The Fosil Group

IASL / IFLA School Libraries | Global Action for School Libraries on Models of Inquiry in the Digital Age
2022-07-23 09:00 - 16:30 (Europe/London) | CCT College Dublin, 30-34 Westmoreland St, Dublin, Ireland
IFLA School Libraries is offering a full-day workshop on July 23, 2022, in conjunction with IFLA’s World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland. The registration for this event, which is being held at CCT College, Dublin, is a very reasonable 30 euros, which includes coffee/tea, pastries and a hot lunch at the five-star Westin Hotel.
The Satellite Meeting, Global Action for School Libraries on Models of Inquiry in the Digital Age, focuses on the instructional role of the school librarian, especially related to inquiry-based learning. It will feature presentations and roundtable sessions with international authors involved in a forthcoming book, co-sponsored by IASL and IFLA School Libraries.
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9:00 | Registration Opens | Tea, coffee, and pastries on arrival
9.30 | Welcome | Valerie Glass (France) and Melissa Johnston (USA)

Introduction of Section Committee members present

10:00 | Overview of the day’s agenda | Barbara Schultz-Jones (USA) and Dianne Oberg (Canada)

Overview of the models of inquiry book project — introduction of contributors.
Overview of research underpinning the models of inquiry — the big ideas
Why models of inquiry are important in teaching and learning

11: 00 | Coffee/tea break
11:30 | Three Models of Inquiry | FOSIL | Darryl Toerien (UK) | Guided Inquiry Design | Buffy Edwards (USA) | Focus on Inquiry | Dianne Oberg (Canada)

Why was this instructional model chosen (or what were its roots)?
What are the strengths / special features of the model?
How has it been disseminated / shared with others?

12:00 | Questions and Answers about the models of inquiry
13:00 | Lunch break
14:15 | Roundtables (20-minutes sessions – three choices for each participant)

Deep Collaboration by Teacher and Librarian to Develop an Inquiry Mindset | Darryl Toerien (UK)
Inquiry Learning Initiatives in Japan | Yumiko Kasai, Yoko Noborimoto, and Shiori Ito (Japan)
Using the Document de Collecte Collection Document with French Secondary Students / Valerie Glass (France)
Curiosity, Conversation, and Connection Through Guided Inquiry Design | Jenna Nemec-Loise (USA)
Public School Libraries in Inquiry-Based Learning in Japan | Rei Iwasaki and Mutsumi Ohira (Japan)

15:15 – 16:00 | Sharing of highlights, questions to presenters | Barbara Schultz-Jones (USA)
16:00 – 16:30 | Farewell, invitations to the rest of the conference, special events | Valerie Glass (France) and Melissa Johnston (USA)

IFLA School Libraries Section | Midyear Meeting
2022-04-21 08:45 - 2022-04-22 13:30 | Blanchelande College
Programme

Thursday 21 April 2022 | 08:45 – 10:30 (UTC+00:00 London) | Welcome and Introductions

Welcome by Rob O’Brien (see details below)
Conceptual Design of Heroic Inquiry by Hugh Rose (see details below)

Thursday 21 April 2022 | 11:00 – 12:00 (UTC+00:00 London) | Business Meeting 1
Thursday 21 April 2022 | 13:00 – 15:00 (UTC+00:00 London) | Professional Development 1

Implementing the IFLA School Library Guidelines at Blanchelande College by Darryl Toerien (see details below)
Our Evolving Understanding of Inquiry: 1988-Present by Barbara Stripling (see details below)

Friday 22 April 2022 | 09:00 – 10:00 (UTC+00:00 London) | Business Meeting 2
Friday 22 April 2022 | 10:30 – 12:45 (UTC+00:00 London) | Professional Development 2

Curricular Inquiry: Learning Between the Library and the Classroom by Joe Sanders and Jenny Toerien (see details below)
Extracurricular Inquiry: Learning Beyond the Classroom – Lessons from the IB Diploma Programme Extended Essay and the Extended Project Qualification by Jenny Toerien (see details below)
Mapping Inquiry-Based Learning in a Dynamic Curriculum by Kevin Heppell (see details below)

Update:

All Professional Development sessions were recorded and are now available in the Forum here.

