First Annual Information Literacy Boot Camp

     Seventh graders embark on research projects in several of their courses during their first year at Northwest, and the teachers and I agreed that there was a need to align these projects so that students learned a process for research and then logically built on those skills as the year progressed. However, we recognize that students come to Northwest with varying degrees of familiarity with the research process. For this reason, we decided that an Information Literacy Boot Camp in the first month of school would be beneficial for ensuring that all students had a foundation for research and some experience in 5 core skills:

1. Creating and refining research questions
2. Selecting and modifying keywords for effective searching
3. Evaluating information sources based on the C.R.A.A.P. criteria
4. Note-taking in Easybib (We have a paid subscription to Easybib so that students can create accounts and save their work in projects here. This is the same platform they will use as high school students in our district.)
5. Citing Sources in Easybib

     7th grade literacy teachers (Anah Austin and Jess Harris) and I worked together this summer to create lessons that addressed all these skills and implemented the 9-day Boot Camp from September 2nd-12th. After the Boot Camp we asked students to reflect on their own level of comfort with the skills we addressed and respond using Google Forms:

 

     Although, these numbers reflect students own thinking about their research skills, they will still give us a baseline to look at growth throughout the year as they embark on 4 research projects in their core curricular areas of Literacy, Language Arts, Science, and Global Studies. We plan on administering this same form towards the end of the year.

 

     Overall, I think the Boot Camp was very successful. Next year we will be changing the pacing of the unit by breaking the lessons into 2-day blocks of time over the course of 3 to 4 weeks. We felt the students lost focus at the end, and needed to have some of the routine of the regular classroom environment so early in the year. We also plan to refine our essential learning outcomes and implement more differentiated instruction strategies so that students are able to pace themselves through the lessons. We found this to be especially necessary during the Easybib note-taking and citation lessons and will address our problems by making a series of short instructional videos so that students can move through the skills at their own pace and review key concepts. (For example, citing an image or creating a project.)

New Year, New Library

     When I began working here two years ago I knew that the physical space of our library had a lot of potential and that a critical component in fostering a collaborative environment for students and staff was an updated look and arrangement. We already completed our first major unit in the library with the first ever Information Literacy Boot Camp, and the library is consistently booked for the first trimester. I think teachers are attracted to the new space and the way the design can be used to enhance the projects and inquiry they are already engaging in. I know that this space will continue to impact student learning this year. I am feeling so thrilled about our library renovation and thankful for all of the generous donations from parents, students, and community members that made it possible!


Before

After

 Our main goals with the renovation project were: 

1. New, lower shelving for increased visibility and a more open space.
2. Mobile work tables designed for individual and collaborative work.
3. Whiteboard tables for creative group work.
4. New flexible seating options.
5. Mobile device charging station.
6. Centrally located circulation desk.
7. New carpet and paint to create a less institutional feel.
8. Murals of Northwest students to foster a sense of community.
9. Salt water aquarium to bring elements from the natural world into our window-less library.

Although, there is always more we could achieve, we met all of my goals for the renovation and then some.

• Our new teaching area is completely flexible, all tables and chairs are on wheels. The uniquely shaped tables offer many opportunities for small and large group work.
• We moved the circulation desk to the center of the library which left us with a large space that had previously been off limits to students. We were able to create a reading nook and work area that include counter-height tables, soft seating, and a charging table for personal devices. This has quickly become a very popular section in the library.
• A 66 gallon saltwater aquarium was donated to the library. Because our library has no windows, we really felt that we needed a way to bring the nature inside. The students absolutely love this addition and we have begun an Instagram contest to decide which literary characters the fish will be named after. One of our science teachers, Dan Hill and the ecology club are going to take most of the responsibility for the care and maintenance of our tank.
• Our new, large photographs are quite popular. Students were either thrilled to be featured in them, or wondering how they can be in the future. :)
• The new magazine boxes are a particular favorite of mine. They make it very easy for our students to locate and use the older issues of our magazines.

New Tables and Rolling Seating

Reconfiguring the tables



Counter-height seating

 

New Photographs

Salt-water aquarium

Magazine Boxes

Magnetic Poetry Board

Charging Table

 

Reading Area

Slat Wall for New Books

Dry Erase Tables

Counting by 7s

Although I am not going anywhere exciting for spring break, I have been looking forward to reading a stack of books that have been sitting on my coffee table for a few weeks (oh, and parking downtown wherever I want!). I started with Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan.  In the first chapter of this powerful book, Willow loses her adoptive parents in a car crash. She has no family and very few friends and is taken in by a Vietnamese family she had recently met at her school counselor's office. I think this book is very well written.  Willow is an extremely gifted teen, and we get a very close look at what goes on inside her head. I like this about the book because her brain works in a very different way than mine.

