Do you hear a little Bob Marley singing in your ear?!
Summer is also a time that, as a library media and technology specialist, I can reflect on my previous year: things that worked well, things that need some tweaking, and things that need to be tossed out and tried in a new way.
Having moved into the role of media and technology specialist at my current school in January, I got through the remainder of this year doing what the previous specialist had done in terms of policies. I learned the routines. I got to know the kids. I also got to know the public library staff, as my library is a partner of the public library, which means I use their circulation system and they take over the library at 2:30 each day.
Basically, I observed, learned, and some days I simply held on for dear life!
Now I get to do things the way I believe they will be done best, and I'm so excited about this!
Reading Challenge
One major initiative I want to begin is a Reading Challenge for students in grades 2-5. Grade 1 would begin their own initiative starting in January, but this would be different from the others.
Part One
This Reading Challenge would:
- Run through the media center.
- Track books students read through Google Forms.
- Use the data received by Google Forms to determine what students are participating, which grade levels are participating most, which books are the most popular.
- Offer one challenge question per month that would correlate with state standards for reading.
I have been working on the Google Forms document, and I'm getting so excited! In my mind I can see how this will be set up in the media center: one laptop so students can see the visual of how many students are participating, what grades they are in, what books they are reading. Another laptop or two so they can fill out their own reading log for the month when they come in to check out books.
Part Two
The other part of this would be the actual display set up to show students how well they are doing.
Part one of part two (if that makes sense!) is a monitor and laptop that displays results of the books read.
The second part is a bulletin board display that showcases students who have participated each month. Each student will have a book created from construction paper. For each challenge they participate in, the student will receive a sticker on the book. This way, they can monitor how many challenges they have accomplished and we can easily see how many students are participating as a whole and each month.
An incentive will be part of the challenge - students who participate and answer a certain number of challenge questions would receive an incentive. The incentive? I am still working on that! (AND am open to suggestions!)
Finally, each child, upon filling out the form, will answer the challenge question of the month. This question relates to a standard. Students will answer this question in writing in Google forms. Teachers will be able to look at their answers and we will be able to see if they understand the standard based on the answer. Along with this, I will use prompts to assist in typing the answer.
I still have some things to flesh out, but I'm so excited to see this taking shape!
Which leads me to how wonderful summer is as a teacher or other professional in the school system. You do have time to sit back, reflect, and then take those reflections to devise programming you feel will benefit your students in the upcoming year.
Which brings me to this question!
What are you working on this summer? What do you hope to implement next school year that is different from this school year?