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On 21-22 April, Blanchelande College will be hosting the midyear meeting of the School Libraries Section of IFLA ahead of the 2022 World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland, from 26-29 July.
Please see below for the programme, which may also be downloaded as a PDF from here.
The programme is open and free, and we are intending to stream and record the sessions for colleagues who are not able to travel to Guernsey (details to follow).
Please contact Darryl Toerien <toeriend@blanchelande.sch.gg> with any questions.
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The School Libraries Section 2022 Midyear Meeting reflects the strategic importance and value of the following two key IFLA publications, both of which will be launched at the 2022 World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland:

The revised IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto (2022), which revitalises the principles upholding the IFLA School Library Guidelines (2015)
The latest book in the Global Action on School Libraries series, Models of Inquiry (2022), which reaffirms the centrality of inquiry to achieving our educational and moral purpose

Thursday 21 April

08.45 – 09.00 | Welcome and Introductions by Darryl Toerien, Head of Inquiry-Based Learning
09.00 – 10.30 | Welcome and tour of Blanchelande College by Rob O’Brien, Principal

Includes talk by Hugh Rose, Design Director at Blanchelande College, on conceptual design work on heroic inquiry and the Senior Library’s knowledge map (see the College Prospectus for an example of Hugh’s work on the Hero’s Journey)

10.30 – 11.00 | Refreshments (free)
11.00 – 12.00 | Business Meeting (open to observers)
12.00 – 13.00 | Lunch (free)
13.00 – 15.00 | Professional Development (open and free)

Implementing the IFLA School Library Guidelines at Blanchelande College (Darryl Toerien, Head of Inquiry-Based Learning at Blanchelande College, Originator of the FOSIL Inquiry Cycle, Elected Member of the Standing Committee of the School Libraries Section of IFLA, and Co-opted Board Member of the UK School Library Association)
Keynote – Our Evolving Understanding of Inquiry: 1988-Present (Barbara Stripling, Professor Emerita at Syracuse University, Originator of Stripling’s Model of Inquiry / the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum, and current President of the Freedom to Read Foundation)

15.00 – 15.30 | Refreshments (free)

Friday 22 April

08.45 – 09.00 | Refreshments (free)
09.00 – 10.00 | Business Meeting (open to observers)
10.00 – 10.30 | Refreshments (free)
10.30 – 12.45 | Professional Development (open and free)

Curricular Inquiry: Learning Between the Library and the Classroom (Joe Sanders, Senior Lead Practitioner and Teacher of Politics at Oakham School, and Jenny Toerien, Curriculum Librarian and Extended Project Qualification Coordinator at Blanchelande College)
Extracurricular Inquiry: Learning Beyond the Classroom – Lessons from the IB Diploma Programme Extended Essay and the Extended Project Qualification (Jenny Toerien, Curriculum Librarian and Extended Project Qualification Coordinator at Blanchelande College)
Mapping Inquiry-Based Learning in a Dynamic Curriculum (Kevin Heppell, Dynamic Curriculum Adviser at Sequential and co-creator of the Mondrian Wall)

12.45 – 13.30 | Lunch (free)

