There was a fad almost 20 years ago to have students re-write the poem, "If I Ran the World." While this was a cute activity, I cannot say it was rigorous or aligned with standards. In fact, I dare to say...it was rather easy, self-centered, and entertaining? I actually did this after attending an elementary librarian conference where it was suggested. What were they thinking? There was no standard attached. There was no learning objective.
We teach in an age that requires us to think critically about why we are teaching what we teach.
If you see students for 45 minutes weekly, you see those students for 30 full hours annually. Ask yourself the following:
- What are your learning objectives for those hours?
- How can you support College and Career Readiness in those 30 hours?
- How can I "show" rather than "tell"?
- Have I carefully crafted lessons that are: creative, engaging, and providing skills to equip students for success? (We could teach them 30 new tech tools for "Publishing" and I would be aligned with standards....)
Wrap your head around "new standards" remembering that you can be creative with just about anything. Just weave your standard together some tech tools, valuable vocabulary, an Inquiry Investigation!
If you do not know how to align your instruction to standards and are looking for ideas, may I suggest our newly published books as pictured below. These THINK TANK books provide lesson examples for library instruction which have standards noted. Recently, I received thank-yous from librarians who took the time to email stating these Think Tank books provided just the examples they needed to understand new standards.
Available via ABC Clio - click here
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