About Purpose and Mission History Events Newsroom Members

[Matt Participant]

My plan for developing the FOSIL Framework within my divisional AtL Scope & Sequence

After completing my action plan for this project I would like to talk about my initial steps for supporting the development of our divisional AtL scope and sequence using the FOSIL Framework.

The goal of this project which I am contributing to is three-fold:

1. Outline specific AtL skills that are priorities for my division to teach

2. Create age-appropriate goals for these skills

3. Create a system for monitoring student progress and for supporting students who have not yet developed these skills.

Considering the FOSIL Framework I believe the first two goals are already accomplished since I know which five skill bands I am focused on and the age-appropriate skills are already articulated. So I have moved onto focus on the third goal.

On creating a system for monitoring student progress and for supporting students who have not yet developed these skills. 

This goal has changed my mindset around what I am trying to accomplish. I have thought up until now what I was attempting to do was define a set of “library oriented research units” where I would take the lead in collaborating with subject teachers to support students in developing specific skills. I have come to the realisation that perhaps this is possible in five years of collaborative efforts. At this point, however it is my goal to develop a system for tracking how students self-assess themselves at these five skill bands, compare there self-assessments to their actual performance during assessed work where these skills are assessed in the MYP criterion, and gather information about how these skills are assessed. Then I need to look for another unit where this same skill is being assessed collaborate with that subject team. In this second iteration I will have a list of students who I need to spend more time with focusing on developing this FOSIL skill. This iterative process is a change from my initial thoughts about collaboration which were based around finding the perfect unit to develop skills. Now I am happy to work with any teacher during any unit where a skill is being addressed.

I understand that my first step is to develop a sustainable system for collecting data about student’s self assessments, my comparison of this assessment to work they turn in, and information about how these skills are assessed in different classes and grade levels. I am therefore for now only focusing on collaborating with one grade level on two FOSIL skill bands as I try to develop this system. I imagine that over time I will branch out to more grades and skill bands as I feel more comfortable with my ability to collaborate in sustainable ways. I will post more about this strategy whether it is successful in accomplishing the goals of the AtL project we are working on this year.

I appreciate any and all thoughts on this subject whether you are trying the same strategy or others.

[Matt Participant]

It has been a while since I posted and so I am unsure which post best fits this topic. I wanted to share an update on our use of FOSIL here in Stuttgart. We began a collaboration a year ago with our instructional leadership team using the FOSIL Framework. We decided to focus on five specific skill bands in the Investigate and Express stages:

– Different Types of Sources / Organisation of Information

– Navigation and Search Strategies

– Evaluation, Selection, Curation, and Use of Multiple Sources

– Capturing Information and Thinking / Notetaking

– Academic Integrity

Our reasoning for doing this is that we felt a strong need to prioritise the most essential skills that the library was best placed to teach.

After a year-long project we could integrate five skill bands of FOSIL within the AtL scope and sequences in two of our three divisions. In our third division where I am the librarian I could complete a crosswalk of FOSIL to the AtL skills document and the subject criterion where that skill is assessed. Although in my division I was limited in my capacity to integrate it into my collaboration with teachers. This year we have a specific plan to develop the AtL skills in my division. I was happy to see that the FOSIL framework was listed in the plan as one source for developing our divisional AtL scope and sequence. After discussing the matter with my team of librarians we have decided that we will collaborate on a library-specific research scope and sequence using FOSIL as the source. We can then split it up into it’s modular pieces to fit it into the AtL scope and sequences of each of our divisions. That way the AtL skills supported by the library represent a complete continuum of skills based on the FOSIL Framework. I am very excited that we can now work on this together this year and much of the work is already done from last year. I will post more on this subject throughout this year as we develop this research scope and sequence.

[Matt Participant]

Hello Ruth,

In your post you mention “Darryl’s ATL/FOSIL map. Can you direct me to where I can find this document? The library team and AtL coordinator at my school are working on a project to cross-walk the FOSIL Framework of skills to our AtL scope and sequence. It is our hope that doing this will create a more useable planning document. At this time we are only creating a prototype to share to our IB program leaders as proof of concept. I would be very interested in seeing how another has done this.

Best regards,

Matt

[Matt Participant]

Thank you so much for bringing up this teaching scenario because I believe this is one that we often find ourselves in. This could be because teachers are often pressed for time (this is what I have found working in international schools) or because this is a model of teaching teachers are used to from their experience with previous librarians.

For me I have learned to use this opportunity to teach the best lesson I can (so that my colleagues perhaps discover that I am a teacher). I also find ways to create future work for myself during and after the unit.

Some ways I do this include:

1. Discovering what AtL skill students will use to succeed at the criterion (I teach at an IB World school being pre-assessed or assessed during the unit, it could be that a different AtL skill will be assessed and it offers me knowledge for future collaboration with this teacher,

2. Having the students self-assess their skill level at this AtL skill after teaching my lesson. I have begun using this survey, where I’ve mapped the AtL skill I am teaching to the relevant skill from the FOSIL Framework of skills (at the moment I have only mapped three as I building it as I teach those skills during lessons with teachers). I began doing this last semester this year and I discovered that the student’s feedback on their skill level was useful knowledge for beginning conversations with other teachers about the skills students need to develop.

3. If I am available I offer to have the class back in the library during the next lesson after the lesson I taught or I offer to come to their class. Just because a lesson has been taught does not mean that all students are done practicing the skills I have taught during their inquiry. Students need to get used to me being in the classroom as they are using the skills I have taught them. That way I am available to help them if they need it.