CILIP SLG Scotland | Librarians as Teachers of Sense Making Skills
2021-06-16 16:00 - 18:00
FOSIL Group member Elizabeth Hutchinson will be sharing with colleagues at a free CILIP School Libraries Group Scotland CPD event.
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Librarians as teachers of sense-making skills: Framing the learning process through FOSIL
FOSIL Group member Dr Barbara Striping, whose influential work informs the ongoing development of FOSIL, makes the point in E&L Memo 1 | Learning to know and understand through inquiry that “[John] Dewey’s recognition of the need for both content and skills provided solid justification for the role of a school librarian as a teacher of sense-making skills”.
This is important for two reasons. Firstly, it identifies the librarian as a teacher and locates them within a learning process – that of constructing knowledge and understanding from information, which is an inquiry learning process. Secondly, it identifies the specialist teaching contribution that the librarian makes to this inquiry learning process – that of enabling students to develop the skills that will empower them to learn by finding out for themselves.
This matters, because being integral to the educational process – as the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto declares in principle and the IFLA School Library Guidelines affirm in practical terms – requires becoming teachers of these sense-making skills.
Now inquiry – understood as a stance of wonder and puzzlement that gives rise to a dynamic process of coming to know and understand the world and ourselves in it as the basis for responsible participation in society – is a learning process that depends on these sense-making skills, which are metacognitive, cognitive, affective/ emotional and social. For these skills to be transformational, both inwardly and outwardly, they need to be developed systematically and progressively within a sound instructional model of the inquiry learning process, and in the context of content area teaching.
FOSIL is both such a model and a PK-12 (age 4-18) framework of these sense-making skills, along with a growing collection of graphic organizers for developing these skills within the inquiry learning process. More broadly, and through the FOSIL Group, FOSIL is also a collaborative and supportive community of inquiry. Viewed and approached in this way, FOSIL-based inquiry is an effective means for librarians to become instructional partners with their classroom colleagues to the lasting benefit of their students.
This talk will provide a background to FOSIL, an overview of the model and an exploration of how it works by way of diverse practical examples drawn from content area and extracurricular learning.

SLA | Leading School Libraries: Library, School, Sector
2021-06-12 13:45 - 14:45
FOSIL Group members Darryl Toerien and Barbara Stripling will be delivering a keynote address at the School Library Association Weekend Course 2021 – Leading School Libraries: Library, School, Sector.
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Inquiry: an educational and moral imperative
The IFLA School Library Guidelines, rooted in the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto, remind us that the school library exists to serve its educational purpose – improving teaching and learning for all – and its moral purpose – making a difference in the lives of young people. While equally important, our educational purpose forms the frontline of our struggle to secure a vital future for our libraries. In order to fulfil our educational purpose, we must actually be essential to the educational process, as both the Manifesto and Guidelines proclaim. As a student-centred educational process to which the school library is essential, inquiry not only enables us to fulfil our educational purpose, but also our moral purpose, and so becomes our educational and moral imperative.

SLANSW | Inquiry-based Teaching and Learning: A Re-imagination Journey with Dr Barbara Stripling
2021-06-05 09:00 - 11:00
FOSIL Group member Barbara Stripling will be running a workshop titled Inquiry-based Teaching and Learning: A Re-imagination Journey with Dr Barbara Stripling on 5 June from 9:00 am – 11:00 am (UTC+10:00) as part of the School Library Association of New South Wales International Speaker Series.
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Join Barbara Stripling on a journey to re-imagine inquiry-based teaching and learning through the school library. In this workshop, you will discover the reasons to move from a research process to an inquiry process, the foundations of the Stripling Model of Inquiry, and the merit of a REACTS taxonomy of creative and authentic assessment products. We will also explore the value of a comprehensive K-12 information fluency continuum that articulates Anchor Standards (Inquiry and Design Thinking, Multiple Literacies, Social and Civic Responsibility, and Personal Growth and Agency) and frames the development of students as information-fluent learners.
We will take a deep dive into the priority skills of information fluency using the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum’s (ESIFC) scope and sequence, and discover the power of graphic organizers to guide students as they learn new inquiry skills. Finally, you will be invited to start your own re-imagination journey by glimpsing Stripling’s newest areas of investigation and having an opportunity to develop your own practice in small-group collaboration with colleagues.

