Suggestions for Sharing Your Learning with Staff: Collaboration and Communication

             As teachers, it is so easy to become fixed in our ways and routines. We have so much to juggle each year that it is easy to do the same thing the same way each year simply to take a few things off our minds. This is nothing new. I remember being in elementary school and always checking out the art bulletin boards of each teacher in the hallways because I knew with absolute confidence that I would get to do those exact art projects when I was in that classroom in following years (because they were the same every single year). And I did.

I get it- it is WAY easier for teachers to always do the familiar things since there are a million other things to keep track of and think about. But, we also know that it isn't always what is best for students. Despite this, I’ve noticed that teachers have a tendency to resist change and new things. So, the delicate job of a TL is to support teachers in this area and help them find ways to incorporate new things into their practice without scaring them off.                      A part of this is understanding that the biggest hurdle for a TL in supporting teachers in new things or collaborations might be that teachers are worried that a new addition to their practice is going to cause them more work (Husid, 44). And for whatever reason, I’ve noticed that this hesitancy is somehow made even worse when the new thing involves technology! However, this hesitancy doesn’t always mean that staff are unwilling, just that they don’t want you to create extra work for them - so know that they are just going to need some extra support.

To that end, while I’m not in a TL position, here are the ways that I see staff at my school needing to be supported in order to try the new technologies and ideas that we are meant to curate as teacher librarians:

1. Ask for staff input (Husid, 44)

In order to be successful in any collaborative venture with staff, you need to know what they want and need (Husid, 44).

What are the primary areas that your staff want to be supported in? What do they expect that support to look like? 

Source

If staff aren't sure what they want or don't know what you can offer, you could even consider putting out a list of skills that you want or are able to support staff in and have them rank them in their order of interest for each skill
My personal favourite way to gather staff info like this has been through google forms. It is an easy way to gather information from staff (just send a link through email) and then wait for the info to come flowing in.

        If you find that this isn’t getting the staff response you’re looking for, consider that you can even incentivize the survey. Much like how Fullner suggests we can incentivize things for volunteers in the library, be aware that you may occasionally want to incentivize things for staff when you’re just starting out (39).

For example, try letting staff know that those who complete the survey will be placed into a draw for a prize at the end of the time period you want the information for. A five dollar chocolate bar or coffee gift card for a latte is going to be SO worth it if it gives you increased staff input on their wants and needs.

Source

Once you have staff input, get to work on analyzing your results. If lots of staff want support in digital literacy, or research skills, or with a specific program- move forward making a plan on how you can provide that (Husid, 44). Find commonalities in the responses where you can and consider catering to broader areas of need so that you will be able to reach more staff with less initial work on your part.

2.  Know Your Staff (Husid, 44)

When I think of the staff at my school, I have a good idea of those who are going to be more open to new ideas and suggestions vs those who are going to take a while to warm up to anything new. Start with the staff who are going to be “easier” (Husid, 43-44). Let them experience your new things and how great (and easy) collaborating with you on a new thing can be.
At some point, they’re inevitably going to mention the great new thing you did with their class to someone else, or you’ll put up a display in the hall showing that great new work and others will get curious (Burns, 11). 

The saying is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink… it's sort of the same with staff… you can lead them to new ideas, but you’re not going to force any of them to use them, at least, not effectively. 

3. Understand that you may carry the majority of the workload to start

Some (many?) staff need to be FULLY supported at the beginning of anything new to be successful. We are talking full-on support where they basically just show up and watch you do the new thing with their students (Husid, 44). We can call this collaboration if you’d like, but honestly, at the beginning it's kind of a sales pitch. 

We need to “sell” the features of the new program/idea/thing and show teachers how it works while they get to stand back and basically see what they think.
Thankfully, this stage shouldn’t last forever. As teachers see how your program supports what they indicated they wanted to work on in your staff data-collection phase, there’s an amount of buy-in that will get them wanting to ask questions and be involved (Husid, 44). There is then the opportunity to scaffold in gradual release of responsibility for that teacher- just like we do with students (I do, we do, you do) (Heick). These stages might go quickly, or they might take a while. Just like our students, not all teachers are going to move through the release of responsibility at the same pace. For some teachers, you may be in that “we do” stage of togetherness for a while- so be prepared to support for the long haul

Source

4. Provide professional development opportunities (outside of your collaboration slots) (Burns, 10).

   

   Source

This is a great way to gather interest for future collaborations, teach staff those specific skills they are asking for, reach a broader crowd of staff and assert your ability to work as a leader within your school (Burns, 10). 

