Curriculum

     The school library is an essential part of student instruction. It is most effective to students, teachers and the community when it supports the county curriculum. School librarians are expected to engage with teachers and administrators in long and short term planning, development, and implementation of the county curriculum. Effective librarians will:

• Participate in school curriculum meetings
• Participate in curriculum writing workshops
• Collaborate with teachers
• Implements team teaching
• School libraries should have a non-circulating copy of each curriculum guide for their respective levels.  A good recommendation would be to create a level appropriate curriculum guide for quick and easy use when collaborating, teaching, and ordering materials.  Integrating appropriate curriculum standards with school library standards enhance student learning.  The school librarian will:
• Correlate library instruction with classroom instruction
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of curriculum
• Incorporate appropriate technologies to enrich learning

Carroll County Library Handbook, Section XI-5

Curriculum Pages

Inquiry Learning

Curriculum Charts

Indicators of Effectiveness

Curriculum Pages

State Level Curriculum

http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/technology/library_media

Carroll County Public Schools Curriculum and Instruction

CCPS believes in the responsibility to maintain a high level of curricular programs and instructional methodologies to ensure quality and excellence across the system in curriculum and staff development to support success for every child. 

http://www2.carrollk12.org/instruction/programsindex.htm 

Frederick County Public Schools: FCPSTeach

This web site has been created to hold curriculum and instruction resources for Frederick County Public Schools' teachers and administrators. All materials are intended for the use of FCPS staff for their own professional growth or in FCPS sponsored training sessions. Parents, family members and others will also find FCPSTeach a valuable source for complete information about the curriculum taught in Frederick County public schools. 

http://fcpsteach.org/

http://librarymedia.sites.fcps.org/

Howard County

This web site has been created to share with the school community, in particular parents, the curriculum found in all subject areas taught in Howard County Public Schools.  Employees of Howard County have access to all curriculum guides and instructional resources through a virtual warehouse called the Document Repository. HCPSS also uses an Intranet that is more of a virtual shopping mall for curriculum and policies.  

http://hcpss.org/academics/

This is a web site dedicated to the online resources that support curriculum.

http://www2.hcpss.org/met/media/currlinks/curlinks.html

Inquiry Learning

Inquiry is defined as "a stance toward learning in which the learner is engaged in asking questions and finding answers, not simply accumulating facts presented by someone else that have no relation to previous learning or new understanding.  Inquiry follows a continuum of learning experiences, from simply discovering a new idea or an answer to a question to following a complete inquiry process." (AASL Standards for 21st Century Learner, 2009).

According to Tish Stafford, Program Facilitator for Media Services in Cecil County, inquiry is that "which takes the human propensity to ask questions as its starting point" [...] Information corresponds to facts/data etc. and is really just one step beyond the old locational skills that used to form school library curriculum.  Inquiry takes the process to the next level because when you ask a question, you need to make meaning of the answer."

Articles that Support Inquiry Based Learning 

"Leading Deep Conversations in Collaborative Inquiry Groups"  by Anne Kennedy  

Collaborative inquiry groups, such as professional learning communities and lesson study groups, are proliferating in schools across the United States. In whatever form, the potential for impacting student learning through this collaborative work is expanded or limited by the nature of teachers’ conversations. Polite, congenial conversations remain superficially focused on sharing stories of practice, whereas collegial dialogue probes more deeply into teaching and learning. Examples of talk taken from collaborative teacher inquiry groups are used to illustrate these important differences. Specific recommendations are provided, including the role that teacher leaders can play in adopting and modeling specific strategies that support the use of more substantive professional conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Uncomfortable Bedfellows"  by Sharon Friesen (from Teacher Librarian)

The article explores the relationship between discipline-based inquiry and standardized examinations in contemporary educational systems. Particular focus is given to a project which examined the effect of disciplinary-based inquiry on learning environments, conducted as part of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI). The qualities necessary for providing students a knowledge era education rather than an industrial era education are discussed and focus on the importance of experiential and inquiry based methods is explored. Student engagement, knowledge construction, and collaboration are examined and connections between educational assessment methods and educational change are explored. (EBSCOhost abstract)

"Cultivating Curious Minds: Teaching for Innovation through Open-Inquiry Learning"  by Jean Sausele Knodt (from Teacher Librarian)

The article discusses the possibilities of a centralized open-inquiry learning lab that is focused on teaching thinking skills to all students in kindergarten through grade six as part of the regular school schedule. The author considers if a hands-on open-inquiry learning lab would increase children's ability to think. A description of an open-inquiry learning lab is provided that focuses on creative social risk-taking and problem solving skills with themes such as "People and Pipes." Each part of the lab is discussed including asking about and exploring the topic, thinking dispositions, finding the psychological theory flow, and transfer of learning. (EBSCOhost Abstract)

"Building Guided Inquiry Teams for 21st-Century Learners"  by Carol Kuhlthau and Leslie Maniotes (from School Library Monthly)

The article tackles on how to design a teaching team that uses a guide inquiry approach in meeting the needs of 21st-century learners. It outlines the five kinds of learning in the inquiry process which are curriculum content, information literacy, learning how to learn, literacy competence and social skills. It discusses the use of core and extended teams in implementing the guided-inquiry learning, and illustrates its application in primary, middle and high school levels. (EBSCOhost abstract)

"Inquiry Based Writing Workshop"  by Lucky Spence (from Teacher Librarian)

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience as a teacher-librarian working collaboratively with a second -grade teacher on the development of an inquiry writing workshop for second grade students.

 

Websites That Support Inquiry-Based Learning 

 

NASA – The Student Observation Network - With a focus on student inquiry in the sciences (specifically those subjects which fascinate NASA scientists), this page helps to define and clarify the inquiry process, but also to provide students with individual opportunities to inquiry the way professional scientests inquiry.

Teaching for Information Literacy - Although this website is focused on information literacy, the authors emphasize how closely aligned information literacy and inquiry-based learning can be. The definition and framework of inquiry-based learning, according to this website, emphasize the questioning step: What do I not know? How can I find this out?
Website Recommendations Courtesy of Tish Stafford

Aligning School Library Materials with Inquiry-Based Learning

As teachers and school librarians continue to introduce, develop, and hone inquiry-based learning, school librarians need to dedicate some time and effort to providing school library materials for students that promote stuent-base inquiry.

• Ensure that all students in the school know how to independently search all school databases.
• Survey teachers and students and maintain a running list of recommended nonfiction items of interest.
• Constantly emphasize with the students why they need to evaluate for website effectiveness.
• Collaborate with classroom teachers on projects that promote contextual thinking rather than thinking that requires only location of facts. 
• Create comingled displays that advertise fiction and nonfiction items with similar topics or time periods (i.e. A nonfiction text on the Battle of Gettysburg beside a historical fiction novel about the Civil War).
• Use exemplary DVD documentaries to promote student interest in a topic.  

Curriculum Charts

School Librarians must have a knowledge of the curriculum for all academic areas to meet those needs as well as knowing where to go to find the most recent changes in all curricular areas.

CCPS Elementary Curriculum Chart

FCPS High School Curriculum Chart