SLANSW | Inquiry Learning and the Teacher Librarian - the ideal and the reality
2021-05-25 19:00 - 20:00
FOSIL Group member Lee FitzGerald will be presenting Inquiry Learning and the Teacher Librarian – the ideal and the reality on 25 May from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm (UTC+10:00) as part of the School Library Association of New South Wales Professional Learning Programme.
FOSIL Group Member Darryl Toerien will be contributing Ten Provocations to Inquiry to Lee’s presentation.
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Lee FitzGerald believes that “getting real about inquiry learning” means sitting it alongside everything else that Teacher Librarians do as far as teaching and learning is concerned. TLs are responsible for so much, with their big focus on reading and literacy as well as programs like makerspaces and digital citizenship. This makes it incredibly difficult to implement and sustain an inquiry learning program in their school.
In this online meetup, Lee will consider how TLs are dealing with this – is there a need to do less in our role; is there a need to prove that we have achieved learning outcomes through our efforts; how do people prioritise the many aspects of the role, so that there is still scope for inquiry learning?
And behind that, the question – why, if we are the essential beacons of literacy and information literacy, is the role continuously under threat? Lee will be sharing some insights from Darryl Toerien, whose warning, “the hour for school libraries is late“, is a call to action for all of us.

Abu Dhabi International Book Fair | Professional Programme
2021-05-23 11:00 - 2021-05-24 14:00
FOSIL Group member Elizabeth Hutchinson will be running a 2-day accredited course at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on Sunday 23 and Monday 24 May from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm (UTC+4:00).
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Programme Details
The course will provide an understanding of how the IFLA School Library Guidelines and FOSIL can guide the work of school librarians within the curriculum.

CILIP SLG | Shaping Their Futures
2021-04-30 09:45 - 2021-05-02 15:00
FOSIL Group members Darryl Toerien, Lee FitzGerald and Olga Nesi will be delivering a keynote address at the School Libraries Group Virtual National Conference 2021 – Shaping Their Futures.
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Reading and the information-to-knowledge learning process
Balzac declared that the world belonged to him because he understood it. Understanding is not possible without knowledge, and knowledge is constructed from information. Some of our information about the world comes to us directly from experience. However, most of our information about the world, especially in the case of school, comes to us indirectly from what we read in the broadest possible sense of the term (or are told), and this is not limited to informational texts. This learning process of constructing knowledge and understanding from information, which is heavily dependent on reading, presents us with an opportunity – in that, if anything, we know something about reading – and a challenge – in that we need to broaden and deepen our understanding of the integral role of reading, and ourselves, in this learning process.
Following a brief introduction by Darryl Toerien, Head of Library at Oakham School and originator of the FOSIL Group, he will be joined by two of his colleagues from the FOSIL Group, Lee FitzGerald and Olga Nesi.
Lee is Adjunct Lecturer in Teacher Librarianship in the School of Information Studies of the Faculty of Education at Charles Sturt University, and Editor of ACCESS, the Journal of the Australian School Library Association. Lee will talk about arousing curiosity and empathy through fiction in the early stages of the inquiry learning process, as well as the need for intervention deep in the inquiry learning process when reading becomes more detailed and complex, which she will do from the perspective of Guided Inquiry Design (Carol Kuhlthau, Leslie Maniotes and Ann Caspari).
Olga is an award-winning School Librarian in the New York City Department of Education at Edward B. Shallow Junior High School. Olga will talk about questioning the text as it drives, deepens, and personalizes the inquiry experience as well as the teaching strategies, including the use of graphic organisers, that enable students to read deeply and develop new understandings through the inquiry learning process, which she will do from the perspective of the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (Barbara Stripling).

