Stephanie Turner

Professional Development Assignment

LIS 693
October 21st, 2016

In addition to a new administration, Mineral Springs Middle School hired twenty new

staff members this year. Many of the new hires are teachers, and several of those are either lateral

entry, or first year teachers. During faculty meetings, it became apparent through casual

conversation that the new teachers were unfamiliar with the services the media center could

provide.

For this professional development assignment, I chose to attend PLTs so that I could

meet with small groups that include the curriculum coordinator, and one to two teachers.

PLT Lesson Plan for new teachers:

Time: About 15-20 minutes

Equipment needed: Overhead projector with internet access. Teachers will have their laptops.

5-7 minutes: Introduction to media center, that includes the fixed-flex schedule, list of equipment
available for classroom checkout use (Chromebook cart, iPad cart, cameras etc.) and laminating
schedule. It is also noted that the media center keeps a variety of art supplies such as poster
paper, markers, colored pencils, and gel pens.

5 minutes: Overview of the schools magnet theme, with ideas on how to infuse lesson plans
with art projects that complement the curriculum.

7-10 minutes: Media Coordinator demonstrates the desktop icon for Destiny, and gives a brief
overview of links on front page, and databases such as Web Path Express. It is noted that
teachers should send links they wish to use for research purposes, making it faster for students to
be able to access websites, and switch to independent research easily.

1. - Turner
Reflection:

Attending PLTs with the school curriculum coordinator is one of my favorite ways to

both get to know teachers, and has helped me familiarize myself with the curriculum standards.

It is easier to create a dialog about collaboration in a small, informal setting, rather than in a

large faculty meeting. Destiny instruction is much easier to tailor to one subject, rather than

randomly choosing a subject that participants might not be interested in.

2. - Turner
 This year, I chose to do several short media center introductions at the PLTs at the

beginning of the year. Many of the new teachers at Mineral Springs are either lateral entry, and

unsure of the media center role in the school, or new teachers. As the media coordinator, a large

part of my job is distributing technology to the classrooms, including the teachers laptops issued

by the county. Informal conversations led me to believe that the new hires had very little, or no

experience with school media centers, and all they offer.

Since Mineral Springs is such a small school, oftentimes colleagues speak to each other

in person, or on the phone rather than email. However, I do ask that teachers that are requesting

weblinks to be added to Destiny email me the request with the link. I also ask for technology

requests (the computer room, Chromebook checkout) to be emailed also.

Reflecting on the PLTs I attended this year, there are some things I would do differently

next year. I did not have handouts this year, other than sample lesson plans. I would like to create

a simple brochure for the media center with the media center that has basic information on it

such as how to schedule technology checkout, and days my assistant and I laminate. I also did

not cover media center policies, such as class control, or food and drinks. Those topics are

usually covered when I introduce the students at the beginning of the year, and are reinforced

throughout the year, however I realized that the teachers did not know about the policies either.

The informality of the PLTs work very well with small groups. Guiding them to look at

the Destiny website works much better than a lengthy power point in a large group setting.

Within a day or two of meeting with the 6th grade science teacher, and curriculum coordinator, I

was asked to include links on the front page of Destiny.

3. - Turner
I spend several hours during the year to ensure that the teacher curated links work, or that links

that are no longer used are removed.

4. - Turner
 One important topic that I neglected in PLTs this year was copyright law. Last year, I

used a power point created for media coordinators in Winston-Salem by Jackie Pierson. It is a

wonderful power point, packed with information, but was too lengthy to use during my short

introduction presentation. Over the summer, I would like to create a shorter one that can be

covered in less time. This year an interesting copyright question arose when the 8th grade ELA

teachers asked for class sets of Animal Farm. The book is in the public domain in New Zealand

already, and therefore, it is easy to find full text versions online. However, in the US, it still falls

under the original copyright. I had to explain that the public domain laws are different in country,

and teachers would still be in violation in the US. I feel that will increasingly be an issue for

media coordinators as more students and teachers will be using electronic devices in the

classroom.

Teachers that attended the first PLT sessions were asked to fill out a very brief

survey. Since these sessions were at the beginning of the year, I chose to hand out paper copies,

rather than overwhelm them with another google survey and email. Only one teacher did not

complete the survey. Six teachers responded, with five agreeing strongly that the information

presented was relevant to the curriculum. While all agreed that they would use ideas presented

during the PLT, only two have, but three ELA teachers would like to do an art concrete poetry

lesson in the next few weeks. Most importantly to me were the comments in the section asking

what the teachers would like; one of the ELA teachers made a specific request about class set

novels that I filled. All the teachers have contacted me for help with Destiny links.

These are photos taken during the 6th grade science class on states of matter. The

teacher is a new graduate, and this is his first position. He was specifically interested in

incorporating art and a literary element into his lessons, as that is written into our plans at

5. - Turner
Mineral Springs. Collaborating with the art teacher, I suggested that the students choose between

online snowflakes (website found on Destiny), or physically cutting them out.

6. - Turner
 Overall, I feel that my PLT professional development sessions were successful; they led

to interesting collaboration sessions. The ELA teachers requested check out schedules, which led

to the media center changing to a fixed-flex schedule, rather than a fully flexible schedule. Every

other week, the media center had whole class checkout, followed by a flex week that teachers

used to book the media center for research and collaborative teaching. Media center usage

increased roughly fifty percent this year. More marketing with emails and handouts, and an

updated website should increase usage again next year.

7. - Turner