Teaching Multiple Literacies through Collaboration

Collaboration In Action

Case studies of the past five years described how school librarians collaborated with other educators. The Idaho School Library Impact Study (2009) compared the major findings of 22 states and one Canadian province, and found improved student achievement when teacher librarians and teachers collaborated to design curricular goals. The study recommended co-teaching, as the students struggling to perform at grade level benefited the most from the support of the school librarians (2009, p. vi). Moreover, teachers who collaborated with their school librarians were “three times more likely to rate their literacy teaching as excellent” (The Idaho Commission for Libraries, 2011, p. 12). The School Library Impact Studies Project found collaboration between librarians and teachers positively associated with student performance (2011, p. 6). Through joint teaching, teachers and school librarians forged more effective teaching strategies.

When the social studies curriculum for grades k-12 was redesigned by the Board of Education, school librarians throughout the state of Washington united to provide assistance to other educators. They designed Web-based pathfinders to enable classroom teachers to access the resources they needed. A team of school librarians provided professional learning throughout the state to show educators how to use the available resources, and to emphasize the role of the school librarians in helping students with the research process (Mayer, 2010, p.42).