Collaboration with Ms. Cooper

Background

Leslie Cooper is the librarian at Stiles Point Elementary in James Island, South Carolina. Her school has a little over 700 students, grades pre-K through 5th. Her library runs on a partial flex schedule meaning that she has scheduled class and check-out time for kindergarten through 2nd and teachers can schedule time in the library for the rest of the day.

The Standard

The AASL defines the competency of collaboration in the following way:

"Work effectively with others to broaden perspectives and work toward common goals."

How She Does It

Leslie admits that prior to the administrative decision to transition to a partial flex schedule, she found it very challenging to collaborate with classroom teachers as while they were in planning sessions, she had their students in library class. To overcome the lack of facetime with teachers, she worked to come alongside teachers to teach skills in the library that would complement their content. If she heard that a teacher was doing a research project, she would change her plans and teach students about databases and citing their sources. Rather than teach the whole research process (which may be a different method than the classroom teacher is using) she taught components of research.

As she was a member of the related arts team, she had a common planning time with the computer teacher. She would leverage that time to develop projects that she could split with the other teacher. While the computer teacher may discuss and teach different mediums for a project (google slides, powerpoint, etc.) she would curate digital and print resources that supported the standard they were teaching.

Leslie works to collaborate with all of the different teachers in her building including art and music and states that collaborative projects co-taught by a classroom teacher and a librarian need not fit one certain mold "you do what works for your teachers, it needs to be on their terms, not ours!".

Recognizing that "everyone has a lot on their plates" helps her to figure out how she can come alongside teachers to lighten their load while introducing all of those important research and inquiry skills to her students.

Final Thoughts

Leslie's thoughts on the importance of collaboration can be summed up in this one statement:

"Relationships are more important to me than my paycheck!"

Understanding her role in collaboration has allowed her to become an invaluable member of her school's instructional team.

American Association of School Librarians (2018). National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. Chicago: American Library Association.

Collaborate. (n.d.). photograph. Retrieved from https://standards.aasl.org/shop/