The Day | Real-World Learning Live!
2021-04-28 16:45 - 17:15
FOSIL Group members Darryl Toerien and Barbara Stripling will be running a workshop at Real-World Learning Live!, a four-day digital event presented by The Day.
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Thoughtful REACTionS to The Day: Framing Inquiry-based Learning
The widely influential Brainstorms and blueprints : teaching library research as a thinking process by Barbara Stripling and Judy Pitts, published in 1988, introduced their Taxonomy of Thoughtful Research (p. 3) and REACTS Taxonomy of Thoughtful Reactions to Research (pp. 9-10). The crucial insight of Brainstorms and blueprints is that if classroom- and library-based teachers “accept the importance of students’ thinking during research, [which students do not automatically do], then they must also accept the responsibility for teaching thinking skills” (p. 19). This, in turn, requires a “thinking frame for research, which is the research process” (p. 19). This treatment of the research process, in turn, laid the foundation for the development of Barbara’s highly influential model of the inquiry process (2003) and underlying framework of inquiry learning skills (2009, 2019), which FOSIL is based on.
From the perspective of FOSIL, which stands for Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning, and which was developed by Darryl Toerien in 2011, articles from The Day always lent themselves to thoughtful inquiry, being “news to open minds” presented thought-provoking way – the most highly-developed example of this being the Year 7 English Inquiry – Science Fictional Writing in the FOSIL Group Forums.
Some months ago Darryl was invited by Richard Addis to reflect on how the format of The Day articles might lend itself even more to an inquiry-based approach to learning across the curriculum. This period of reflection, and discussion with Barbara, produced two insights. The first, and more obvious, insight was that the steps to discovery ought to reflect the stages in the inquiry process – in this case FOSIL. The second insight, which grew out of the first, was that the Six steps to discovery, if formulated carefully, could, in the process of a well-designed inquiry, also serve to step students through the six levels of the REACTS Taxonomies.
This workshop will consist of two parts. Firstly, Darryl will share reflections on the new format of The Day articles as they relate to the inquiry process and the REACTS Taxonomies. Then, Barbara will imagine two very different teaching scenarios based around The Day, one in which severe time constraints limit inquiry to the article under discussion, and one in which more generous time constraints extend inquiry well beyond the article under discussion.

ASLA in partnership with SLASA | Keys to Learning
2021-04-12 10:00 - 2021-04-13 17:00
FOSIL Group member Elizabeth Hutchinson will be delivering the opening keynote address at the Australian School Library Association 2021 Virtual National Conference – Keys to Learning – held in partnership with the School Library Association of South Australia.
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Thinking and Acting in a Global Village: A Story in Three Parts
The IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto declares that “school library is integral to the educational process”. This, however, is not the day-to-day experience of many, if not most, school librarians around the world, or their classroom colleagues. There are many and varied reasons for this, which the Manifesto addresses in principle. The IFLA School Library Guidelines, which translate the principles of the Manifesto into practical terms, describe the conditions necessary for the school library to be integral to the educational process, key to which is a well-trained and highly motivated staff in sufficient numbers – professional and paraprofessional – according to the size of the school and its unique needs. Appropriate library staffing is, then, essential for an effective pedagogical program that frames learning through an inquiry process, such as FOSIL, which is based on the work of Dr Barbara Stripling as reflected in the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum. FOSIL, then, is both a model of the inquiry process and a means for collaboratively structuring teaching around a framework/ continuum of the literacy, inquiry, critical thinking, and technology skills that students must develop at each phase of the inquiry process over their years of school and in the context of subject/ content area learning. This session explores the convergence of the IFLA School Library Guidelines and FOSIL in the Great School Libraries campaign, a joint initiative of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), CILIP’s School Libraries Group and the School Library Association.

UKEdChat | UKEdChat 2021 Online Conference
2021-04-06 - 2021-04-08
FOSIL Group member Elizabeth Hutchinson will be presenting at the UKEdChat 2021 Online Conference.
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The academic value of the school library in inquiry learning
Inquiry learning empowers students to become independent learners and critical thinkers. Collaboration between the school librarian and teachers not only provides students with access to quality resources but also introduces them to the set of skills needed to engage with the world beyond school. I will discuss how the process of inquiry supports students to develop self-confidence, voice and agency and how an inquiry framework enables students to learn these skills throughout their time at school.

Lebanese Library Association | Online Education: What Librarians Need to Know
2020-12-03 16:00 - 18:00
FOSIL Group member Darryl Toerien will be presenting The Pandemic as a Portal to an Online Mindset at the Lebanese Library Association’s 2020 Webinar Series.

Elizabeth Hutchinson | Working with FOSIL: Approaching and working with teachers using FOSIL
2020-11-17 09:30 - 12:00
This session will be looking at how to actually get started in approaching teachers with the knowledge you now have about FOSIL.
This small group session (maximum 10 people) will help you open conversation with teachers, starting with the desired student outcomes and working towards an inquiry question using the FOSIL cycle.

