The Advocate
School Library Media Activities Monthly/Volume XXIII, Number 1/September 2006
Being Heard... Advocacy + Evidence + Students = Impact!
by Debra Kay Logan
Debra Kay Logan is the library media specialist at Mount Gilead High School in Mount Gilead, OH. Logan has also worked in public, elementary, and middle school libraries. Logan served as OELMA's advocacy chair and co-chair from 2001-2006 and is the author of several professional books. Email: jd3logan@bright.net
School library media centers and library media specialists are fighting for survival at a time when educational leaders are forced to focus on high stakes testing and how to manage shrinking or inadequate budgets. A cacophony of voices cries out for the support of worthwhile and crucial programs while decision makers are faced with hard decisions that they do not want to make. Some of those educational leaders candidly admit that they are being forced to make decisions they know to be educationally unsound.
How can we library media specialists make sure that our voices are not lost in the din? How can we ensure that our messages align with the needs, goals, and objectives of decision makers? When, where, and how do we start?
Calls for advocacy are being heard by library media specialists across the country, but do we actually know what advocacy is? When we library media specialists talk about advocacy, we inevitably state that we really need to do a better job of standing up and speaking out. While this visibility is imperative, real advocacy happens when actual stakeholders are heard speaking out for our services and programs. What better group of stakeholders to speak for school library media centers than students? When these stakeholders speak, everybody listensÉincluding students.
Envision a library media center filled with freshmen working on social studies projects. In walks a class of senior government students. The freshmen immediately stop working and look to see why the seniors are lining up at the front of the room. The senior government teacher begins by asking his students if they remember doing the freshman project four years before. Students answer that they do remember the project. That question is followed by the freshman social studies teacher asking if they have used what they learned as freshmen during high school and college courses that some are currently taking. The group of seniors vigorously respond by telling how they have used what they learned and how they expect to continue using information skills and knowledge in the future. Individual seniors then cite examples of how important what they have learned in the library media center is to them. Several seniors volunteer that the freshmen need to pay attention to the library media specialist and learn what she is teaching because they need the skills.
This is advocacy. The person most surprised by this actual event was me—the library media specialist. When I started collecting student data as a tool for improving practice and developing advocacy the year before, I did not realize that the practice I was modeling would quickly become part of the culture of our library media center.
A Formula for Advocacy
School library advocacy is achieved through long-term proactive and systematic efforts to build understanding of the educational value of strong library media programs. Ultimately, advocacy is stakeholder support. When people are faced with inevitable limitations of time, effort, and funding, difficult choices have to be made. Individuals as well as groups ultimately focus on what they value rather than what we may want them to value. Meaningful advocacy, therefore, starts by asking what is important to stakeholders.
I began my advocacy efforts by asking myself what was important to teachers and administrators. Student learning, standards, and high stakes testing were issues that immediately came to my mind. Who better to tell what they learned, how that learning made a difference, and how they plan to use that learning than students?
Adding the Key Evidence
A logical approach to building support for library media programs in a data-driven decision-making system is through the use of both qualitative and quantitative data relating to the goals of the primary stakeholders. Before collecting this evidence or data, consider the kind of approach and thinking that guides backwards instructional design. First, know why the information is being collected. In other words, what are you trying to accomplish? Collecting data is not enough. This data then needs to be shared. Decide how this information will be used as well as who needs to see the evidence. With these goals in place, design a tool for collecting the type of evidence that will best demonstrate student learning and how the library media center meets student needs.
Two of my initial goals for data collection included improving my instruction and providing evidence of learning to teachers and administrators. Specifically, I hoped to influence teachers to move an instructional practice to a lower grade level. I also wanted to reinforce my instructional role to our administration. One of the ways I gathered information was by having students fill out "passports" after lessons. Passports are quick responses to two or three questions written on scraps of paper (a great use for old catalog cards). Students hand these passports to the library media specialist before leaving the library media center after a lesson. My most common passport questions are chosen from the following:
- What did you learn?
