Week 10: Focus on Staff Development

How can school librarians help their fellow educators become better educators? There are a lot of interesting ideas for just this in the readings. One idea is that of a "lesson study," where teachers dedicate an entire day to essentially studying their lesson plans. Once the lesson is developed, it is taught, observed, analyzed and revised. To aid in this process, librarians are there to assist teachers in designing meaningful lesson plans that incorporate inquiry-based methods.


Thinking more about the readings, I liked the idea of librarians as being catalysts for professional development within their schools, as was evidenced in the Bilyeu article. Generally, it seems like a good idea to involve multiple individuals in discussions about how to improve the learning process. Everyone will have different ideas for what makes a good lesson vs. a bad lesson, and hopefully the most useful and impactful ideas will emerge as a result. Different educators within a school will have different strengths and weaknesses, and it's important to engage with multiple perspectives to determine best practices.


Finally, professional development has exciting implications for student learning as well. The more engaged and up-to-date librarians and teachers are with technology and educational standards, the more opportunities for learning there are. In teaching professional development goals to others, educators may also become better instructors and become more proficient with using technology to teach, which may serve them well in the classroom with their students. All in all, I think the collaborative approach to staff development as outlined in the readings offers some good ideas for getting teachers and librarians excited about improving their lesson plans and coming up with creative ideas for working with students.