I will say, I was disappointed in the last few chapters.  I thought the ending was a little too tidy. I don't want to say too much more about that, but if you read the book, I would love your opinion. Happy spring break!

Evolving Infectious Disease Research Collaboration

      Our perennial disease research unit is on my mind year round.  This important and established collaboration between the school library and our 7th grade science teachers lasts throughout the entire months of December and January and is an important opportunity for me to establish some basic research skills with all of our 7th graders (340 students, 12 sections).  Since I began at Northwest in 2012 and have worked on this project, I am conflicted with my desire to pack as many skills into this unit as possible while creating a meaningful and well-crafted approach to research for our 7th graders who have not have much experience delving into this process from start to finish.  While I think there is much improvement to make with this project, I am especially proud of how this project has grown this year.

      We began the unit by talking about infectious diseases and their impact on global health.  I showed the students the Global Burden of Disease compare chart, and this proved to be a really compelling and visual way to show the global disparities that exist (http://viz.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd-compare/).  This chart measures the ways in which people die and how that changes based on geographical region and age. For me, the ways in which infectious diseases are effecting people globally and in different ways regionally is one of the most compelling things about this research.  Very little time goes by before I hear something about these diseases on the news or in my Twitter feed and I wanted to find a way to convey the scale of these global health issues to our students.

      The students were asked to consider an essential question related to infectious disease.  The teachers and I really wanted to move away from the old model of disease research where the students select one disease and then learn what they can about it (symptoms, transmission, causes etc).  We show them sites like Mayo Clinic and Teen Health and Wellness that lay these facts out for them in such a clear way, it just seemed that we were missing an opportunity to ask them to think more deeply about these global health issues that are affecting people worldwide.  The questions we asked them to select from were:

1. What kinds of conditions promote outbreaks?
2. To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate?
3. How do diseases infect the body?
4. Why are there diseases that we cannot eliminate?
5. What realistic possibilities are there for bioterrorism in the future?
6. What is the relationship between climate and disease?
7. How does globalization impact the spread of disease?
8. Where do new diseases come from?
9. What does an effective public health campaign involve?
10. How is our local community affected by infectious disease?
11. What are some of the myths and misconceptions about infectious diseases commonly found today and why do these beliefs persist?
12. Develop of question of your own and consult your science teacher.

       We then began to engage in research in the library for the next few weeks.  The students were encouraged to use the sites and databases I linked on the library's homepage and the eBooks we purchased this year for our library collection (http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/diseaseresearch).  I had already introduced the students to Easybib (which Northwest has a subscription to) in Language Arts this year so they were familiar with citing books, websites, and interviews.  We expanded on these skills by showing them how to use Easybib to organize their notes and cite eBooks, images, and databases.  Before winter break, all students were to have around at least 30 note cards of information that they would be able to create a project with.  The students are now very comfortable taking notes this way and citing sources with Easybib.  They especially enjoyed organizing their notes visually and color-coding them.

     When we returned from break the students were asked to select a project they would like to complete using Prezi, Weebly, Comic Life, or Windows Movie Maker.  We encouraged the students to think about the perspective they wanted to use to present.  Are they a news reporter covering an outbreak? Working for a public health organization? Part of an eradication campaign? Once the students selected their project, they attended a mini-seminar with me in our computer lab where I showed them how to use the program they selected.  For students that couldn't make it, or needed to be reminded about how to use these programs, I recorded several screen casts introducing the basic features of these programs to them (http://www.youtube.com/user/MissSpiering).  Once we began the project we spent some time talking about using/citing all of our images.  For this project students are required to not only cite all images, but to only use images from iClipart or other images they have found using a Flickr creative commons search that filters out images they do not have permission to use.  They have been very successful in finding what they need.

     Although, we are still working on these projects, the teachers and I can already see that the students are creating very interesting and diverse projects, and that they enjoy using these technology tools to create their projects.  We have work to do on this project next year.  For example, these questions that we posed were very difficult for many students to understand.  Next year, I want to spend more time at the front of the project generating questions from the classes and trying to find out what the students already know about infectious diseases (maybe using Padlet?).  I think this would eliminate a lot of the questions we were having on the first day of research and would also encourage the students to select more varied topics.

      Next week we will wrap up this unit and I will be getting some feedback from our students through a Google survey.  The responses and the finished products should provide us with some important insight into the kinds of changes we will make next year to this constantly evolving and important collaboration.

Changes in the Library

     This summer, we are going to be undergoing some major updates in the library: new shelves, tables, and chairs.  Today we received some sample chairs from Tallgrass in Coralville. I really want brightly colored chairs to liven up our space!  I am also interested in chairs with wheels so that our classroom space is flexible and can be easily modified and adaptable depending on what is happening there.  Swing by the library and vote for your favorite!

