Friday, October 26, 2012

Library Teaching Ideas from Network Meeting

Here are some great suggestions which came from the brains of our 50+ librarians that met in October at WSWHE BOCES!  These library content teaching suggestions are great for someone looking to align their instructional areas with Common Core goals: 
 
POINT OF VIEW
Elementary
Class discussion Post Read Aloud
Fractured Fairytales – True Story Three Little Pigs vs. Original Tale
Debate
Use novels that are told by two voices (i.e. Jake and Lily by Spinelli)
Mock Trials
Voices in the Park (Browne)

Journal from different “Points of View”
Diary of a Spider (series) – first person view
Secondary
Points of View + Role Play (situational)
Witness – Karen Hesse- Great book for Point of View
Position papers
Historical Fiction (journal) and primary source
                 compare point of view
HS Databases – Utilize SIRS when instructing Point of View + locating articles that would validate either side of a social issue
Mock Trials
Keesha’s House
Salem Witch Trial – accused or accuser
Rewrite Cinderella from other characters’ point of view
Show clips of heated debate provide bio info, have students figure out who belongs to which bio
Edmodo – character role-play
(Template on Google Docs for Facebook)
Source Evaluation
CARS -   Credibility
Accuracy Authority
Reasonableness/Relevance
Sponsorship – supported
BOGUS SITES
BACKUP (value as good or bad site)
B – bias
A – author          
C – credibility/current
K – Knowledge (adding to it)
U – Understand
P – Page navigation
BrainPOP intro video
Evaluate
       Purpose
       Audience intended?
       Currency?
Cybersmart resources
Example – Hoax websites:
Oct 31 not available – part of commonsensemedia.org
Learning parts of website – URL – sponsor, etc.
  
INFERENCE
Elementary
Work backwards from conclusion
Use text that appeals to age group
Use graphic organizer
Combine background knowledge with context clues to formulate            new knowledge
Student-generated questions to guide research
Use picture books (wordless)
Colloquial expressions:  “If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand
                times…” What does that mean?
 Secondary
Combine background knowledge with context clues to formulate new knowledge
Colloquialisms – and idioms
 You drive me to drink
 Nothing to write home about
 Newspaper headlines
 Butterflies in my stomach
Concrete example:  A friend throws away pizza after one bite – will you buy the pizza for lunch?  Why or why not?
Predicting
Cause/Effect
Clear lesson objective
MAIN IDEA
Elementary
Use Ham’s by Burdich VanAllsburg
Use picture books
 Wordless picture book
 Who is the dude?
Use painting/illustration
 What is the main idea?
Read short story – students write new title
Secondary
Give them a full note card to write about what they read – then give
            ½ a note card and write – give an even smaller card and have
            them boil it down again or limit number of words
Oxford Art Encyclopedia Online for paintings – use classical
            paintings as a visual prompt
Have students read a text and summarize main idea in a faux tweet (140 characters)
  Narrowing your search
Elementary
Demonstrate an actual search
            Natural vs. Boolean
            Show advanced options
Demonstrate with objects – have them sort
Demonstrate with students if they had (ex) hat and jeans
Order cards (1-fruit, 2-apple, 3-Granny Smith)
Start with an index as example
Online shopping – clothing, jeans, color
 Secondary
Keywords
  •  Order makes a difference
  •  Choosing proper keywords
  •  Using Boolean
  •  Using timeline
Use pyramid search – Brainstorm
  •  Europe – WW II
  •  France
  •  1942
Related
  •  Narrower
  •  Main Idea
  •  Broader
 
Use database and model broader and narrower terms – compare results
 Finding Evidence and Facts
Elementary
I know _________________________________
because ________________________________
Credible facts to support project
            Mascot choice – elementary
            8th grade – holocaust – Who was most evil?  Hitler or SS?
Role-playing based on research ex: Salem Witch Trials
Debates (Presidential) using fact checkers
Ask – How do you know that?
Expect verbally what you expect in writing “According to…”
Secondary
Locate resources to answer essential questions
Look at each resource
 Pull evidence – as direct quote from text
 Summarize – quote
 Write interpretation as to how it relates or answers essential questions
  

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Librarian Network Meeting 2012

This post is to review all the great ideas, tools, and teaching tips that we shared today.   We had almost 50 librarians in attendance, but realize that many cannot get release time from their buildings.  Therefore, please take the time to visit these links below and ask you district representatives to bring you up to speed on other news:
Click here to see photos - Thanks to Diane Cordell, photographer who joined us!

