Bring In The Crowds

So, I've rearranged the space, ordered materials, and set up for teacher PD, now what? Well, the space is nothing without the students so the next step is to get students to come to me.  Not being a classroom teacher this could e difficult so I needed to figure out how I could get involved with the students and get them excited about the space and changes.  And my decision...become advisor to student council of course!!!  This was a great start as these students are natural leaders in the school and ones that will be able to start a movement.  I met with students and we discussed what else we would like to see take place in the space.  We discussed presenter lunches and perhaps a snack stand that student council would run.  It was also decided that student council would help select furniture that would be ordered to be put in the fiction reading section.  Hopefully the excitement that these few students left with will pass through the rumor mill and a large group of students will be excited to try out the space at the start of the school year.

Secondly, in order to get staff more involved in the design of the space I created a sheet for all departments to complete that share what assignments and projects may be completed in the upcoming school year and what I could purchase for the learning commons that would help students out along with the question of what they would be interested in collaborating with me on this year.

The stars are all aligned for school to start in the next weeks and hopefully the learning commons will be a huge part of the beginnings of this school transformation.

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

Today was my official first day of transformation.  A colleague from my previous district had offered to come and help me make sense of my new space.  As I entered the space for the second time since accepting the position I was forced to ask my self and answer the big question of my colleague, "What first??" My mind raced back to a slide share presentation I had recently read by Valerie Diggs. She stated that "a learning commons is a place of teaching and learning, group work, collaboration, professional development, creativity, change, inquiry, communication, community." and it is not, " a place designed primarily for finding information, a place where students only come to use the copy machine, a place where the "librarian" is in charge, a place where students are greeted with rules as they enter, a place where bookshelves with outdated material fill open space."  In thinking about this I decided that I needed to make it a priority to change the space quickly and efficiently so when students return in the Fall they will be greeted with a new space that offers a new outlook for how the Learning Commons can help them.  It was then my good colleague who reminded me that, Rome wasn't built in a day." With this said We determined what learning commons objectives we would like to see first.  Well, we need bodies in here and for the right reasons was my reply. I want to see students and their teachers in here working together along with students in here because they are interested in what the space has to offer more than a place away from their current study hall room. We began by creating a space that would be used for communication or collaboration with classrooms.  We cleared a wall of books to make room for a projection screen and interactive projector that were on order.  Next, it was decided that the rows of reference books were really taking up valuable learning space.  So, with the advice of the principal we determined how these shelves could be rearranged to meet the needs of the new learning commons.  It was also shared with me by the principal that reading for pleasure was not really a priority for many of these students.  This helped to clarify why the average age of the fiction collection was 1993.  So, after a day of rearranging the furniture itself and designing the physical space, I retreated home to visit my good friend Titlewave.  By 11'oclock at night I had researched, Goodreads, ALA Teen Choice, and Summer reading selections from various school district in order to build a large order of new and fresh fiction books.  We'll see what Rome has to offer next.