Elizabeth Hutchinson | Working with FOSIL: Approaching and working with teachers using FOSIL
2020-11-10 09:30 - 12:00
This session will be looking at how to actually get started in approaching teachers with the knowledge you now have about FOSIL.
This small group session (maximum 10 people) will help you open conversation with teachers, starting with the desired student outcomes and working towards an inquiry question using the FOSIL cycle.
This session will be repeated on 17 November 2020.

Elizabeth Hutchinson | Working with FOSIL: Approaching and working with teachers using FOSIL
2020-11-02 09:30 - 12:00
This session will be looking at how to actually get started in approaching teachers with the knowledge you now have about FOSIL.
This small group session (maximum 10 people) will help you open conversation with teachers, starting with the desired student outcomes and working towards an inquiry question using the FOSIL cycle.
This session will be repeated on 10 November and 17 November 2020.

SLA | Working with teachers – a collaborative experience
2020-10-14 15:30 - 16:30
As part of her SLA webinar, Emma Wallace, Senior Librarian at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, London, will talk about the benefits of using a framework of inquiry to work with teachers across different disciplines, providing a structure to lessons and the skills taught.

Caravan of Knowledge – STEM through PBL
2020-08-17 08:00 - 2020-08-21 18:00
Elizabeth Hutchinson will be delivering FOSIL (Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning) An approach to learning through Inquiry on Tuesday 17 and Friday 21 August.
This special event occurs in Kazakhstan to support innovative practices in teaching and learning. Through this event, teachers from all over Kazakhstan are exploring and planning ways to implement powerful practices that bring alive STEM and Project Based Learning experiences so that students build agency skills and take the lead in their learning.
Abstract
Inquiry-based learning supports independence and critical thinking, but without a process to ensure our students have learnt the practical skills in a structured way it is like asking them to run before they can walk. FOSIL is a well researched and used model of the inquiry process that provides a practical and usable inquiry-based learning model for all year groups and subjects. In this session, we will unpack FOSIL as an approach to learning, demonstrating how the different stages work whilst giving you access to resources and practical ideas to get you started.

Professional Development for Teachers from the School Library
2020-08-03 10:00 - 11:00
This online session will explore the important role of school library staff in providing informal professional development for teachers.
By the end of the session, attendees will have had the opportunity to:

Understand how professional development for teachers fits into the IFLA School Library Guidelines.

Consider and understand your expertise in providing informal professional development for teachers.

Explore how you can work with teachers through working as a partner in learning.

Leave with some ideas to get you started.

The Value Added School Librarian
2020-07-29 09:00 - 13:15
The IFLA School Library Guidelines are clear that without a pedagogical program – a planned, comprehensive offering of teaching and learning activities – a qualified school library professional, which is the most critical condition for an effective school library program, will not be able to have the kind of positive impact on teaching and learning that the research demonstrates is possible.
The Guidelines outline five core activities of the library’s pedagogical program:

Literacy and reading promotion
Media and information literacy instruction
Inquiry-based teaching and learning
Technology integration
Professional development for teachers

This webinar reflects on these five core activities.

09.00 : Login
09.05 : Welcome: Caroline Roche, SLG Chair
09.10 : Introducing the IFLA School Library Guidelines – Darryl Toerien, Oakham School and SLG Representative on IFLA School Libraries Section Standing Committee
09.25 : Literacy & Reading Promotion: Reading for Learning – Alice Visser–Furay Literacy Coordinator & Reading Intervention Specialist, King Alfred’s Academy, Wantage
09.55 : Media & Information Literacy – Cathal Coyle, Librarian, St Patrick’s College, Dungannon, County Tyrone
10.25 : Inquiry-based Learning Models – Elizabeth Hutchinson, Adviser & Trainer for School Libraries & Sue Bussey, Library Resource Manager, Derby High School
10.55 : Coffee and brain break
11.15 : Technology Integration – Sarah Pavey, Independent Consultant & Trainer, SP4IL
11.45 : Professional Development for Teachers – Chris Foster, Head of Student Research & Teacher of Chemistry, Oakham School
12.15 : Looking Forwards from the IFLA School Library Guidelines – Dianne Oberg, Professor Emerita, University of Alberta and co-editor of the Guidelines
13.00 : Conclusion, Take the Pledge – Caroline Roche & Elizabeth Hutchinson
13.15 : END

