Building TLs Together

Happy August everyone! This is the calm before the storm, as one AQ course ends and another AQ course is about to begin. That means it's a perfect time to reflect on the successes and failures recently experienced.

I had a mix of excitement and trepidation for the start of the July 2022 York University Teacher Librarianship Additional Qualification course. It was the first time anyone would teach the updated course content. I hoped it would be well-received, but I'm biased because I wrote it. My other concern was related to my scheduled absence. As regular readers of this blog know, I went to Quebec to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary. I decided to seriously disconnect during that time (unlike when I ran a course while visiting my sister in Calgary last year). Thankfully, York University was flexible enough to allow two instructional leaders to share the duty.

I removed one of the working titles from this blog (turns out "it takes a village" is not an actual proverb) but the sentiment still remains - the more people involved with educating future teacher-librarians, the better the development of those TLs.

Co-Instructor

Francis Ngo co-taught the old version of the AQ with me in the spring of 2022, when there was an astounding 30+ participants, and he co-taught the new version of the AQ for July 2022, covering for me 100% when I was away. Sharing AQ leadership is highly unusual but I certainly enjoyed the experience. Francis and I were "same but different": we held the same beliefs about school librarianship but we possessed different strengths and approaches that benefited the AQ participants. Francis is a "spreadsheet king", and designed our assessment and tracking tools in a way that increased efficiency ten-fold. It was a treat to have a second set of eyes, so that I could turn to someone when I wondered whether or not a particular task was completed satisfactorily. I loved the way he wrote such detailed feedback for the learners. Francis' knowledge of technology saved the day multiple times; he familiarized himself with the course management system (Moodle) in-depth and solved problems with ease. 

Guest Speakers

Francis wasn't the only one involved in the formation of these new (and/or growing) teacher-librarians. York University's TL AQ courses are the only ones, to my knowledge, that offer optional guest speakers for a fully asynchronous online class. (I'm going to brag for a moment - I pushed for that, and I appreciate that York not only allowed it, but now is actually financing it.) When I ran the blended courses in 2018 and 2019, I made sure I had lots of guest speakers. I want to thank all the volunteers who spoke to various cohorts. Here's a list, just from 2022.

Winter 2022

• Salma Nakhuda
• Jennifer Balido-Cadavez
• Kim Davidson
• Jennifer Brown
• Melissa Jensen and Melanie Mulcaster

Spring 2022

• Wendy Burch-Jones
• Greg Harris
• Jonelle St-Aubyn
• Agnieszka Kopka
• Farah Wadia

July 2022

• Jennifer Brown
• Ray Mercer
• Ruth Gretsinger
• Rabia Khokhar
• Jonelle St-Aubyn

August 2022

• Salma Nakhuda
• Jennifer Balido-Cadavez
• Dawn Legrow
• Peter Bierkmore
• Beth Lyons

It is through the guest speaker system that we can get many different perspectives. I see it as an "in" for people to add to their professional portfolio credits for speaking engagements and for AQ candidates to learn from as many different people as possible.

Experienced Teacher-Librarians as Interviewees

Without revealing too much about the course content - university and AQ providers are very protective about how their courses operate, as it is proprietary data - I want to mention that several tasks in the Teacher Librarianship Part 1 AQ course at York involves speaking to an experienced teacher-librarian. Before readers get agitated about the "extra" work involved in contacting an external source over the summer, let me reassure folks that one of the "services" I provide as the AQ instructor is to offer to locate someone to interview if the AQ participant does not know or cannot find a teacher-librarian. School library professionals are eager to chat with others, even during their off time. Several candidates have mentioned that this was one area where they found they learned the most during the course - in conversation with someone actually involved in the job. There is a sense of appreciation and awareness that the job is more than it seems on the surface. Big thanks to ALL the teacher-librarians that answered questions related to this course. 

Even though it means I don't get a break, I'm looking forward to teaching the August 2022 York University TL AQ cohort. I hope they'll enjoy the course as much as the last group seemed to do.