School Libraries: Where
Learning Starts
Learning Starts With You: Productive
Pedagogy Through The School Library
Dr Ross J Todd
Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries
School of Communication, Information and Library Studies
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
cissl.scils.rutgers.edu rtodd@scils.rutgers.edu
50 Years of Research
50 Years of Evidence
50 Years of Learning
Gaver, M. Every child needs a
school library. Chicago, ALA,
1958
Gaver, M. Effectiveness of
Centralized Library Service in
Elementary Schools. Rutgers
University, 1963
“With the school library
literally the heart of the
educational program, the
students of the school
have their best chance to
become capable and
enthusiastic readers,
informed about the world
around them, and alive to
the limitless possibilities
of tomorrow.” Mary Gaver,
1958
Schools &
Libraries Studied
Since 2000, 16 state-wide studies undertaken

AK, CO, DE, FL, IA, IL, MA, MI, MN, MO, NC, NM, OH, OR, PA,
TX
Over 8,800 schools
Elementary, middle and high school libraries serving
an estimated 2.6 million students
Diverse funding authorities: Sate Libraries, Education
Dep’ts, Federal (IMLS), professional school library
associations
Three Types of
Studies
1. Studies that examine the presence of school library
infrastructure, personnel and library services / processes
and their correlation to achievement as measured by
standardized test scores (with other school and community
conditions controlled for eg. Adult educational attainment;
Minority enrollment; Per pupil spending; Teacher-pupil ratio)
(Lance)
What school libraries look like; what they need to have
2. State-wide studies that examine the nature and strength of
helps provided through school libraries linked to learning
outcomes (CISSL)
 How good school libraries work: Ohio, Delaware
3. Learning through school libraries (CISSL)
Instructional dynamics of school libraries (IMLS study
NJ)
Student
Achievement
Learning outcomes are achieved through deliberate actions
and instructional interventions of school administrators
and school librarians
INFORMATIONAL – TRANSFORMATONAL – FORMATIONAL
3 Studies: Student
Learning Through
School Libraries
Ohio: 13,123 valid student responses and 879 teacher
responses (39 schools) (2003-4)
Australia: 6,718 valid student responses and 525
teacher responses (46 schools) (Lyn Hay, 2004-5)
Delaware: 5,733 valid student responses and 408
teacher responses (13 schools) (2005-6)
25,574 students tell us!
1,812 teachers tell us!
READING
KNOWLEDGE
Learning to Read
Transformational Role of School Libraries
Reading to Learn
Reading
Not merely acquiring sound-print and writing
techniques
“Complex system of deriving meaning from text”.
The transformation, communication and dissemination
of text and the development of meaning and
understanding.
“An attitude of creation and re-creation, a selftransformation producing a stance of intervention in
one's context” (Paulo Freire,1973)
The school library as a transformational agent in the readingliteracy-knowledge life cycle begins with reading
Reading
When reading is at risk, it is not just
school libraries that are at risk; more
critically, it is knowledge that is at risk.
Are our school libraries as transformational as
we think and believe when it comes to reading?
Reading Patterns
Ohio & Delaware
In terms of perceptions of how school libraries help
students, reading statements overall ranked low,
compared to other helps
Reading helps strongest in elementary school, and
decline throughout schooling
Reading helps significantly higher for African American
students
Reading helps significantly higher for girls rather than
boys
The scores of schools in small cities are significantly
higher than other type of schools
Reading-LiteracyKnowledge Life Cycle:
Delaware
Survey of 154 public school libraries in Delaware (20042005) (100% of public school libraries)
Measured:
- School Library employees
- Frequency of co-operations, co-ordinations,
collaborations
- Participation in professional development activities
- Provision of professional development activities
- Information literacy interventions
- Reading / writing initiatives
- Significant learning outcomes enabled by school
library
- Information resources, information technology,
budgets
Reading - Delaware
Typical activities to promote reading and motivate
readers: literature displays, book talks, promoting
information resources, reading incentive programs, and
to a much lesser extent story telling, book clubs and
author visits.
Primarily passive activities.
Reading activities that foster active student
engagement, discussion and creative outputs far less
frequently reported.
High school students “don’t have time to read”.
AN ACTIVE
READING CULTURE
Focus on reading activities that foster active
student engagement, discussion and creative
outputs:
web blogs;
book raps;
interactive book reviews;
online literature circles,
reading pals online;
create your own e-books;
student-run school reading web pages
CONSTRUCTIVIST
LEARNING
"Education is not an affair
of telling and being told but
an active constructive
process.”
At the heart of knowing is
constructing meaning, and
at the heart of meaning is
reading
Are our school libraries
as transformational as
we might think?
John Dewey
Think of the most recent time you worked with a class in your
school library.
What did your students really learn?
What deep knowledge and deep understanding of their
curriculum topic did they come way with through their school
library experience?
What skills and attitudes did they continue to develop? How
do you know this?
How did they transform information into knowledge?
And how would you explain it to your school community?
The dimensions of
Productive Pedagogy
Intellectual Quality
Deep knowledge
Deep understanding
Problematic knowledge
Higher order thinking
Meta-language
Substantive communication
Significance
Background knowledge
Cultural knowledge
Knowledge integration
Inclusivity
Connectedness
Narrative
Quality Learning
Environment
Explicit quality criteria
Engagement
High Expectations
Social Support
Students’ self-regulation
Student direction
Gore, J., Griffiths, T., & Ladwig, J. (2002).
Productive Pedagogy as a Framework for
Teacher Education: Towards Better
Teaching. Newcastle: Faculty of Education,
University of Newcastle. Available at:
http://www.aare.edu.au/01pap/gor01501.htm
Libraries as
Transformational?
Delaware Study
Number of instructional collaborations with teachers is
low.
Information literacy instruction initiatives typically
center on knowing about school library, different
sources and formats, learning how to use resources,
and evaluating information.
Are we really playing a role in helping students
transform information into new knowledge?
Learning Outcomes:
Delaware
39% indicated school library had helped students
develop skills in locating, selecting, organizing and
evaluating information
37% indicated school library helps improve reading
skills; interest & motivation in reading
22% indicated improvement in technology skills
16% indicated development of positive attitude to
libraries
4.5% indicated outcomes linked to curriculum
standards and goals
New Jersey IMLS
Funded Research
What learning outcomes does the school library
enable as students make use of diverse digital and
print information sources?
How might these learning outcomes be identified,
measured, and embedded into professional
practice?
Develop a learning impacts measure for use by
school-based teams. (SLIM Toolkit: School Library
Impact Measure)
Schools Context &
Sample
10 New Jersey public schools
Experienced and expert school librarians
Diverse public schools
10 school librarians working on curriculum projects
