Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

December 2004 Volume 2 (6)

School LRCs

Changing the context

The Learning Resource Centre combined forces with the Home Economics department and helped students achieve great results with information handling skills at Kirkland High School and Community College, Fife.

A modern school library resource centre must reflect the changing world around us. The old image of "a musty, dusty library"[1] hopefully by now should be left in the deep, dark distant past. Here at Kirkland High School and Community College in the east of Fife, that image has long been consigned to the proverbial dustbin.

With the excellent and constructive support from the senior management team in the school we have managed to achieve the modern equilibrium of the right investment in Information Communication Technology (ICT) and, crucially, maintaining up-to-date non-fiction book stock to supplement the Internet and CD-Rom resources. All this investment is good news for our students, despite being in an area of high social and economic disadvantage.

The LRC and Home Economics department project aims

The one thing that all school librarians need to remember is that the Library Resources Centre (LRC) is a whole school resource. Although a lot of excellent work is done with English and History for example, the very pro-active Home Economics department wanted to offer a different element to their second year (S2 or 13-14 years old students) and suggested an information handling skills programme for all of their S2 students.

This project, significantly, was placed into context. ‘Foods of the World’ might sound simple but the biggest pitfall was to try and prevent this programme from turning into a pseudo-Geography project. At the end of the project the pupils had the opportunity to cook a dish from their chosen country using ingredients that they had found out about. There were two main learning outcomes: the cross-curricular research skills and the practical home craft skills.

Information handling skills

We were conscious of the various academic models for helping us to understand information literacy. The work completed in the 1980s by Michael Marland [2]; the work of Carol Kulthau [3] and her ‘Big Six’ points; however, in the late 1990s James Herring [4] formerly of Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, outlined his ‘PLUS’ model (Purpose/ Location/ Use/ Synthesis). This was the simplest of models with which to conceptualise what we were trying to achieve.

In order for every student to understand the aims of the project the purpose had to be explained carefully and outlined by the classroom teacher. The basic aim was to investigate foods within context, i.e. the specific chosen country of the student. It was equally important for students to recognise the format of their project – in our case we wanted a title page, contents page, main body and bibliography.

The next phase of the programme was that once you know where you are going and what country you are going to study, location is important. The obvious answer: an accessible, well-resourced and appropriately stocked school library resource centre.

Every librarian should have a good induction process for using the library, but it does not do any harm to talk about the resources to hand in the library and ask the students about the characteristics of the resources – does it have a contents page, think about key words if using the Internet and CD-Roms etc. This reinforcement keeps the students on task when using the different resources.

As all classes were mixed ability this meant that certain key educational learning issues had to be addressed. Some of the students required additional help from the Learning Services team or the Behavioural Support Centre. The National Priorities in Scottish Education are (1) Achievement and Attainment; (2) Framework for Learning; (3 )Inclusion and Equality; (4) Values and Citizenship; and (5) Learning for Life [5]. From the librarian’s perspective this did mean that, initially, additional resources had to be found that were appropriate to all reading and comprehension levels either from purchasing them or to using the Schools Library Service.

Resources

The resources used were varied and instruction was carried out on using the different types. Everyone’s favourite was using the ICT facilities. However, the projects of the students that showed in-depth research proved that they had realised that a mixture of ICT, encyclopaedic, and other non-fiction resources such as cooking magazines were needed to be successful.

The library, which is long and rectangular in shape, has 12 Dell PCs, eight Dell laptops, an Opac and a dedicated careers PC. It has a total capacity of 72 people and allows the librarian to offer a range of services. It has bookstock of 5,500.

The list of websites that can support this activity is far too numerous to list. For recipes, however, we found both the Yahoo! Search Engine [6] and the BBC website [7] useful. The library is well stocked with books about traditions and festivals but the singular most useful resource for us was the Dorling Kindersley Travel Guides series [8]. They are colourful, easy to follow, and importantly, the chapters look at regional food specialities. These books are kept in the library’s reference section.

In terms of cost, the library’s budget and the Home Economics department’s budget catered for the LaserJet ink cartridge costs and other peripherals. Both departments have a small budget to manage for each financial year; given UK public sector finances at the moment our skills as managers are being tested to the full in order to make best use (Best Value in Fife Council speak) of the budgets. From the librarian’s point of view the best resources to buy have the element of the cross-curricular; and the DK Travel series fits nicely into this category. We can only add countries to our holdings slowly due to the cost. Although it benefited Home Economics initially, other subject classes shared these resources for other projects.

Synthesis

The final stage of the project is to pull together all of the information that had been accumulated. Using the proforma guide provided by the teacher to help collate the information, the students had a basis for deciding what is relevant for their project and what is irrelevant. The decision process, already stated in the USE stage, is taken one step further in the synthesis stage. Additional unwanted information would be filtered out and the result should be a comprehensive piece of work. It is also useful to note that for some students a project board as an end result may be more suitable. This board could result in a poster as an end product and so allows students of all abilities to participate.

Our results

We found that the vast majority of our pupils rose to the challenge. Many produced excellent work, and in the context of the 5-14 education framework fulfilled the objectives asked of them. From a teaching perspective the use of ICT as a teaching tool was achieved as was group/ and or individual work; and from the librarian’s point of view the effective use of information handling skills. The project also allowed students the opportunity to be motivated in taking an element of control for their own learning; for example, they chose their countries. It was noticeable that noise levels did not significantly increase at all in the library, as the students were interested and motivated by the challenge that had been set. The only significant pitfall was over-zealous printing at times. However, this was remedied with a ‘No-printing’ message to everyone until it was permitted by the classroom teacher or librarian.

Conclusion

Partnership and inter-department co-operation are two themes that crop up time and time again in education. The single most valuable aspect is that the librarian is accessible and is willing to be motivated by a different context. The library, as already stressed, is, after all, a whole school resource. At the same time, the Home Economics team at Kirkland has the vision to see a wider context beyond the confines of the classroom. Change the context: be different.

This article was written by staff at Kirkland High School and Community College, Fife: Mark R Russell (Librarian); Angela Duncan (PT Home Economics); Rena Mann (Home Economics teacher); and Jane Gorman (Home Economics teacher)

References

1. Comment attributed to Mr Iain White, Head Teacher of Govan High School, Glasgow at the School Library Association in Scotland Training Day, Stirling, Thursday, 26 February 2004.

2. Michael Marland ‘Information skills in the secondary curriculum’. In Schools Council Curriculum Bulletin; 9, (1981). Methuen Educational.

3. Carol Kultahau

4. James Herring. Teaching Information Skills in Schools. Library Association Publishing, 1996.

5. Scottish Executive Education Department www.scotland.gov.uk/education/nationalpriorities/

6. www.yahoo.co.uk

7. www.bbc.co.uk/food

8. www.dk.com

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (6) December 2004

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.

Last updated: 2 February 2005