• Build a relationship
• See the big picture – think from an administrator point of view
• Active listening, empathy, humor”Massage the message”
• Return on investment – scarcity of resources, time, and money
• Mission and vision drives the activities – get involved on committees – be at the table
• Show what you are doing in the library – important at budget time!
• Find your allies

The take-away for collaboration with administrators: What is your library’s brand? Tie it to the mission and vision of the school.

Finally, some of Lucy Santos Green’s thoughts were shared. How can we collaborate with the greater community?

• Parents who own businesses can be great partners
• Public librarians visit to share summer programming
  

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We were reminded that the community includes more than just the students and the teachers. What are you doing to collaborate with all of the stakeholders in your school community? Start by identifying them. Then think about the take-aways from this month and particularly from the webinar. As another school year draws to a close, I challenge you to consider these questions

•  What is your elevator speech for collaboration?
• What is your library’s brand?

Spend time this summer developing and practicing these, then share with the community of school librarians on this blog and in your local area. You might be surprised at the results.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5041738157 Original image created by Libby Levi for opensource.com. Used under Creative Commons licenses, Attribution and Share Alike

In one of my first posts for BACC, I blogged on Resource Sharing for Manpower. In this post I discussed how important it is to involve your parents and community members in the school library program, enriching your school library program, expanding the expertise and resources you offer teachers when collaborating, and maximizing your impact on student learning.

For the Building a Culture of Collaboration Webinar, I will be discussing the different options and groups to consider when developing these types of connections. Judi posted this earlier but I am adding the webinar information again in case you missed it:

Webinar Information:
May 19, 2-3pm Central Time: Building a Culture of Collaboration (Collaboration Series) – FREE

Register at https://join.onstreammedia.com/register/80146595/register_for_culture

All Webinars will be recorded. A link to the recording will be sent to all registrants (i.e. you may want to register even if you know you cannot attend the live event). All Webinars will carry Continuing Education credit.

For my portion of the webinar I will be talking about networking, identifying parent connections, the potential of social organizations, knowing your neighborhood, business partnerships, and religious institutions. Hope to see you there!

Lucy