On Wednesday, April 6, I was part of a panel arranged by the BCTLA (British Columbia Teacher Librarian Association) to discuss the process of individuals developing a submission for Treasure Mountain Canada.
Thank you @PippaDavies @M_Berra57 @MzMollyTL @JennMacBrown @Leona_Prince1 for sharing your #TreasureMountainCanada journeys and sharing your papers. Thank you for everyone who joined who our @CdnSchoolLibrar @bctla webinar today!
— Joseph Jeffery (@JosephJeffery1) April 6, 2022
Traditionally, the submissions tend to be written in nature. They don't have to be. My friend Jennifer Brown's last contribution to TMC6 was a series of reflective podcasts. I like the idea of pushing the envelope in terms of ways we demonstrate and share our learning. Joseph Jeffery made a great point about that when he mentioned Indigenous Epistemologies and research methods.So grateful to be part of this gathering with @bctla and @CdnSchoolLibrar colleagues! Thank you for including me in this conversation as we plan for our #TMC7 research submissions. pic.twitter.com/FPEhJwLyec
— Jennifer Brown (@JennMacBrown) April 6, 2022
As I mentioned during the April 6 event, I've created five texts for various TMCs.
- A Participatory Action Research Approach to Developing Understanding of the Learning Commons in an Elementary School As Explored by Students (for TMC1 2010 in Edmonton)
- Purposeful Play: Games Based Learning in School Library Learning Commons (with Denise Colby for TMC4 2016 in Toronto)
- Climbing Mountains: Methods for Mentoring Teacher Librarians (for TMC4 2016 in Toronto)
- Founding Father Fighting to Toppling Tarnished Tributes: The Impact of Social Media, Primary Sources and Equity Education of a Kids Guide to Canada Prime Ministers Project (for TMC5 2017 in Winnipeg)
- Towards an Understanding of the Impact of Youth Involvement in the Purchasing of Resources for the School Library Learning Commons and Issues of Equity in Participant Selection (for TMC6 2020 in Toronto)
I plan on doing two more for TMC7 in New Westminster, British Columbia. More on that later. During my super-short talk, I mentioned three tips that I found personally helpful when creating my own TMC artifacts.
- Pick something you are interested in exploring.
- Find someone to chat about it.
- Don't sweat the research or final product.
The title of this blog post mentions reading and writing (or I guess I should have said "consuming and creating" to avoid the presumption that they are all filled with words). April 8 was the final day of my Queen's University Teacher Librarian Specialist Additional Qualification course that I facilitated. The end project is the creation of a submission for Treasure Mountain Canada.
I am ridiculously delighted with the end products of the three course candidates that I had the incredible honour of working with from January to April 2022.
- Francis Ngo
- Lindsay Carriere
- MB
The official deadline for TMC papers for the seventh symposium is October 1, 2022, but these three dedicated professionals have their papers completed in time for the end of the AQ course (April 8). They did an incredible job searching the literature for evidence, reflecting on their personal practice, and crafting papers on topics that will be of great interest and benefit to the field of Canadian school librarianship.
It's not time for me to put my feet up and relax. I am starting the spring session of York University's Teacher Librarian AQ courses (and when I last looked, there were 19 people enrolled in one of the three levels) AND it's time for me to start writing my own TMC contributions.
Even though it's going to be a lot of work, I'm looking forward to the journey. I am a "data nerd" and I've been collecting data on one of these topics since 2011, so I'm excited to see the patterns and trends.
My first paper is tentatively titled "The Forest of Reading and the Agency Thief" but I'm still toying with images and analogies like "Rebuilding After the COVID Fire Hit the Forest of Reading". It's all about the steps I'm taking to try and reinvigorate the reading patterns disrupted because of these past two and a half years.
My second paper will be a collaboration with one or two secondary school TLs and riff on the findings from the Ontario School Library Impact Project. This one will take a bit more effort but I think it will actually help shape my professional practice (and that of other elementary TLs) if we can pull it together.
Some of you may be wondering, "Why? Why go to all this effort? You aren't paid for this." Let me end this post with a few reasons why it is worth conducting action research and sharing the results so publicly. Some of these points (the ones without the inquiry questions attached) were part of the BCTLA talk. If you missed the talk, OSLA will be providing a session for people interested in contributing to TMC in June 2022.
- build personal accountability (What am I doing to become a better TL?)
- contribute to the knowledge bank of school librarianship (How can what I am doing help others?)
- mentor and support other school library professionals with concrete examples (How can I share?)
- create an excuse to travel to other parts of Canada (When I can network with these smart folx?)
- gives evidence on your practice
- fills need for research on school librarianship
- assess assumptions about practice
- inform future practice
- deepen understanding across the profession
- makes the case for why TLs exist in schools and the difference they make
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