Big Takeaways from #AASL17

I have returned from three days communing with my library peeps and tweeps at the AASL conference in Phoenix carrying a (way too pricey) book of the new AASL standards, a little schwag, some signed picture books, a couple of Google docs of notes, lots of links to presentations, and a timeline of tweets highlighting the sessions I attended.

On Saturday I had an opportunity for a lengthy conversation with my friend and colleague Michelle Luhtala about news literacy. If you are an attendee of Michelle's edWeb webinars then you know this is an important topic to us both that we frequently discuss on and off the air! This private conversation was a warm-up to our presentation, delivered along with our other friends and colleagues Joyce Valenza and Shannon Miller, about helping students develop the research skills that are critical in the digital information age. You can access our slides and join our padlet community to continue the conversation and research curation around this topic.

We arrived in Phoenix on Thursday with a presentation outline ready to be delivered on Saturday. In the interim, we spent some intense time both in and out of conference sessions examining the newly released and much anticipated standards. This release necessitated a revisiting of our presentation which we were pleased to discover aligned with the shared foundations. Given our focus on research, we emphasized "Inquiry" and "Curate," and, as happens with most standards, found that the others (Include, Collaborate, Explore and Engage) were infused throughout our conversation because of the natural interweaving through the domains (Think, Create, Share, Grow). I took this coincidence as validation of both the development of solid inquiry models in our respective districts and thoughtfully developed standards that reflect the needs of learners and educators striving to be critical thinkers in the digital information age.

The Inquiry Model that informs my instruction has five phases. Each phase is a step in the process from topic selection to final product, and each step is infused with opportunities for students to collaborate and reflect.

Step 1: Wonder - Topic Identification & Question Formulation

What do I...

• wonder about? (curiosity)
• wish I could change? (problem solve)
• wish I understood better? (critical thinking)

How can I...

• generate possible questions?
• provide innovative solutions to authentic problems?
• pose a clear, well-developed research question?

Question Generation Protocols

• Question Stems
• Question Formulation Technique (QFT) - good visuals for Q-Focus from Retronaut
• Solving a public problem (Social Studies C3)
• Asking Questions and Defining Problems (NGSS)

Collaboration

• Have I solicited feedback from other people about the scope of my questions?
• Have I discussed or brainstormed about my topic or the problem I am trying to solve with other people studying a similar or related topic?

Reflection and Metacognition

• Regarding Time Management
• Have I planned backwards from the due date to give myself progress check points along the way?
• How do I schedule my homework?
• How can I fit regular work sessions into my plan?
• Would work days in class be helpful to me or are they not productive time?
• How can I capitalize on meeting, conferencing, and collaboration in order to get the input or inspiration that will help me?

Step 2: Curate: Locate All Relevant Media

Where will I:

• gather background information and begin my investigation?
• locate information from multiple and differentiated quality sources?

How can I:

• “tweak” my search terms as needed?
• find a range of sources in various types of media to be sure I am including a wide range of perspectives?

Finding What You Need

Accumulate Good Search Terms

• Start with Wikipedia
• Imagine your dream source: what words would be in it?
• Already found a good source? What new keywords does it contain for you?
• What are synonyms for the keywords you already have?

School and Local Resources

• Destiny
• Our Databases
• ResearchITCT
• Interlibrary Loan
• Wilton Library Association

Make Google Do Your Heavy Lifting

• Site searching
• Search by Filetype
• Go back in time
• Use Advanced search for truncation, wildcard, and Boolean operators
• Google Scholar
• Google Books

Extending Your Search

• Move past reference sources into scholarly and primary using Advanced search functions
• Mine the citations from a good source you have already found
• Search by author; who is an authority on your subject? Who is the author of good sources you have already consulted?
• Stop searching… can you interview an expert?
• HASHTAGS! What advocacy organizations, interest groups, think tanks or other agencies address your topic? What hashtags are associated with the topic? Start trolling social media!

Collaboration

• If I am trying to solve a problem through my research, have I identified and interviewed stakeholders who represent a range of perspectives on or experiences with the problem I am addressing?
• Have I asked someone to challenge my conclusions and help me expose how my own biases might interfere with my research?