with 17 classroom teachers
574 students in Grades 6 – 12; range of disciplines
Inquiry Training Institute Feb 24, 2004: overview and
critique of units, use of data collection instruments,
procedures and ethical guidelines
Central Research
Questions
As students proceed through the stages of a collaborative
inquiry project:
What changes, if any, are evident in their knowledge of a
curriculum topic
What changes, if any, are shown in their feelings?
How does their study approach influence knowledge
construction of a curriculum topic?
What interactions exist between knowledge construction,
feelings, and study approach?
How did school librarians and teachers help students with
their learning
Data Collection
Instruments
Five data collection instruments were used to collect the
data from the students:
1.
2.
2.
4.
5.
Writing Task 1 (at initiation of inquiry unit)
Writing Task 2 (at midpoint of inquiry unit)
Writing Task 3 (at conclusion of inquiry unit)
Search Journal Log
Study Style
The instruments consisted of a combination of
qualitative and quantitative questions to identify
changes in knowledge, feelings, study approaches,
helps
Measuring Changes
in Knowledge
Substance of knowledge
Amount of knowledge
Structure of knowledge
Personal estimate of knowledge
Labeling of knowledge
Substance of
Knowledge
Statement type
Definition
Example
Property
statements describing
characteristics
The color of Valentine’s day is red
Manner
statements describing processes,
styles, actions
People drive aggressively in USA
Reason
statements of explanations of how
and why
The wall was constructed to block
invaders
Outcome
statements providing end result
(People eat too much) As a result,
people got very sick
Causality
statements showing some event
causally leads to another
Too much alcohol can lead to liver
failure
Set Membership
statements about class inclusion
Michelangelo created works such
as statue of David, Cistine Chapel
and the famous Pieta
Implication
statements showing predictive
relations, inference, implied
meaning
He was suspected of poisoning
him
Value Judgment
statements presenting personal
position or viewpoint
That’s not right
Changes in
Knowledge
Two distinctive approaches to knowledge
construction:
-- Additive
-- Integrative
ADDITIVE
APPROACH
Knowledge development characterized by
progressive addition of property facts
As the students built knowledge, they continued to
add property and manner statements, and to a lesser
extent, set membership statements
Stockpile of facts, even though facts were sorted,
organized and grouped to some extent into thematic
units by conclusion.
Remained on a descriptive level throughout
INTEGRATIVE
APPROACH
Initial: superficial sets of properties
Moved beyond gathering facts:
- building explanations
- address discrepancies
- organizing facts in more coherent ways
Interpret found information to establish personal
conclusions and reflect on these.
Some students subsumed sets of facts into fewer but
more abstract statements at the end
Factors Contributing to
Differences Across
Schools
Changes in knowledge (knowledge growth) did not occur
evenly in the schools
No significant variations across the age, grade, and gender
groups; the disciplinary field does not seem to be an
explanatory factor
Nature of task: imposed task or negotiated task
Engagement and ownership in the topics
Nature of Interventions: Development of skills to construct
knowledge rather than finding information
Rethinking
Information Literacy?
Information literacy instruction typically focuses on
“finding” information: transport rather than transformation
Are we unwittingly contributing to plagiarism?
Typically treat information literacy as a separate discipline
(teacher teaches content and school librarian teaches
information skills)
Scope and sequence models of Information Literacy are
problematic (akin to “fixed schedules”)
Students do not go beyond the basic knowledge level of
Bloom’s Taxonomy: recalling and recognizing information
Guided Inquiry
Need to think more strategically about our instructional
interventions
Specific interventions are determined by the stage of the
search process, the affective, cognitive and behavioral needs
of the learners, and the curriculum standards and goals to be
achieved
Instructional interventions enable students to produce and
demonstrate deep understanding, and facilitate intellectual and
personal agency
Starting point for the school library is not information literacy,
but a critical Zone of Intervention in the learning standards, and
the nature of disciplinary knowledge and how a discipline / field
of study develops knowledge
An Approach to
Auditing Standards
Identify ZONES OF INTERVENTION where information-toknowledge processes and knowledge outcomes are embedded and
lend themselves to inquiry in the school library = opportunities for
developing authentic research
Understanding how disciplinary knowledge is constructed
Frame information-to-knowledge processes (Information Literacy)
in the language of the particular discipline and based on how
knowledge is constructed in the discipline
Establish learning outcomes as established by the Standards,
using language of standards
Construct instructional interventions, building in approaches to
Evidence-Based Practice
An Approach to
Auditing Standards
Standard: ……………….
Dimension
aspect
Zone of
Intervention
Disciplinary
Knowledge
Construction
Instructional
Intervention
Outcomes
Measures
(EBP)
Outcomes
Dimension, or part of a dimension, at any level that
lends itself to inquiry and authentic research through
the school library, and where the pedagogical expertise
of the school librarian can contribute to reaching
Standards
Mathematics:
Knowledge Construction
Aim to develop students sense of mathematical inquiry: problem
posing, problem solving, modeling and investigation
Mathematical Inquiry framework (= IL Framework)
CONJECTURE, FORMULATION, SOLUTION, COMMUNICATION
Find ideas, examples, counter examples
Explore patterns
Develop conjectures
Test simple conjectures
Explain propositions
Analyze reasonableness of points of view
Develop generalizations by abstracting features
Test truth statements and generalizations
Develop models
Implementing Guided
Inquiry: Design
Strategies
 Initiated though compelling situations and questions
 Instruction puts emphasis on meaningful, authentic
activities; focus on identifying and solving
intellectual and/or real-world problems
 learning activities resemble ways that students will
use knowledge and skills in the real world
 Students are more motivated to engage in their
inquiry when they are able to exercise some choice
over questions and how to present their new
understandings.
Implementing Guided
Inquiry: Design
Strategies
 Attempt is made to connect with students’
background knowledge
 Instructional activities involve transforming prior
knowledge, skills, attitudes and values - higher order
thinking and critical analysis occurs throughout.
 Instructional activities enable students to develop
deep knowledge, deep understanding
 Opportunities for sustained dialogue and feedback,
opportunities for students to provide their
understanding of concepts or ideas during the
search process
Implementing Guided
Inquiry: Key Strategies
 Choice of products to show their new
understandings
 Students have opportunity to communicate and
share their new understandings
 Inquiry engages students in conflicting information
 Students are given opportunity to practice their new
skills
 inquiry learning is responsive to students’ personal,
social and cultural worlds, valuing differences and
cultivating an inclusive community
Great
Minds at
work?
Inclusiveness
Innovation
Creativity
Clarity of focus
CRITICAL
THINKING
I didn’t know that!

