During the summer of 2006 35 school library media specialists in the Capital Region BOCES School Library System met for four days to construct a regional information literacy curriculum. Responding to the universal demand for information skills, literacy, and mastery of 21st Century Skills for the digital age, the teacher/librarians explored, distilled, and applied innovative, standards based models for instruction in information literacy. Motivated by the potential to improve student achievement and fueled by professional wisdom, the teacher/librarians collaboratively created a draft document with a focus on INQUIRY and LEARNING STANDARDS. Refinement and benchmarking of the draft is ongoing.
This collaborative document integrates the NYS learning standards with National Literacy Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and the New York City School Library System Information Fluency Continuum.
21 School Library Media Specialists (SLMS) from the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES School Library System collaboratively created a skills based information literacy curriculum. Closely aligned with the New York State Learning Standards and National Information Literacy Standards from the American Association of School Librarians, this K-12 skills matrix provides a platform for learning. The draft curriculum embraces the evidence from 15 state studies demonstrating the correlation between quality school library media programs and student achievement. In content and rationale, the curriculum is fundamentally a tool for instruction in information literacy. Carefully designed as context-dependent skills set and based on the Big6TM research method, the curriculum connects with all grades, all subject areas, and all learners.
This Library & Information Literacy Skills Integrated Learning Project was designed bring together classroom teachers and school library media specialists to meet the New York State Learning Standards as well as the American Association of School Librarians Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning. It is the collaboration of teachers and library media specialists that will result in the students who are successful consumers and producers of information. The Integrated Learning Project includes three parts, a Library and Information Literacy Skills Scope and Sequence, a document identifying Points of Collaboration between librarians and content area teachers, and Learning Experiences to serve as examples to aid teachers and librarians in jointly achieving their goals of meeting the NYS Learning Standards.
