Building Bridges to Information Literacy: Exploring Teacher-Librarian Collaboration in Math and Science

Type of Presentation

Individual paper/presentation (20 minute presentation)

Target Audience

Higher Education

Location

Room 1220A

Proposal

How can we support collaboration between high school STEM teachers and school and public librarians? Research has demonstrated that the presence of a librarian in school has a positive impact on student achievement and that librarians have much to offer teachers in terms of helping them to equip students with multiple literacies and to integrate technology into class assignments. However, librarians face several barriers to collaboration with teachers and the attitudes teachers and principals have towards librarian teacher partnerships are an important independent variable in determining the potential success or failure of school librarian efforts to collaborate with teachers.

This project focuses on how high school STEM teachers and both school and public librarians can collaborate most effectively to help students develop 21st Century Skills in order to prepare them to be “full participants” in their communities and our society, to prepare them for college-readiness, and to be significant contributors to the workforce, particularly in the area of STEM-related jobs. Focus groups were conducted at four national conferences—American Library Association Midwinter (January), focusing on school librarians; Public Library Association (March); National Science Teachers Association (April); and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (April)—for the purposes of gathering baseline data about perceptions of and experiences with teacher/librarian collaboration for the promotion of 21st Century Skills. Using a grounded theory approach, data gathered in the focus groups is being analyzed for common themes as well as divergent themes and perspectives.

This presentation will report the results of this research and will discuss implications for practice and future research.

Short Description

This paper reports the results of four focus groups held with high school math and science teachers and school and public librarians to explore how teachers and librarians can collaborate most effectively to help students develop 21st Century Skills in order to prepare them to be significant contributors them to be “full participants” in their communities and our society, to prepare them for college-readiness to the workforce, particularly in the area of STEM-related jobs. The findings raise questions about our ways to better support these collaborations.

Keywords

collaboration, teacher, librarian, STEM, 21st Century Skills, science, mathematics, high school

Publication Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

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Oct 10th, 8:30 AM Oct 10th, 9:45 AM

Building Bridges to Information Literacy: Exploring Teacher-Librarian Collaboration in Math and Science

Room 1220A

How can we support collaboration between high school STEM teachers and school and public librarians? Research has demonstrated that the presence of a librarian in school has a positive impact on student achievement and that librarians have much to offer teachers in terms of helping them to equip students with multiple literacies and to integrate technology into class assignments. However, librarians face several barriers to collaboration with teachers and the attitudes teachers and principals have towards librarian teacher partnerships are an important independent variable in determining the potential success or failure of school librarian efforts to collaborate with teachers.

This project focuses on how high school STEM teachers and both school and public librarians can collaborate most effectively to help students develop 21st Century Skills in order to prepare them to be “full participants” in their communities and our society, to prepare them for college-readiness, and to be significant contributors to the workforce, particularly in the area of STEM-related jobs. Focus groups were conducted at four national conferences—American Library Association Midwinter (January), focusing on school librarians; Public Library Association (March); National Science Teachers Association (April); and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (April)—for the purposes of gathering baseline data about perceptions of and experiences with teacher/librarian collaboration for the promotion of 21st Century Skills. Using a grounded theory approach, data gathered in the focus groups is being analyzed for common themes as well as divergent themes and perspectives.

This presentation will report the results of this research and will discuss implications for practice and future research.