Our 3 choices.  The chair in the middle will be green and will have wheels. 

Eleanor and Park

             

       Rainbow Rowell's book is a love story told from the alternating perspectives of the main characters, Eleanor and Park.  Eleanor has just moved back home with her mom and abusive stepfather after being kicked out of their home for almost a year when she meets Park on the bus on her first day of school. Although Eleanor is outcasted immediately for looking different, her and Park begin to develop a friendship. When it becomes clear that they have very strong feelings for one another, they have to figure out any way possible to spend time together, because Eleanor's stepfather is adamant that she can't have relationships with boys.
        Eleanor and Park is the kind of book you finish and cannot wait to recommend.  This book is so wonderful.  The relationship between the main characters develops slowly and in such a sweet way and hearing the voices of the alternating narrators makes this book so effective.  Highly recommended!!

I am back! And with a REALLY great book recommendation!

     I am feeling very bad about not blogging for months.  It won't happen again.  This semester I began working on my doctorate at the University of Iowa and it has kept me pretty busy in my time outside of Northwest.  However, I simply cannot let it interfere with my very favorite thing in the whole world: enjoying a good book. So, I am back at blogging and I just finished a book I am very excited to tell you about it.  It is called The Wall by William Sutcliffe.

     This is the story of Joshua, a boy living in the isolated city of Amarias.  This community is enclosed by a wall and guarded by soldiers and checkpoints that Joshua has never questioned until one day he discovers a tunnel to the other side of the wall.  There he meets Leila and her father and sees that life on the other side of the wall is incredibly harsh compared to his life in Amarias.  He feels guilty and agrees to help Leila's father water his orchard in Amarias to keep it from drying up.  However, this gets him in to a lot of trouble with his controlling stepfather, a member of the Amarias army.

     What is most interesting about this book is that the author intends it to be a fictional representation of life living in Israel's West Bank.  For me, the book feels sort of like other dystopian fiction I have read, but when I think about the factual elements and what the author is trying to do, it becomes a whole different book.  If you do not know much about the Israel and Palestine conflict or the wall being built to separate the two, you should check out this short informational video (and the book!).

First "not so light" Summer Read: Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

This is my first summer, since I was your age, that I have had hours of free time during the day to relax, be outside, and read books.  Let me tell you, it is wonderful.  So, for my first book I wanted to pick something light, summery and carefree.  When I saw Morgan Matson's book in last book order at the end of the year, with is peach cover featuring a girl sitting on a dock at sunset, I thought I had found the perfect book.  It turns out, I had picked a perfect and wonderful first read, but not for the reasons I expected.


FAIR WARNING:  do not read the last 100 pages of this book without a box of Kleenexes and some personal space, it is a tear-jerker.  

Taylor is about to be a senior in high school and has just found out her dad has been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  There is no cure for this type of cancer and the doctor has told her family that he will only live for a few more short months.  He decides he wants to spend the summer with her family at their lake home that they had not returned do since Taylor was 12.  It turns out then when she was 12 she left abruptly after a fight with her best friend and her first boyfriend and had never returned.  The summer for Taylor turns out to be incredibly meaningful as she mends her relationships there and really gets to know her father while she still has a chance.  Needless to say, this book is extremely sad.  It is also a very lovely book and you will not be able to put it down.  I cried at the end of this book like a big library baby, and I am not talking about just a couple of tears people.  However, if a book can make you cry like that, it is a real testament to the writing!

I highly recommend this book and if you can't find it at the public library this summer it will be on the new book shelf during the 2 days we are open and at the beginning of next year!

Dear Students...

Dear Northwest Junior High Students,

      I want to thank you for a wonderful first year here at Northwest.  I have enjoyed every minute of my time spent with you this year in the library and in your classes.  I am convinced that being a librarian is the best job in the world, and you are responsible for that!

      As you leave for the summer, I want to give you some advice:

1. Read as many books as you can, and always ask your librarian for help.
2. Be nice to one another.  Especially remember this when you are posting on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc.  
3. Wear sunscreen.

8th graders: I wish you luck and success in high school! 7th graders: see you next year!

Sincerely,

Ms. Spiering

Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

      I wanted to give you one last, great book recommendation before summer!  I just finished Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati and absolutely loved it.  This is the story of Ditty Cohen, an Orthodox Jewish teenager, who discovers that she loves ballet.  However, her family and religion do not believe dance is a suitable activity for women.  She begins to secretly takes lessons and manages to keep it from her family for 5 years.  As she becomes a wonderful and very talented dancer, she begins to wonder why her love of dance and her family's religion have to be exclusive of each other.
      This book has a wonderful plot that kept me from putting the book down, but I also loved it for the information about Haredi Jews (who lead a very unique lifestyle) and the inner dialogue Ditty has with herself as she questions the religion that is all she has ever known.