Reflection and Metacognition

• About Reading & Note Making Strategies:
• How is the content reading going?
• Have I learned anything (content or process) from my secondary source reading and primary document examinations?
• How have my presuppositions been challenged?
• Am I allowing my preconceptions to be challenged?
• Are my views changing?
• When I read HOW did I read?
• Do I print out the documents or read them on line?
• What did I do to prepare to read them? how did I know what to look for or focus on?
• If I printed them out, did I have paper to make notes one while and after I read?
• If I read them on line, did I copy them into a file where I could annotate such as Google Docs?
• If I highlight is it just to keep my eyes focused on the page? How do I know what to highlight?
• What do I write down? what questions do I ask? what do I write about when I finish reading?
• If the document is long, do I read it in sections? What do I do at the end of each section?

Step 3: Explore the Information Superhighway: Evaluating Sources

How can I:

• assess the authority, accuracy, relevance and purpose of my sources?
• organize my notes and know that my consideration of perspectives is thorough?
• include multiple and informed perspectives?

The Information Superhighway

• School Library Journal: A News Literacy Toolkit for a “Post-truth” World
• NPR: Fake or Real?  How to Self-check the News and Get the Facts
• EasyBib’s Web evaluation tool
• CRAAP Test
• ESCAPE from Newseum

Thinking Like a Fact-Checker

• First Draft News
• Snopes
• TruthOrFiction
• Urban Legends (About.com)
• Hoax-Slayer
• 7 vital browser plugins for news-gathering and verification

Reverse Image Searching

• 13 online tools that help to verify the authenticity of a photo (StopFake.org)
• How to verify images like a pro with Google Earth (First Draft News)
• Breaking News Consumer's Handbook (WNYC)
• Educator’s Guide: Types of Online Fakes (Verification Handbook)

Citing Your Sources

• Noodletools
• OWL Purdue

Collaboration

• What changes have I made in response to feedback from other people? How did I undertake those changes? How did they improve my work?
• Is there any perspective I have yet to consult? Who can help me access this point-of-view?

Reflection Questions about Critical Thinking:

• What are the major content/critical thinking/writing issues that I have been confronted with in this project?
• How well do I understand the content/substance of what I have been thinking about for this project?
• What is my plan or strategy to address issues I am encountering with this project? Is this plan similar to the plans I have used in the past? How, and why, did I know these steps would work? Is my plan working?
• What do I think my main goals should be as a thinker given what you have experienced so far in this class? Why are these my goals?
• What is my criteria for quality work? What areas of the rubrics are still unclear to me? How am I attempting to reach clarity about these areas?
• What was the most important thing I have learned about yourself as a thinker so far?

Step 4: Create an Argument: Applying Learning

How can I:

• select and effectively use tools to organize myself?
• synthesize what I have learned from my research?
• create an arguable thesis?

Tools & Techniques:

For Your Thesis:

• Thesis Generator: Ashford University
• Thesis creator
• Thesis builder

For Citations, Note Organizing and Outlining:

• Noodletools

For Outlining, Webbing & Other Planning Strategies:

• Storyboarding
• Storybird
• Adobe Spark
• Google Draw
• Canva
• Sketchnoting
• Mind-mapping
• Mindomo

Collaboration:

• From whom did I solicit feedback on my thesis and/or my outline? Why?
• What feedback did I incorporate? How did it improve my plan?

Reflection:

• How might my opinions have had an impact on whether or not I stayed open to conflicting information?
• How did I check myself to be sure I held my bias loosely?

Step 5: Communicate, Share & Grow

When deciding how to share what I have learned, how will I consider my:

• audience?
• message?
• purpose?

And create a product that meets all of these needs?

How can I take informed action?

Things to Consider:

• Whom am I trying to reach (who is my audience)?
• How do those people most frequently access information? Why?
• What is the best media for conveying my evidence and conclusions? Consider:
• Do I need photographs or other artist renderings?
• Do I need data visualization?
• Are voices, music, or other auditory files important to understanding my message?
• Is there a need for video footage?
• How much text do I have? Does it require hyperlinks or interactivity?
• How will my product reach my audience?
• Will it live on a website?
• Post to a video sharing forum like YouTube?
• Be delivered via email?
• Exist in printed form?
• Be performed or delivered to a live audience?
• Something else?
• How will the talents of my team combine to create a successful product or presentation?