Warwickshire Schools Library Service | Secondary Network Meeting and Training
2020-06-25 10:00 - 12:00
David Deutsch said that in a world where knowledge is growing exponentially, the tools for acquiring and interpreting that knowledge must be at least as important as the actual knowledge itself.
This growing challenge for schools is an unprecedented opportunity for school librarians, provided that we are familiar with the tools for acquiring and interpreting knowledge.
FOSIL is such a tool.
FOSIL is a model of the inquiry process and an underlying continuum of inquiry skills, which includes information literacy skills, stretching from Early Years through to Year 13. It was adopted in 2012 and is based on the exemplary Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (2009/2012, 2019), which serves 3.2 million students in 4,236 schools in New York State alone. FOSIL is also at the centre of The FOSIL Group, a growing community of mainly teachers and librarians – currently 151 – adapting this particular tool to their specific needs.
The session will provide an introduction to and overview of FOSIL and related resources, as well as a discussion of how FOSIL might be adapted to the specific needs of colleagues.

IFLA School Libraries Section | Midyear Meeting 2020
2020-04-01 - 2020-04-05 | Roma Tre University
Darryl will attending the midyear meeting at the Roma Tre University Department of Education Science as UK representative on the Standing Committee for School Libraries.
The theme of the meeting is The Evolving Concept of a School Library and Its Profession.
The IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2020 is in Dublin (15-21 August), and we will specifically be discussing:

The joint conference with the Information Literacy Section, which is Perspectives on the role of information literacy education
The School Libraries Section conference, which is A focus on inquiry from the perspective of the IFLA School Library Guidelines

SLA Regional Training Course | Using Inquiry to Engage Teachers Across the Curriculum
2020-03-12 09:30 - 15:45 | City of London Freemen’s School, Ashtead Park, Ashtead, KT21 1ET, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Hutchinson will be delivering a Regional Training Course for the School Library Association.
Using Inquiry to Engage Teachers Across the Curriculum
If the workforce is to be future proofed education systems in the UK must be designed to equip everyone with strong literacy and numeracy skills, information literacy and a mind set that is flexible, creative and adaptive. – Science and Technology Committee, (HC 270) (2016-17)
One of the many roles of a school librarian is to teach Information Literacy, but knowing what this means and taking it out of the library and embedding it in the curriculum are two very different things. It can often be a struggle to get Senior Leaders or teachers to understand what this is and why this is important. This course will help you to recognise and understand the important links between inquiry as an approach to learning and information literacy. Give you the vocabulary that will support your conversations with teachers and provide you with practical ideas to create lessons that your teachers will love.
This course will:

Unpack information literacy and its links to the curriculum
Help you to understand the place and role of information literacy within inquiry
Give you ideas on how to engage teachers using your school library resources and digital tools
Help you be prepared to talk about inquiry as an approach to learning
Give you an awareness of how FOSIL (Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning) can be used to plan lessons across the curriculum

JCS 2019 | Digital Literacy in Schools: building capabilities
2019-11-29 10:30 - 2019-11-30 13:30
Darryl will be presenting Not letting the technological tail wag the educational dog: the case for a framework of inquiry skills at JCS 2019.
As Marshall McLuhan famously said, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”
This co-evolution is both inevitable and increasingly problematic – as our technologies converge on the computer, and the computer accelerates their ongoing development, so the risk of these technologies becoming ends in themselves rather than means to human ends increases.
This creates several challenges for schools, which include but are not limited to vision and strategy, initial and ongoing costs, initial and ongoing training for staff and students, and the tension between existing and emerging technologies.
Of particular interest and relevance to the themes of the Conference, and the focus of this talk, is the tension between existing and emerging technologies as they relate to skills. Given the rate of technological change, it is understandable that emerging technologies are determining the skills that need to be taught. However, this allows the tail to wag the dog.
In this talk Darryl will consider the value of a framework of inquiry skills – central to which are information literacy skills, and a growing number of which are dependent on “digital-age technologies” (Douglas Rushkoff) – to ensuring that the technological tail does not wag the educational dog.

