The role of school librarians in enhanci

The role of school librarians in enhancing science learning Subramaniam, Ahn, Waugh, Taylor, Druin, Fleischmann, Walsh 2013

five official roles that school librarians play in schools: information specialist,       ‘introduce and model emerging technolo- gies, as well as strategies for finding, assessing, and using information’ teacher,      ‘empowers students to become critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers, and ethical users of information’ 

instructional partner,       ‘with members of the school community to develop the policies, practices, and curricula to guide student learning’

program administrator and      ‘that all members of the learning com- munity have access to resources that meet a variety of needs and interests’ leader

deeper involvement of school librarians in K–12 schools is linked with higher student achievement.

Enhance science learning by:  facilitating inquiry practices, valuing the diverse experiences students bring to science learning, linking student interests to science, and highlighting the social importance of scientific practices.

RESEARCH QUESTION: 

how do “school librarians work as active contributors in advancing science learning among young people”?

APPROACH Exploratory qualitative  Sociocultural approach design-based research

This study is a design experiment 

current lit suggests that the strongest role that school librarians play in sci- ence teaching and learning in their schools is as information specialists. compared to language arts and social sciences related subjects, school librarians still tend to collect and impart less science resources

FRAMEWORK A socio-cultural perspective recognizes that science learning involves more than merely under- standing facts, but also values learners’ personal back- grounds and encourages deeper notions of scientific practice and inquiry. Science learning moves beyond merely applying knowledge to problems. Deep scientific practice also involves skills such as adopting norms of a scientific community and communicating one’s ideas in that community (Ford and Forman, 2006). Science prac- tices can be seen as interpersonal interactions including inquiry processes, knowledge sharing, and communication that occur within institutional and cultural boundaries (Lemke, 2001) p. 3-4 —> See Hull and Greeno

This suggests pedagogical practices: learning scientists are increasingly interested in designing educational environments that (a) encourage students to engage in authentic, social inquiry practices, (b) engage students’ everyday life interests, and (c) incorporate their personal experiences and identities into their science learning

DESIGN PRINCIPLES design experiment (Collins et al., 2004) cooperative inquiry [partnership with users, field research, prototyping (Druin, 1999, 2005; Guha et al., 2005) used open coding to analyze ethnographic fieldnotes evidence: interpretations supported by anecdotes

FINDINGS Promoting young people’s natural instincts to investigate and inquire through search skills Connecting learning to students’ interests and experiences. Embracing diversity as a means to enhance learning science. Promoting science learning as a social enterprise.

 school librarians function as an asset to assist the creation of socio-cultural learning environments that are conducive to science learning.

1. encourage young people to engage in authentic inquiry practices by teaching them about informa- tion search models and strategies;
2. engage young people’s everyday life interests by linking science learning to media and technology that appeals to them or they ‘see themselves’ in; and
3. promote the norms of ethical and social interaction in sharing science knowledge.

the contributions of librari- ans were less strong in the aspect of embracing the diver- sity of students as a means to learning science

POTENTIAL CRITICISMS where is the evidence of student experience?