 Frankly, as much as the announcement of the new AASL standards validated and encouraged this research process as a model for working with high school students, the keynote address by Google Education Evangelist from Hell's Kitchen, Jamie Casap, inspired the bulk of my tweets as well as the metacognitive food for thought that nourished me through lots of sessions and late nights in Phoenix.

I work with high school students so I don't think I have ever asked a student what s/he wants to be when s/he grows up. But, I have certainly asked, "what will you do after graduation?" or "what do you want to study?" Still, Jamie's question: "what problem do you want to solve?" not only by-passes the issue that we have no idea what jobs will even be possible for our students when they "grow up;" it also infuses students with empathy and agency. I know if there are two qualities I hope my teenagers have or develop it is empathy and agency!

And so, I return to our inquiry model and ask: at every stage, are students developing empathy and agency? Will they graduate from four years working with these protocols prepared to engage with other people's point of views, able to gather (with fidelity) the insight and opinions of stakeholders, and apply themselves to solving the problems in their communities in the interest of improving the educational, socioeconomic, political or environmental  conditions of their day?

As long as I can keep answering yes to those questions, then I know I am on the right path.

Tomorrow starts a new year!

I have moved to a new district and tomorrow is the start of the new school year. I have worked quite a bit this summer in preparation for our ready access learning initiative. The elementary and middle schools are rolling out a 1:1 Chromebook program and the high school is going BYOD. Much of our work this summer has focused on creating digital citizenship bootcamps for all of the students, designing a new web presence for the school district, curating and piloting a digital tool set applicable at each of the grade levels, as well as planning professional development for the faculty.

And throughout this process, I have been thinking in infographics. Here are a couple I have made for my new role in my new school.

This is to introduce our learning commons to the community:

Embedded in this infographic are two more I have made. One is about our research model; the other will hang in our innovation space. It is about the design cycle.

I have ordered a poster version of the first infographic. If it comes out well, we are thinking of ordering one for each classroom... a little reminder to teachers and students of all the ways the learning commons can enhance their inquiry!

Happy new year, everyone!

Big Takeaways on Personalizing Instruction through Use of Technology

As the year comes to an end, I am reflecting on how I worked to personalize instruction through the use of

Photo taken while visiting colleges
with my daughter

technology as an instructional tool.

Technology for Demonstration of Mastery:

In working with an English teacher on her op-ed unit for her sophomore classes we discussed and planned ways for students to select topics that are meaningful and interesting to them. This unit is key for enabling each student to focus on a personal topic of interest or concern. Furthermore, we planned for digital writing, informed by Troy Hicks' book, Crafting Digital Writing, so that students would be creating for an audience beyond the teacher and include multimedia extensions of the their writing to expand the discussion of the issue they selected.

Technology and Media Information Influences:

With another member of the English department, we planned a unit that focused on student exposure to media and advertising through various outlets -- print and digital. We guided the students to choose an aspect of their lives and American society and examine the influence that media has on it. This unit enabled students to practice their research skills and apply them to an aspect of their own lives particularly influenced by technology and digital media. Together we watched and discussed advertisements for the products of companies like Apple and analyzed how those ads changed over decades in response to current events, societal concerns, and target audiences.

Technology Tools for Feedback and Formative Assessment:

For all classes, whether they were working on the junior research paper or other research-based projects, we streamlined the feedback loop for the steps of the research process. When students were brainstorming topic ideas, they submitted these ideas and the reason why those topics were interesting to a Google Form. This allowed me to review their ideas, use the Google Sheet that held the Form responses to provide feedback, and pose questions to help the students refine their topic selection when I visited class. The classroom teachers also began adding their feedback to the Google Sheet when they realized the utility of the sheet for tracking feedback and the students' revised thinking. The next step was for the students to add a draft of their research questions to the Sheet so I could provide feedback on their question development. Entries into the sheet were followed by a class session where I co-taught with the classroom teacher. Working one-on-one with students in class helped to ensure that students were choosing fruitful and manageable topics. As the research projects evolved, I joined the classes for multiple days dedicated to source location and provided instruction on citations and works cited. We developed a research journal as a Google Doc to help students organize their sources, notes, questions, citations, and thinking about their topic. These journals were excellent formative assessment opportunities for the classroom teacher and I to give students feedback on the depth of their questions and sources, gaps in their thinking or understanding, and next steps in the process.

