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What topics do you want to learn about, talk about, and dig into as you look toward a new year in your school library?  School Library Monthly author Kristin Fontichiaro is looking for your questions about inquiry, research practices, and the Common Core State Standards for the new volume (Volume 30) of School Library Monthly.  The Nudging toward Inquiry column will feature your questions, so please ask away!

Share your questions using this link: http://bit.ly/nudging2013, where you can also find more information and suggestions on topics to ask.

–Rebecca Morris

In the January 2013 issue of School Library Monthly, Sharon Coatney writes about inquiry in schools, in an article that reports and synthesizes discussions from the Summer 2012 Inquiry Summit, sponsored by ABC-CLIO.   A notable takeaway from the article is the emphasis on teachers and librarians as participants in inquiry themselves, in addition to their roles as facilitators of student inquiry.  According to Coatney,

“[Teachers and librarians] need to identify and understand the learning dispositions associated with inquiry learning: curiosity, creativity, and reflection” (5).

The complex job of the school librarian offers many topics for inquiry.  In keeping with my recent post suggesting we “focus on one fish and follow it,” give yourself some space to be curious, creative, and reflective about some aspect of your work, even if it’s something seemingly small.  What do you want to know more about?  What is part of your teaching or library program that gives you the sense that it might be improved, aligned, or turned upside-down?  Or, as one of my doctoral program instructors asked when students struggled to figure out research topics – ask yourself, “where’s the tension?”

When you find the tension, focus on this area and dig into it as an inquiry topic.  Here are a few ideas for getting started.

-          Content-area knowledge: management practices, policies, library routines, organization of the library, children’s literature, reference databases, research and technology tools, social media and tablet applications, reading instruction

-          Pedagogy: questioning strategies, instructional design, assessment, student collaboration and peer review techniques, online learning, team teaching, coaching, peer teaching

When you decide to pursue an inquiry process, you can engage with the topic in lots of ways, including structured professional development workshops or seminars/webinars, conferences, teacher- or administrator-led study groups, action research, lesson study, professional reading and information seeking, and personal and group goal-setting/progress reporting/reflecting.

Consider your inquiry experience an ongoing endeavor, and not necessarily a prerequisite to guiding student inquiry.  Maybe your professional inquiry and student inquiry processes might even inform or shape each other.   In your inquiry, practice the research techniques that you teach to your students, and be purposeful and at the same time reflective as you construct and research your questions.   (In other words, don’t try to find information that gives you a certain answer; find and reflect on information and see what it says about your question.)  Follow Coatney’s advice to be open to uncertainty and ok with not knowing outcomes ahead of time.

Don’t forget to circle back and connect your findings, evidence, and learning with your original question, and do this more than once.  Does your evidence suggest that you took the path you thought you would follow?  Or did your inquiry illuminate a different angle of the topic for you?  Finally, remember to reflect on your affective experience.  Was the inquiry an invigorating process that motivated you, or an experience that felt nebulous and messy?  How might this experience help you to understand students’ needs as they pursue inquiry?

–Rebecca Morris

References:  Coatney, Sharon. “Zeroing in on Inquiry.” School Library Monthly 29, no. 4 (January 2013): 5-8.

Image: Hopscotch, by Jan Tik on Flickr. Used with a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Last week I ate dinner at a seafood restaurant with a floor-to-ceiling cylindrical aquarium in the center of the dining room.  As I sat with my family, I couldn’t help but watch the fish– and watch the people watching the fish.  Some people stood in front of the aquarium and just looked up and down, others walked in circles around the glass walls, and still others (like me) just glanced away from their tables and gazed in the general direction of the aquarium.

As I watched, a group of three little girls, probably about fourth or fifth graders, hopped and skipped over to the aquarium, and when they got there, one of them announced (excitedly, and with an air of playground authority), “focus on one fish and follow it!”

And so they did, pointing and laughing and following their fish.

I turned back to my table and repeated these astute directions to my mom.  We marveled at this little learning experience unfolding before our eyes, and wondered if the little girl was imitating a teacher or parent’s voice in her comments.

As we watched the fish and watched the kids watching the fish, we kept repeating and reflecting upon the phrase, “focus on one fish and follow it.”   This was wise advice, we decided, not only for observing aquarium fish, but for sorting through the many responsibilities and goals we seem to chase after all at once in our work and lives.

Though we may never fully be able to “focus on one fish” – or one task – at a time, we can dedicate energy in a focused way.  I’m not suggesting that librarians abandon the richness (and occasional chaos) that makes this job so rewarding and challenging, but I am posing the challenge to concentrate on a specific area to strengthen in your practice, and follow that “one fish” across the dimensions of the school library program

How can you “focus on one fish” in the school library in 2013?  Maybe consider the evidence you’re gathering of the good work you’re doing with students and teachers.  Perhaps you want to build opportunities for inquiry, or expand your knowledge of assessment or questioning techniques.  Is this the year you’re ready to present professional development at your school or at a conference?  Is communication with a certain group – parents, teachers, school leaders – a direction you’ve been meaning to pursue?  What other “fish” might you follow this year?

Possibly, your “one fish” is the approach you take to balancing the many tasks of the school librarian.  Try to focus your efforts on what you determine to be the most valuable contributions you make to student learning.   Know that multitasking is less productive than prioritizing.  Streamlining – not cutting corners, but making wise use of time and resources – makes good sense.

Happy New Year, SLM Blog readers!  Tell me about your “fish” in the comments!  Here’s to the wisdom of children, and the promise in focusing on one fish!

–Rebecca Morris

Image: enoshima aquarium_2 by ajari, on Flickr. Used with a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.