Em's Ever Evolving Erudition

Scenario:   There are so many new books out there.  It can be hard to decide which books to purchase based on your budget.  As a new librarian, my mentee is learning how to make these selections.  I envision this task being an easy start to having a conversation about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion because it is direct outward for the self.  Once these topics are internalized, turning towards their own practices can be examined.    Activating and Engaging Phase To start our conversation, I would invite my mentee to reflect on their thought process when selecting books.  What resources are they using?  I would also invite a reflection on the books on display.  What was the thought process on selecting these books?  What does the librarian notice?  I would also ask about prior experience with examining identity or anti-bias type training to identify any prior knowledge.   Exploring and Discovering Phase During th...

 Here is a Infographic I designed to help guide new librarians on developing their professional goals.  Based on my reflection from earlier this year, I made sure to include visioning and advocacy as part of the process.  There are many different words used for SMART goals.  I used the ones that I've used with students before and seem to make the most sense to me.   https://create.piktochart.com/output/55311561-steps-to-goal-setting Loading...

Hiking with friends at Mt Pisgah in Lake Willoughby, VT One of my most favorite summer activities is hiking.  On nice days (and even rainy days as long as there isn't any thunder in the forecast), you can find me in the woods.  I'm normally huffing and puffing and so super sweaty, but also very lost in thought.  Sometimes I just have a song stuck in my head or thinking about the last podcast of which I've listened.  But a lot of times, I'm reflecting on the past school year.  Not intentionally, but it is just where my mind will wander.  I will be thinking about what projects went well and those that were epic fails.  Sometimes I might even laugh out loud thinking about what a student did that tickled my funny bone.  (Luckily the woods doesn't judge you).   It is during this time, that I'm beginning to think about my goals for the next year.  No, this is not the formal process of developing goals for my library or my teaching.  ...

 For my practice observation I watched a lesson from a skilled ELA teacher on the Teaching Channel. The lesson was using their social studies textbook to learn about the Lewis & Clark expedition.  The teacher was looking for students to look for evidence within the text to support a main idea.  She did this through a number of activities to gets actively engaged with the material.   To collect evidence of this observation, I used a notebook to collect running notes of what I saw and heard.  This was a little tricky for me as writing the notes required me to not give full focus to what was happening.  Some of the notes are half finished with my hope that I would understand them afterwards.  The benefit of recording the observation is being able to pause and rewind (or watch multiple times) to really observe all the interactions.  I was trying to focus on the teacher and what she was doing so I missed a lot of what the students were doing ...

As a child, listening was one of my strongest assets.  I am a strong auditory learner.  If I sat in class and listened to the teacher, I would remember what was taught.  Taking notes often distracted me and made me miss things.  When taking assessments, I could hear my teacher in my head: The exact words they said, the cadence of the speech.  When talking with friends and family, listening helped me understand them.  Often hearing the unsaid with in the conversation.  If I had taken the Effective Listening Survey when I was in high school, I believe I would have scored as a skillful listener in nearly all the sections.  Taking the survey now , shows a different story.   Two of the sections, I did fairly well:  Section A (9) and Section D (8).  The other sections, I scored quite a bit higher than the target zone:  section B (16), Section C (13), and Section E (16).  This has revealed some interesting developments in my...