I am currently in the middle of my Professional placement. Whilst reviewing my notes from last week to fill in any gaps next week, I realised that I had not written about my Study visits yet. SIGH! Well, timing was not the best for the Study visits, Week 8, Term 3. Not much you can do about that so I wrote up teaching notes for the casual teacher and toodled off to Sydney for the 4 days. Traffic was shocking but I got to meet up with some of the names that I had 'met' through the various TL forums. Since I am short on time (1 Report, 1 assignment, finish off my Reflective portfolio, a teaching program to write, books to cover, finalise birthday plans for my daughter, 2 loads of washing and some ironing to do.......), I have copied an excerpt from my Reflective Portfolio to include here:
The study visits were inspirational and gave me lots of ideas. During the four days I only visited one school library as I thought that the whole idea was to have a look at different settings and different librarians. That visit in itself though was amazing. The Senior Librarian who, much like me is a reader first and loves to inspire those around her to read, gave practical ideas that you could use immediately. She was not big on displays but the displays that she had targeted the learners and readers. Her mantra is "build relationships first" and I could really relate to that. The other thing that I learned from her was about validity. I had learned about in some of the subjects but hearing how she uses statistics to validate her choices was important for me to hear. She is the epitome of a fabulous TL and I was so happy to have had the chance to learn from her. I am now going back and documenting what has happened in the Library this year in regards to new books catalogued, morning visitors, books left on tables after lunch etc. I have also looked at my Library system and worked out exactly how to compile some different statistics. I plan to use them in an infograph (like the one shown at TAFE-NSW - Ultimo) to take to the Principal to discuss the success of the Library this year.