Tech Tools for Conveying Information:

Second semester we built a rich MLA 8 citation website. After our first semester frustrations with Noodle Tools and EasyBib, we agreed that students would be better served by learning to build their citations from scratch. Doing so pushes them to thoroughly examine the scope and quality of their sources of information and become savvier consumers of information. Teachers in the Social Studies and English departments value accurate citation protocols and several of them supported our initiative by granting us class time to work one-on-one with students and recognized the value of the students' increased access to educator (librarian and content teacher) support and feedback in class. 

The Google Site includes a slideshow that steps students through the citation building process, an infographic illustrating the nine elements of an MLA 8 citation, a video showing how to create a hanging indent, copious models of works cited pages and citations, and a form for receiving librarian feedback on works cited and warnings about most common student errors. This site continues to be a work in progress as we refine the resources and streamline individualized student feedback.

Our Google Form for submitting final works cited for feedback before submitting the product of their research to their classroom teacher gave us insight into the most common errors that students were making so we could supplement the resources in the MLA 8 Citation Google Site that we created during second semester. The data we collected showed a dramatic difference in the quality of works cited being submitted by students who had received library instruction as opposed to those who worked only with their classroom teacher. The average score out of 5 for students receiving library instruction was a 3.34; those who did not receive this instruction scored an average of 2.33.

The Value of the (Virtual) Library:
My use of forms to collect individualized information from students on their stages in the research process and provide feedback combined with one-on-one in-class instruction and the library texting service were key elements differentiating library instruction. Teachers benefited by having me provide feedback to their students throughout the research process which essentially means I shared their grading load. Students benefited by having increased access to educator support and copious feedback to help them refine their work. At a time when districts are eliminating library media specialists and our profession is being maligned, my first year in this role is evidence of how vital information literacy skills are and necessary a library media specialist is to this skill development.

Supplement: Anonymous Feedback from Our Colleagues:

Thank you for all of your help with the research process. Having never taught this before, I would have been lost without your help! I greatly appreciate every lesson and helping hand you gave to me and my students during this process. Additionally, you both have such a knowledge of a range of books, and it helped open the variety of books I could offer for book groups!

 Additionally, you both have such a knowledge of a range of books, and it helped open the variety of books I could offer for book groups!

Library services are crucial to the mission of the social studies department. I would love it if there were quizzes for the most frequently used videos so that we can ensure students understand and access the information.

The opportunity to work together with library staff is invaluable to my teaching

I believe the Media specialists are all knowledgeable and collaborate with both each other and the teachers. It has been a pleasure working with them this year.

It was a great unit -- I appreciated the support and the help on this inquiry based learning!

The planning stage went very smoothly as my library/media collaborator was attuned to my specific goals and even to my work style. The lesson she planned was focused directly on the needs of my particular students at that particular stage of our unit.

With the failing implementation of MLA8 by easybib, working with the librarians on building a citation from scratch was important.

The question generator was awesome Help with MLA 8 citations was absolutely excellent! Teacher and students ALL benefited immensely from the face-to-face interactions with incredibly knowledgeable librarians.

There are so many skills students need to learn to be effective researchers that it is easy for them to be overwhelmed. By presenting kids with tools they can use to ensure the validity of their sources, the collaboration allowed me to focus my instruction on the reading skills necessary to master the research essay task.

having librarians in the class room during the start of the jr research project, assisting with research question tweaking and thesis development was incredibly helpful

I found it effective to have multiple perspectives on research questions, thesis statements and citations.

I like the op-ed format to create a dialogue in writing.