Questions I have???

I agree / disagree
Read
View
Listen
Connect

I wonder ….

Dealing With Conflicting
Information to Develop
Knowledge
Central
Questions
who
what
when
where
why
how
result
Source 1 eg
encycl
Source 2
eg Poor
quality web
site
Source 3 eg
High quality
web site
Source 4 eg
Newspaper
Source 5
High quality
print source
What I can
say?
Evidence for
my
statement?
Transformation of Text:
Help Organizations
The Information Base
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL
History of Organization
Vision and Goals of
Organization
Significant Achievements
Barriers
Creating the Text
Transforming the text
Transformation of Text:
Help Organizations
The Information Base
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL
Creating the Text:
Transforming the text
Synthesizing sets of
ideas into your own
words
Creating a bullet point
summary
History of Organization
Vision and Goals of
Organization
“research and action focused on preventing
and ending grave abuses of the rights to
physical and mental integrity, freedom of
conscience and expression, and freedom
from discrimination, within the context of its
work to promote all human rights”
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-indexeng
Significant Achievements
Barriers
School Librarians
Leading Learning
School librarians must be dedicated to best practice
Continuously enage in thinking about and reflecting on
effective school library practices
Translate this thinking into action to lead learning
through school libraries
Move beyond just thinking about improvement, and
taking action – implementing local strategies and
processes that contribute to a cycle of ongoing
improvement
Thinking and believing without action is pointless
The Reading - Information - Knowledge Challenge
Taking action means you are living the solution.
Not taking action means that you will be living
someone else’s dreams and someone else’s
solutions.
And someone else’s solutions may not be in
the best interest of student learning outcomes
through the school library.