4. Along the same lines as above, I offer a followup time closer to the end of the project where students can come see me if they are still having trouble. This works very well in the case of bibliographies as students are often finishing them at the same time that they are all working on the final aspects of their project. If a teacher can say during class, “if you are having trouble with any aspect of completing your bibliography, you can see Mr. Rose in the library during this period” then this is the right time for me to be teaching them.

5. Lastly, I use a single-shot lesson to advertise my online booking sheet where students can book 15 minute appointments with me (I also encourage students to just drop by the library to speak to me during breaks or lunch if they have questions that stem from the lesson I teach).

It is a real challenge when we see our role as supporting students to develop a continuum of skills as they move through multiple inquiries over subsequent semesters if we are only invited in for single-shot research lessons. I am finding that when I remain conscience of the teachers time and am flexible in how I engage with them over time I can move to higher levels of collaboration with a few of my teaching colleagues.

 

[Matt Participant]

Hello Elizabeth,

Thank you for sharing your educational video about how to use FOSIL. It was helpful for clarifying how I can use it.

Best regards,

Matt

[Matt Participant]

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you for pointing me to the new Inquiry Skills spreadsheet. I had been using the older FOSIL (2009) Inquiry Skills Framework up to now. Can I ask, is there any blog post written as a how to guide for using the new FOSIL (2019) inquiry skills framework? It would just be helpful to see how the creators of this document envisioned it being used. If there isn’t such a document, how do you use it for curriculum planning and teaching? If I am creating a curriculum map for at what grades levels are teaching which inquiry skills at my school do you think this would be a useful document to reference?

Thank you for your guidance regarding this,

Matt

[Matt Participant]

Hi Elizabeth,

When I got to my school we were using RADCAB, https://www.radcab.com/ I stopped using this and instead used the evaluation criteria recommended in Guided Inquiry by Kulthau et. al. I renamed it QPACE. My experiences with these are that teachers like something that is easy to remember to teach to their students. I agree with you though that it is a much more complex set of skills that we need to teach to our students than just an evaluation checklist.

Some resources that I have found which I want to explore further and incorporate into my information literacy instruction include:

1. Stanford University’s Civic Online Reasoning website, https://cor.stanford.edu/ has lessons that teach students how to evaluate what they read online.

2. the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework. I think the ACRL’s decision to rework the information literacy standards into six concepts that can be explored with students has helped to make information literacy a topic that I can discuss with my teachers and students.

The challenge that I see is teachers like all other humans look for something easy they can remember. Teaching a research process is not as easy as teaching them CRAAP or SIFT. So how do we package teaching the research process in a way that gets them onboard with moving past CRAAP and SIFT to teaching a more integrated set of skills to students?

Best regards,

Matt Rose

[Matt Participant]

Dear Elizabeth,

This topic caught my attention in the spring of 2020 when I found myself at home trying to teach library classes online. Since then I have tried to treat each library platform our library catalog, databases, child-friendly search engines, and websites, as platforms that have specific skills that need to be taught to students. When I have the opportunity to collaborate with a teacher I look at which platform would be good to incorporate into the activity and I spend lesson time explicitly teaching students skills they need to access and use that platform.

Long-term what I would like to do is work with the other librarians in my district to define the skills we need to teach students to access and use each platform and decide during what grades we want to teach those skills to the students.

This is a topic that I think we need to spend more time on. We cannot just expect that students will understand how to use our library platforms. We need to work with teachers to plan their use during inquiry projects and then teach them how to use them.

Kind regards,

Matt Rose

 

[Matt Participant]

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for sharing the assignment your grade 7 students would be working on. Earlier this year I enjoyed watching The Lost Pirate Kingdom on Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/de-en/title/81035118 I am certain this is a topic your year 7 students will enjoy learning about.

Some thoughts that I had for this were:

1. Arrange the resources according to the inquiry cycle. Which ones are good for gaining an initial overview of the life of a pirate (connect and wonder stage)? Which ones are more specialized which students can select from once they have developed a unique inquiry question to explore (for the investigate stage)? Doing this could help to limit the resources provided as Elizabeth has already mentioned.

2. Select a library resource to introduce to your students to use during the assignment. Does your library encyclopedia have a good article about the life of pirates. Could you list all of the books students can borrow from the library about pirates? You want to get your students used to using your school library for assignments and so using the collaboration to reinforce the habit of them using the library for research can help build this habit.

3. What FOSIL skills do you want your students to focus on during this inquiry? There are many skills that students need to develop over their school careers. Which one do you want them to hone in on during this unit? I imagine this would be done through a discussion with the teacher you are collaborating with and be written on the initial planning sheet.

Thank you for sharing and best of luck with this unit of inquiry.

Kind regards,

Matt

 

[Matt Participant]

Hello, my name is Matthew Rose. I am currently the MYP and DP Librarian at the International School of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany where I also coordinate our libraries and educational technology team. I am a qualified librarian and certified elementary school teacher. I have worked for several international schools in Germany and Japan. During this time I have had a number of jobs in international education in the areas of school librarianship, educational technology, design technology, and technical theatre. I have begun to explore using FOSIL at my school in my school library program. I look forward to exploring it with you all in the time to come.

Best regards,

Matt

 

[Author]

Posts