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MLS School Libraries Collaborate and ConnectRecap of Big6 Literacy Workshop and School Librarians Holiday Program, The Curriculum Connection: How Museums Serve School Libraries. by Christina Stoll This month MLS Suburban School Libraries and Chicago Public School Libraries came together for two exciting events. On December 4, 100 school librarians came together for a workshop by Bob Berkowitz, author of the Big 6 Information Literacy Model. Later that same week, on December 7, close to 80 school librarians and 12 Chicago Area Museums attend the MLS School Librarians’ Holiday Program, focusing on “The Curriculum Connection: How Museums Serve School Libraries.” Both events were hugely successful, reflecting the power of connection and collaboration a library system brings to its members. Big 6 Information Literacy Model Workshop Bob’s high energy, his 8-minute lecture, and fun small group activities, mixed with Q&A, made the workshop a day of fast paced learning for both CPS and MLS School librarians. To best describe what it meant to meet the creator of this highly popular model, one librarian told this story. To encourage her kids to get ready faster that morning, she used her son’s love for GI Joe, by describing meeting Bob Berkowitz as “imagine you we’re going to meet the inventor of GI Joe.” The story worked, for her older son turned to his younger brother and said, “We have to hurry, mommy is meeting GI Joe!”
Author and instructor Bob Berkowitz, and a classroom of school library participants. Throughout the day Bob’s examples of Big6 focused on its six steps, which are to be used as a process to handle any problem, assignment, decision or task. Bob stressed Big6’s ease of adaptation into what librarians are already doing at your school, instead of viewing it as something completely new. He started with an overview of each step, followed by an example or activity from the Big6 workbook that all participants received. Participants share their experience: Several librarians had some prior experience with Big6, having either been self-taught through reading books or having attended conference sessions on the topic. However, being present with one of the authors on the topic helped several participants by “filling in the gaps.” “It was great hearing about the Big6 program from the utmost expert and creator of the program!” “Great group activities. The book will be a great resource.” “Very interesting, informative workshop. Great to bring back to our schools.” “Bob is a very good speaker. He kept my attention. He was energetic and amusing. I am going to use the activities in the handbook with teachers and students.” What participants took away from the workshop:
Alicia Duell, school librarian, and Bridget Wilmot, teacher at Riverside Brookfield High School attended the workshop together. Alicia, having prior experience with Big6, has been educating the teachers at her school about the model. Bridget, hearing about the opportunity to attend the workshop, thought what a better way to learn and then apply what she learned by attending class with her school librarian. During one of the small group activities, Alicia and Bridget brainstormed a lesson plan using Big6 and M&M’s, forming the question: How do we make the production of M&M’s more environmentally green? By using the Big6 process, they came up with information sources, such as visiting the Mars Production Plant to evaluating the project outcomes by bringing in an environmental expert to judge the student projects. They were so excited about the activity, that they discussed ways to turn it into a real lesson plan once back at school.
A Big6 participant working on her M&M question, and another break out group of school librarians. Events such as the Big6 workshop are not only successful through their learning opportunities, but are beneficial to suburban MLS and CPS librarians in that they provide an opportunity for these librarians to connect with each other, when normally distance can be a barrier. At the end of the same week, CPS and MLS school librarians had another opportunity to come together at the MLS Annual School Librarians’ Holiday Program. MLS Annual School Librarians Holiday Program The MLS Consultants took the idea for museums to be the main focus of the Holiday Program to a group of Chicago Area Museums. A total of 12 museums participated in the day: Adler Planetarium, Brookfield Zoo, Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago History Museum, DuSable Museum of African American History, Field Museum, Hellenic Museum, Nature Museum, Pritzker Military Library, Shedd Aquarium, Spertus Museum and the Morton Arboretum. The staff from these organizations represented the Chicago Area Museums well. A school librarian browsing the DuSable Museum’s display table, and the Field Museum's display table.
Display tables for the Chicago History Museum and the Notebaert Nature Museum. A common theme among the museum participants was to show librarians how to bring museum programs into the library or classroom, be it programs available online, materials they can check out, or ideas for in-class activities. Here are a few samples of what the museums have to offer school libraries:
The Holiday Program offered a wide range of opportunities for everyone, from networking with other school librarians to meeting with museum staff, to visiting vendor tables (which included Baker & Taylor, Capstone Press, EBSCO Information Services, Follett Library Resources, Rosen Publishing, Thomson Gale / Cengage Learning, and Worldbook.) Besides the museum and vendor table displays, there was a formal presentation by four of the museums, which included:
Finally there was the festive nature of the day with food, door prizes, and an opportunity to explore the Field Museum at the end of the day.
Ted Remus, St. Scholastica Academy, was pleased to show off his $600 gift certificate for new titles, provided by Capstone Press.
Gretchen Steele, Chicago Public School, won a free field trip for a class to the Spertus Museum, and Melva Bryant-Samuels, retired Chicago Public School's librarian, looks happy with her newly won friend, Atlas the Map Dog, donated by World Book. Web Junction Illinois was present filming the event, which can be seen on their web site at http://il.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=18983. At the end of the day everyone took away at least one thing that the program had to offer, be it a new connection with another school librarian, the opportunity for potential partnerships, or the sharing of programming ideas and resources between schools and museums. For MLS overall, both events are a great representation of the power of connection and collaboration that a library system brings to its member libraries. Questions about either of these events can be emailed to the MLS Consultants at consultants@mls.lib.il.us. Published December 12, 2007 in vol. 1, iss. 22 [View] |