Yes, we chose new texts for the speech unit, which were excellent!!! And your help on MLA 8 with both the freshman speeches and the junior research paper were invaluable!

Keep listening to individual teachers and customizing your presentation so it dovetails with the individual teacher's experience and eccentricities.

Teaching students to understand bias

Students frequently ask: can you help me find a source that's not biased? When they ask that question we know what they mean, what it shows us the students need to learn is that 1) there are degrees of bias and 2) everyone has bias, so 3) there is no such thing as unbiased. Instead, we need to teach students to recognize what a text creator's bias is and how or whether that bias negates the usefulness of that source for the student's purpose.

Today we worked with a class of grade 11 students doing research for an in-depth research paper. The focus of the class unit is on the relationship between socioeconomic status and educational experience so this topic will frame the research questions the students are seeking to answer. To facilitate the students' resource selection and understanding of the impact of bias on source credibility we worked with the class unpacking an editorial from the "Room for Debate" section of the New York Times in response to the question: "Is School Reform Hopeless?"

We scaffolded this exercise to help students begin to understand their own biases on this topic and how their bias will influence how they understand what they read and how they convey what they ultimately write. We selected one of the editorials and provided the students just the conclusion to that text. We selectively removed words from the paragraph and asked students to replace the blanks with whatever word they each thought would best convey the meaning of the paragraph. When they completed this exercise individually, we asked them to work with 2 or 3 other students in the class to compile their words on one document and compare how they each completed the paragraph and how their choice of words changed the meaning of the paragraph. The pictures below are of the excerpted paragraph with the students' words on post-it notes.

Here is an example of a phrase with blanks to be filled:

...too many are climbing stairwells with broken handrails and missing steps, tripping and falling as they ________ to keep up, while others are _________ up on elevators...

In one group students said:

• struggling to keep up, while others racing up
• trying to keep up, while others rising up
• attempting to keep up, while others moving up

The students were able to see that racing implies competition, rising implies progress and maybe increase in status, while moving is more passive. They were surprised that none of those were the words that the author used but they couldn't think of another word to use.

The actual sentence is: "...too many are climbing stairwells with broken handrails and missing steps, tripping and falling as they work to keep up, while others are zooming up on elevators..."

Certainly working implies a conscious sense of purpose and purposefulness to the effort that is not reflected in struggle, try or attempt. Work may also imply a degree of success and ability absent in those other terms. Zooming also has a very different connotation than the words the students chose, particularly in contrast to working. So, we asked students to compare their bias with that of the author and consider how differing opinions might influence their assessment of the source's credibility.

For the next phase of this exercise, we provided the students with the rest of the editorial where we had highlighted words or phrases and added questions to invite students to discuss the writer's choice of word and how those words affected the meaning of her editorial.

Here is an example paragraph:

"In addition to attending to these basic survival needs, schools have to attract experienced teachers and leaders with the right sensibilities and training to educate youth from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Successful school districts also enhance youth development through extracurricular activities and additional enrichment. When families cannot afford costly after-school programs, personal tutors and experiential summer vacations, effective school-communities invest in programs to offset these opportunity gaps." 

Here are the questions we posed corresponding to each of the highlighted phrases:

1. What does this phrase imply? (basic survival needs)
2. What do you think these are? (right sensibilities)
3. How is this different than education? (youth development)
4. What other gaps have you heard of? (opportunity gaps)

As they shared their conclusions and questions the students raised questions like: what does equity mean? One student said it meant equality. At that point, we directed the class to the Allsides Dictionary. Here is how Allsides describes their dictionary:

Click to see how Allsides defines equity and the cartoon they use to distinguish "equity" from "equality". We think this resource is incredibly valuable to students as they learn to navigate the information they encounter and develop information literacy -- particularly in the face of fake news!

Carter, Prudence L. “Poor Schools Need to Encompass More Than Instruction to Succeed.” The Opinion Pages: Room for Debate, New York Times, 14 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/09/14/is-school-reform-hopeless/poor-schools-need-to-encompass-more-than-instruction-to-succeed.

Stanford Report as an infographic: Student Vulnerability to Fake News

The Stanford Graduate School of Education Study recently released its report, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Their findings in this two-year study about students' ability to critically interpret information they encounter online are frightening.