Ways that I’ve supported staff in professional development in the past (as just a classroom teacher) have been through:

1. Learning Lunches

 Learning lunches are great because they’re bite sized pro-d, they don’t eat too much into anyone’s personal time (since teachers are going to be at school during lunch anyways), and you can offer multiple sessions to cater to different levels of teacher need.
One example of me using a learning lunch as a pro-d for staff was setting up and leading a learning lunch on using and creating google forms.
Our teaching staff was gearing up for parent-teacher conferences and reached out saying that they wanted an easy way to send out their conference info to families that allowed them to organize a schedule. I was able to offer a learning lunch specifically focused on creating a google form that they could send to families for their parent-teacher conferencing.
Understanding that collaboration works best when we are prepared, I had a template ready, shared it out with teachers, and then invited any teachers who needed help using the features of google forms to edit that template for their needs to a learning lunch (Husid, 44). This worked twofold in that it let me know who was able to use the template without my help, and it let me really focus in my support on those who needed it. 

Once everyone arrived to the learning lunch, I was able to walk everyone through the process step-by-step, and all the teachers left with a survey they could send out (and knew how to send out). I encouraged anyone who needed further support with this to reach out to me. It worked out great and my impression was that people left feeling pretty satisfied! I did troubleshoot with a few people thereafter who reached out, and that was great too.

2. Staff meeting presentations

This one is a bit trickier, since not everyone is necessarily going to be interested and on board immediately. If you’re going to present to staff to get everyone on board with a new program or idea, the best way might be to show them a tangible example of what you are talking about and can do if possible, or a concrete plan of action and support. This might mean piloting it with a teacher individually first so that you have some tangible evidence to show at the staff meeting (Husid, 44). They say actions speak louder than words, and for teachers, seeing a program in action or seeing tangible artifacts of work is going to make all the difference (Husid, 44). That way, you’re not just all talk. 

3. Videos on using new tech
   This is something that can be both a huge time saver for you, and a huge convenience for teachers. Putting together small how-to guides on FAQ for tech especially can be massively useful. I know our district has put out guides on how to use things like MyEd reporting and I use them EVERY term. And not even all of these are videos, some are just documents with great pictures laying out how to do things.
   If you notice people are repeatedly approaching you to ask the same question about a specific thing or program, that is a good indication that it is a great time to make a video and store it on an accessible space (like on a document in a staff google drive). That way, people can simply access the information that they’re looking for at any time.
   Similarly, I know that we have schools in our district that have implemented this not just as staff professional development, but as learning opportunities for students. Students work with library staff to make “tech-check” videos that remind other students (and staff?!) how to care for technology around their school that can be accessed through the school website. They cover things like how to properly plug in an ipad, how to turn iPads off, etc. A great twist on professional development! Here is episode one, on plugging in an iPad! (I tried to add it in as a direct video, but the file is too large unfortunately!).

4. School wide projects and initiatives
   I think that this can be great for either growing interest in a topic that staff are not aware of, or for celebrating growth of learning throughout the year- or both (do one in first term and one in June on the same topic)!  It also has the potential to revitalize projects that have perhaps lost momentum or steam as the year progresses.
   For this, I think the most important piece is recognizing again that staff aren’t going to participate in these if you make it added-work for them- so make it easy.
   For example, send out a package of activities for primary and intermediate teachers, during student library time pick books or teach mini lessons related to your topic, and/or have fun challenges that acknowledge teachers and students’ fun competitive spirits or prizes that assist you with buy-in. 
   Basically, be ready to take this on as your baby, since it is likely that in order for it to run successfully, you will need to do all (or a lot of) the legwork to make it fun and engaging for everyone
   Of course, you should also always ask for teacher input on how they think it can or should be done, and work with teachers to make those ideas possibilities (even better if  they are keen to support), but understand that it might also be a bit of a one-man show situation depending on what your staff are like!

Whew! Okay, that is a lot of thoughts on how to bring things to staff (sorry!!). But I think that is because there are so many different ways to bring new things to staff to motivate them to engage with material and use it- and it just isn't a one size fits all situation for introducing all things.

If you have amazing ideas, but no one is going to use them, it really doesn’t do anyone any good. So I would say more than half the battle is figuring out how your staff responds to you presenting new things and capitalizing on the ways that incite excitement and interest in your staff vs inaction and indifference. 

Ideas only work if people ultimately want to work on them with you 🙂 

Source

I hope when I am in a TL position one day that I will be able to curate positive relationships with staff, meet their needs, and find ways to share innovations with them through these strategies (and more as a I learn along the way). 

Works Cited

Burns, E. A. (2018). Advocating for Change in School Library Perceptions. Teacher Librarian,   46, 8-14 

Fullner, S. (2004). Perks, Rewards and Glory: The Care and Feeding of Volunteers. Library Media Connection, 22(4), 38-39.  

Heick, Terry. “The Gradual Release Of Responsibility Model In 6 Simple Words”. TeachThought, 28 February, 2021, www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/gradual-release-responsibility/.

Husid, W. (2013). Collaboration: Make It Happen in Your School. Library Media Connection,31(4), 42–44

NSMS Digital Literacy. “Tech Check”. School District 63, 14, February, 2023, sites.google.com/sd63.bc.ca/nsms-digitalliteracy/tech-check.