Successful launch of Grade 9 Project

After months of research and planning, and a little bit of anxiety, I launched the grade 9 project with the students today.  It seemed successful!  At least there were no melt down during the introduction and the brainstorming session afterwards.  I suppose as always, time will tell.  I did see worried faces when I told them that the Human library presentation slot would be 20 minutes long but they were reassured when we reminded them that a Human Library 'reading' involves conversation among the participants.

I must say a big THANK YOU to Kadri Tomson at the International School of Estonia for inspiring me to do this!

Today we gave a presentation to our grade 9s and handed out the following information to accompany the presentation:

If I Were a Book?

If I were a book, what would my subject be?

If I were a book, what would I look like?

If I were a “human” book, how would I present my book to my readers?

These are three questions that each person will be answering over the course of the next few months, culminating in the presentation by each person in grade 9 of their ‘human book’, as part of the ACS Egham First Annual Human Library Project​.

What is a Human Library?

“Just like in a real library, a visitor to the Human Library can choose a Book from a range of titles. The difference is that Books are people, and reading is a conversation…
The Human Library was created for the 2000 Roskilde Music Festival by a group of Danish activists who formed in response to a violent hate crime. Their idea was to use the language and mechanism of a library to facilitate conversations that challenge prejudice, thereby reducing the risk of tension and violence. From a base in Copenhagen the creators and founders of the Human Library Organisation have helped the movement to grow steadily across the world, and it is currently active in over 60
countries. The movement is growing!” (Human Library UK)


What will our Human Library be like?

1. Our library and books will be different from the one described above, in that our books will be about something that we are passionate about or have a keen interest in. Otherwise, it will be very similar.
2. Each person will be conduct research and create a 20 minute oral presentation based on their passion or interest.
3. A ‘blurb’ about your book will form part of the library catalogue, which will be given to the ‘readers’ to choose from.
4. On the day of the Human Library, you will be borrowed by at least 3 ‘readers’ at a time. These ‘Readers’ will come from various parts of the ACS Egham community, and will include one grade 9 student per book. In other words, one of your classmates will be one of your readers.
5. To assist our ‘books’ in improving for their next ‘edition’, readers will be asked to write a short ‘book review’, which will be shared with the ‘books’.


How will I prepare for the Human Library?

1) The majority of work will be done during your Study Skills Classes.

What will this preparation consist of?

1. Through the preparation stage of our project, you will have the opportunity to develop and refine your skills through weekly workshops in three particular areas: project management, communications and research.
2. Workshops and activities will include:
i. organising time allocation for each stage of the process;
ii. preparing and delivering an oral presentation;
iii. negotiating the ACS library online catalogue, databases and search engines to find information; using search tools such as keywords, boolean operators, and advanced search tools;
iv. Developing various skills for academic writing such as: note taking; paraphrasing, summary and referencing;
v. Collaborating with other students as ‘study buddies’ or as peer reviewers;
vi. Self assessment;
vii. Oral presentation skills.
 3. The preparation stage will also include:
 i. Time to carry out your research
 ii. Time to practice your presentation

How will I be assessed?

1. Study Skills receives a pass/fail grade.
2. You will receive feedback from their peer reviewers throughout the preparation stage.
3. You will also receive feedback from your ‘readers’ after the Human Library presentation.
4. Finally, you will have opportunities to self assess throughout the process and after the presentation

After this presentation we broke up into groups and started an activity to help students identify their interests, and perhaps their passions.

They worked on it by themselves to start with and then shared with a partner. After that, students shared with another pair. We only had 7 pairs so Alicia, one of the other study skills teachers, and I joined in. Finally, we had one of the pairs at each table of 4 move to another table, and this included Alicia and I. Thus we were able to talk with most of the students. It was interesting to see the difference among them. Some had filled their paper, others had little on them. Dianne McKenzie said that when she did a "My Passion" activity, a lot of work was necessary to get students to the point of identifying something they were passionate about. I can see that we will probably face the same hurdle!

If you are interested in looking at the google doc of the outline of the unit to date, please follow this link. I would greatly appreciate feedback.

The Project Begins

In November of 2015, I went to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) conference in Columbus, Ohio.  Before going I had signed up for a pre-conference workshop on guided inquiry and the humanities project.  After attending the workshop, I spent the rest of my time at any workshop or session relating to guided inquiry or research.  This was the catalyst which eventually led to the decision to try a project in grade 9 study skills, which would allow us to embed a number of skills, which are taught through stand alone lessons at the moment.  This workshop and the subsequent ones at AASL, also led me to reevaluate all my suppositions on the research process.

This is where I'm at today.  I had already come to the conclusion that we are teaching research skills ineffectively.  At the moment I try to fill in the 'blanks' and model to teachers during class visits to the library, for a research introduction, at the beginning of a particular unit or project.  I use LibGuides as a pathfinder for topics, and include in them Internet resources, links to the best of our databases for the topic, instruction via google slides on the use of the library catalog, Noodletools and citation, links to other libraries, etc.  

For two years I have been working with students on key words/search terms for their particular topic and other search assistance for using databases and search engines.  My students are fully briefed in the correct answers to questions, such as the optimum number of key words to use in any search.  Do they follow that advice in their own research?  No, or at least not enough of them to make a noticeable difference.  In fact they are aware of all the advice but continue in their old ways, habits established in primary school.  To add to the mix, is the fact that many of the teachers I work with, have little or no understanding of how to effectively research or to use the Internet to find information.   Therefore they are unable to model the process for their students.

We are a full IB school and approaches to learning should be at the centre of what we do. We talk a lot about the ATLs and ensure that they are in our unit planners but something is obviously not working out as it should.  A few years ago, we introduced a 'study skills' course in grades 9 and 10 (last two years of MYP) to make sure that students did have the necessary skills, such as time management, exam preparation, note taking, etc.  They should have acquired these in the years preceding but haven't.  My feeling is that teachers find that teaching the content and skills of their subject and all that that entails, is time consuming enough.   They simply don't have the time, energy or knowledge to come up with activities to embed in their curriculum which will ensure that the ATLs are taught effectively.

So where do we go from here?  I have some answers to that question, which I will pursue in subsequent posts.