There has been abundant media coverage of this issue and the SHEG study by PBS News Hour, NPR, and The Washington Post, among others. Here is my unpacking of that report in an infographic:

On Every Student Having a Device in Class

To teachers who wants students to put their computers away:

Insisting that students learn new information in the way that you do and in the way that you did when you were in school is doing both them and you a disservice… It does students a disservice because you are assuming that they learn as you do. They do not. Their brains are wired differently than yours. Forcing them to learn like you do results in their disinterest and cognitive disengagement. Those two factors ultimately lead to their behavioral disengagement. Consider that students might not be as distracted by technology as they are by its absence.

Teaching students as you were taught also does you a disservice because you are frustrated when you ask your students a question, and they can’t answer it. And you say to yourself (and to them) but I taught you this. You read about it in your textbook. You took a quiz on it. How do you not know it?  The answer: because you taught the way you think you learn. And that is not the way a digital brain learns. Your brain likely won’t rewire, but you need to embrace their wiring and deliver instruction that meets their brains where they are. It is time to stop resisting instructing digitial students in the digital age by saying “this is not how the world works.” because it is how the world works. Increasingly so. Consider these factors:

• At Yale Medical Group all patients take a wellness and mindfulness survey upon checking in for an appointment. Patients are handed a tablet and asked to complete the survey. The medical team uses that data to gauge trends in patient wellness. Yale is not limiting screen time. Not only do their patients need facility with the device and the survey tool, the employees need to know who access,manipulate, and interpret the information generated by the patients.
• SSI, a global market research company, conducts company wide meetings by asking all employees, no matter where they are in the world, to log into an interactive digital presentation. It is the corporate version of an in-class nearpod presentation. The CEO does not worry that some employees might wrestle with ADD and struggle to attend. The expectation is that employees attend: digitally and cognitively.
• Print media is dying having been disrupted by digital media. There are pros and cons to this change. Both are important to education. First, the pro: those media outlets that offered quality journalism when print proliferated have harnessed digital tools to create phenomenal interactive displays of data and simulations of current events. They are tremendous tools for understanding the world, teaching resources and models for students of how to create their own content. And the con: poor quality journalism has now abounded in the digital ecosphere. Which is why it is crucial that students, with our coaching, navigate those murky waters in order to decipher reliable from unreliable, fact from opinion, accurate from misleading.

We need to stop teaching students to be passive recipients of information. That is how the world used to work. That is now how the world works anymore. What we teach doesn’t have to change; how we teach it does.

Library Literacy Badges

A few things to know about our library:

• We have TechXperts, students who provide tech support for staff and students.
• We are working on a program for "Maker Majors" in our makerspace.
• We also have changed to NoodleTools this year.

Many of our conversations during the day are dominated by these three initiatives. How to grow the programs and how to wean 1300 students and 130 teachers off EasyBib and teach them to use (and appreciate?) a new system. As we, Michelle and I, continue to curate tutorial resources and load them to the help section of our library website, Michelle suggested badges. And that got me thinking... There are so many domains of information literacy: we can set up a hierarchy of badges for each domain and align them with our curriculum. Off the top of my head I came up with:

• Google Power Users
• Citation Czars
• Database Doyens
• Reading Prodigies
• Maker Majors
• TechXperts

Each one can have strands for inquiry, communication, collaboration, innovation, critical thinking, creativity, literature appreciation, computational thinking, and digital citizenship. Needless to say, these elements of information literacy are key components in our schools 21st Century Learning Expectations:

• Analytical and Creative Problem Solving
• Reflective learning
• Effective Communication
• Healthy Life Choices
• Responsible, Productive Work and Collaboration
• Respect
• Community Contribution

Certainly as we continue to co-teach with teachers in the various disciplines the foundational skills for each badge category are being established. As students move through four years of high school they will have the experiences and practice necessary to demonstrate mastery in all of these areas before they graduate. That, after all, is the point of our curriculum and our outreach into as many classes as possible. But the badging system would be a new way to honor the growth, the grit, and the necessity of developing information literacy skills.