School Library Association in the Republic of Ireland | November Conference 2019
2019-11-15 10:00 - 14:00
Darryl will be presenting on FOSIL at the SLARI Inspiration Literacy: Inquiry Based Learning and Philosophy in the Library Conference.
Seymour Papert – central to revolutions in child development, AI and computational technologies for education – highlighted that it is impossible to teach students everything that they need to know, so the best we can do is to position them where they can find out what they need to know when they need to know it. This is our increasingly urgent task, and it does not happen by chance.
The talk focuses on our efforts to reach this position by design through the development of a Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning (FOSIL). As a model of the inquiry process, FOSIL is based on the work of Barbara Stripling, but is further informed by the ground-breaking work of Carol Kuhlthau in describing the affective, cognitive and physical demands of inquiry in order to shape more effective interventions. The talk concludes with a consideration of the many and varied benefits of FOSIL, especially to students.

International Association of School Librarianship | 48th Annual Conference and the 23rd International Forum on Research on School Librarianship
2019-10-21 - 2019-10-25
Darryl will be delivering a keynote: Between the classroom and the library …
Ivan Illich argued that the principal lesson School teaches is the need to be ‘taught’.
While ‘this’ lesson may not be intentional, it is almost inevitable in an educational paradigm that is centred on ‘teaching’ rather than learning (instructionism). It is also a lesson that increasingly fails to prepare our students for the world unfolding around them.
What might an educational paradigm that is centred on ‘learning’ look like (constructionism), and what might it require of us, particularly in School?
Norman Beswick, writing about the Library-College movement that reached its apotheosis in the late 1960s, points us in the right direction – it is not the library that ‘supports’ the classroom, but the classroom that leads (or should lead) inevitably and essentially to the library. This is not to say that the library is more important than the classroom, but that the complex reality in which students have actually been positioned to find what they need to know when they need to know it (Seymour Papert) is the consequence of deliberate and effective collaboration between the classroom and the library, between teachers and librarians.
A community is the stories that it tells and the songs that it sings (Leonard Sweet). This is ‘an’ unfolding story/song about trying to locate learning in the space ‘between’ the classroom and the library.

CILIP School Libraries Group AGM and Training Day | The Power of Us: The Many Roles of School Librarians
2019-10-18
Darryl will be presenting on The FOSIL Group – Think globally, act locally – as part of Librarians Reaching Out Across the World.

Copthill School | Teaching for Independence of Learning
2019-10-16 | Copthill School
Darryl will be presenting on FOSIL to members of Senior Leadership from Copthill School and Highfields School.

Schools' Library Service Guernsey | Revisiting FOSIL in Guernsey
2019-10-08 - 2019-10-09
Darryl will be presenting on FOSIL to all staff from Castel Primary School and Forest Primary School on 8 October, and will be running workshops with Elizabeth Hutchinson for SLS staff, as well as primary and secondary teachers on 9 October.

IFLA World Library and Information Congress
2019-08-24 08:00 - 2019-08-29 17:30
Darryl will attending IFLA WLIC 2019 as a member of the Standing Committee of the School Libraries Section.
This will be an important opportunity to enlarge our perspective and build vital relationships.

World Leading Schools Association Conference | Education for the Human Condition
2019-07-18 09:00 - 2019-07-20 17:15
Darryl Toerien, Head of Library at Oakham School, and Chris Foster, Head of Student Research at Oakham School, will be presenting Future-proofing students through inquiry on Saturday 20 July.