- How will you use what you learned in the future?
- How could this lesson be improved?
- What was good about the lesson?
- Do you have any questions?
I use these stacks of responses to revise and improve instruction as quickly as the next class period. Collaborating teachers can glance through the cards and are, therefore, involved in the evaluation of data and the revision of instruction. Teachers also immediately know that instructional goals are being met and sometimes even surpassed. If an administrator happens by the library media center, the cards are offered to her to peruse as time permits. An amusing card is sometimes placed on the top of the stack to be shared with an administrator for a smile at the end of a day. Administrators inevitably scan through the rest of the cards. For a more formal look at the collected data, a pile of cards is sorted and organized. Statistics are compiled and comments are collected into reports that are shared at meetings.
Extended surveys are even more impressive and can be designed to include both quantitative and/or qualitative data. Compiling the data does require more work, but the results are impressive. This compilation of data with comments about how the library media center and the library media specialist helped students is a powerful resource for dialogues with teachers and administrators. For example, when a teacher was considering cutting a library lesson after a series of snow days and delays had shortened his instructional class time by two weeks, I handed the teacher a survey opened to the section about the lesson he was considering cutting. After reading the data for a few moments, the teacher told me he would not cut any aspect of the library media activity.
While my data collection efforts immediately began to have the impact I had intended, I quickly noticed an unexpected result. When students stopped to write down what they had learned, how it helped them, and how they expected to use the information or skill in the future, student attitudes towards library media instruction improved. It was my turn to have an "aha" moment; the students' metacognition about their own learning quickly led to better understanding of and appreciation for the value of learning in the library media center. Students are not only telling their teachers, our administrators, and me what they are learning and why that learning is important, but they are also telling themselves.
Students Talking to Themselves and Each Other...
The impact of metacognition on student library perceptions provided the basis for an experiment in the library media center. Throughout both of my library degrees, I repeatedly heard from instructors that other students have the greatest influence on student selection of reading material. Consequently, I thought that it followed that they could have this same kind of influence on each other when it came to seeing the essential role of the library media center as a place for constructing knowledge. For years, we have told students that "this" is vital or "that" is critical. So, instead of my collaborating partner or me telling students that something is important, we decided to let them tell each other by using survey results.
The twelve pages of data from the surveys were divided into sections. Each table of students was handed a different section of the survey. Groups were directed to analyze the data and summarize their findings for the rest of the class. The few negative comments were clear proof that groups were reading complete, unexpurgated versions of the surveys. As the activity was introduced, students were also shown evidence of how the collected information had been used to change an aspect of the project. The teacher and I indicated that each group was to use the surveys to find strategies for successfully completing the major project that we were introducing. Students started their analysis knowing that the data could assist them with the upcoming project.
During this activity, students used the data first to read what their peers had to say and then listened to peers quoting peers. Survey results helped students see firsthand what other students thought about the library media center. Students advised each other to take advantage of the library media specialist's help. Students explained why websites needed to be evaluated and used with caution. The values of subscription databases were extolled. The advantages of recording resource information while working instead of waiting until the paper was due the next day were reinforced. Not procrastinating and asking for help were common themes. The value of the library media center and the library media specialist's instruction and assistance reverberated throughout the survey results.
The value of analyzing the responses on the surveys was readily obvious. Ninety-seven percent of the students indicated that they found the analysis project itself helpful. The remaining three percent thought it did not make a difference. No negative responses were given. One student indicated, "I thought at first it would be a waste of time, but it really helped me." Another student wrote, "Very helpful." Those same students clearly articulated the values of library media center instruction to freshmen more than a month later.
Message Received... Loud and Clear
Students analyzing student data in our library media center has expanded since our first experiments. I successfully used similar strategies with fifth grade students when I was a guest teacher for an extended project in an elementary school. Student conclusions and realizations are more meaningful than anything any adult could say. When students speak, administrators, teachers, parents, community members, and other students listen. Students are advocates who know and can clearly state why and how the library media center serves them now and prepares them for their futures.