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  • We Introduced some new eBooks purchased for all districts.  See Sharon Hinkle, if you would like to know more.  These include: Marshall Cavendish, ROSEN's Spotlight on NY (3 titles), and Overdrive titles.  
  • Link to the NYSED approved APPR rubric  now available on the state ed website:  click here   After two years of writing, tweaking, asking people to pilot this, and more, I am happy to say this was approved.  Just when I had about given up hope, I received a call from state ed.   I remember last summer trying to meet an original deadline for submission.  We were on vacation at a remote cabin in the Adirondacks--without Internet service or cell service.  My husband was "fishing," keeping his foot on the trolling motor to stay within wireless connection of another home...while I poached connectivity long enough to press "send."   I look back and laugh at the event.  Little did I know that was the beginning of a year long process.   This is good news as it puts us on the NYSED map as having a tool for "teacher" evaluation.   
  • We spent some time at this meeting discussing the Empire State Fluency Continuum, and how to use the tools in our binders for effective instruction on library related skills such as: Main idea, research, web evaluation, point of view, opinion, forming a hypothesis and more.  See the approved bullets we have built SLO assessments for on our SLS website   Not only did we discuss the binder, but discussed innovative ways to deliver these learning objectives at different grade levels. 
  • We discussed the Vocabulary shift in the CCSS and the support a librarian can offer.   Vocabulary is integral to comprehension (see my upcoming  blog post  for a spotlight on vocabulary & the CC).  Therefore, we can help students read and understand novels, news, non-fiction and more by embracing ways to get students tuned-in to vocabulary.      We are offering discount pricing on a new web tool for Vocabulary called VISUALTHESAURUS.COM    We currently have a free trial.  Please disseminate this to your staff.  (It has to be disseminated in an email.  If you copy and paste it into a browser, it won't work.)  Try this link and set up an educator account.   Be certain to scroll down the homepage on their site and check out the VOCABULARYGRABBER  tool also.  Both are great examples of tools to engage students in understanding and comprehension.    
  
  • Another topic of discussion was SYNTHESIS.   How do we get students to comprehend and synthesize.   Ask you colleagues about the activities we participated in to embrace and understand the links between close reading, info-mining, and synthesis.   Our new Synthesis Booklets were handed out and we practiced being 'overwhelmed' by new knowledge, difficult material, and mental indigestion -- to replicate the experience of our students.  Participants were shown techniques to help students find their way to understanding.  
  • Hoping there would be time, I had a presentation planned for an introduction to Digital Footprints.  Time did not allow us to cover this, so we will be hosting a webinar on this topic shortly.  
  • Polly's eTools for the Common Core were spotlighted, digested and discussed.  Check out the wiki she prepared for our PD at this link.     We had a Backchannel going for discussion, hastag #slscooltools, and our hashtag for the morning was #wswhesls   -- Check out the hashtag archives via Tweetdeck, if you'd like to see the participatory comments.     
 Piktochart.com is a great alternative to Powerpoint for summarizing and encouraging higherlevel thought.  See my article in August's School Library Journal to understand the role of INFOGRAPHICS  in the Common Core.  


If you missed the day, you missed connections and new ideas for instruction.  We missed you, but realize that there are many valid reasons people could not make it.   This year with SLO's, assessment, district PD conflicts, and other new district policies not allowing teachers to leave the building, there were many smiling faces missing.  However, we still had over half our group!  So, for that we are happy!   We hope to post some photos and video clips of our suggestions for rolling-out Common Core standards in the library.  Stay-tuned!