Episode 601: Working With Teachers - Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange

Episode 601 Working With Teachers graphic

We are so happy to be with you again, as we start Season Six of Linking Our Libraries!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange. Our members are libraries of all sorts: public, schools, academics, special libraries, archives, and history centers. Join us in working thorough skills library staffers can use to be more successful in their work!

This week we will work through one of the most important skills for a school library or media center staffer: connecting your services with the teachers in your school. Even if you are not in a school library right now, these partnership skills will always be useful in connecting with your community members and stakeholders.

Our Guest Host this week is Amy Moe, who can share her experience and suggestions on this topic from her time as an Instructional Technology Specialist at Pine Meadow Elementary school!

If you want a one-hour CE/PD certificate on this topic, you can finish our short course here.

The Basics:

We are going to spend a lot of time this season talking to all kinds of people doing all sorts of interesting things in school, who are more or less connected with the library. And one thing we have discovered as we talk to our 200-ish school library members across 12 counties is that everyone has their own vocabulary and focus on things that are important in an individual school. Add in the challenge of making sweeping generalizations about people working effectively with kindergarteners, fifth graders, and seniors in high school, and you see how things can get complicated.

So we are going to use some basic terms: school library or media center, school library staffer, and other general words. If your school, or the school in your community, uses different terms to describe “that place where they keep books and computers” – great. If you have different words to describe “people who help students connect with information” – great, use those.

We think that overall all these people have a lot more in common than the small things that are individually different, so we present information that we anticipate anyone will be able to use and apply.

Schools are set up to provide all kinds of resources to help kids achieve good results in their learning. And one of the important resources is someone in the school library. We really encourage everyone to be proactive in connecting to teachers and others in the community, and we have some tips to help you get started!

Reach out to teachers to introduce yourself to anyone you don’t already know; email is an easy way to connect and it gives everyone an easy way to find you later
- Don’t just say “Can I help you?” because that answer is usually No. Instead, offer some specifics: Would you be interested in a visit from a librarian for a special storytime and activity or craft for your classes? Would you be interested in a class visit from the library with makerspace items X and X?
Go where the teachers are! Eat with teachers in the lounge, chat in the hallways. If they don’t see you, they won’t remember you are there with all your great stuff.
Be active in connecting the materials in your library to the needs of the classroom. If a class is working on fractions, find the fraction books in your library, look for fraction websites, or share fraction blocks or other items students can use
Tell people about the things libraries can do for students: information literacy training, about copyright and good citations, about freedom to read ideas – anything that might be useful.
Develop programs that can fit into the curriculum, and help to meet the overall goals of the school. Starting things like book groups, poetry slams, coding practice, tech tools petting zoo, “baby showers” for new books or materials, or other fun things can help connect even reluctant readers with the good things you provide!

Resources for you to consult:

Books Read

And now we have one of our favorite parts of each episode: sharing books! Each of us will share a book we are reading. Links to each book will be on our show notes page, with a link to Amazon.com. If you buy a nice book – or anything else – Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits. Thanks in advance!!