Category Archives: Exemplar of Good Practice

Questioning – Kilmacolm’s innovative Blooming Blooms approach

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Blooming Blooms

Blooming Blooms

In 2009 Katrina Little, the nursery teacher at Kilmacolm Nursery (which is part of Kilmacolm Primary School) using Bloom’s Taxonomy worked with parents to form Blooming Bloom Questions for familiar fairytales so that the children are introduced to the benefits of questioning (Innovative approaches). See Blooming Blooms example questions for Goldilocks and The Three Bears.

 

Colour Coded Blooms

Colour Coded Blooms

The questions are colour coded to represent the different  parts of Bloom’s Taxonomy and attached to the responding coloured flower and put into a pot which is inside the front of  each book (see above picture).

The questions are there to reinforce that the activitiy is not just about  reading the book but about gaining knowledge and understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating what has been heard and then creating new thoughts.  It is also about fully involving the parents in their children’s learning.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk

A visit to the nursery on Wednesday (17th February 2010) saw Katrina and the children in action. The story was Jack and the Beanstalk and I joined the children (a preschool group of 4 years old) as Katrina started to question them using the Blooming Blooms questions (copy of original Jack and the Beanstalk Questions).

The children seemed to enjoy answering the questions and often you could see the thought process going on.  In the applying section different children showed how they would climb the beanstalk. One boy talked about using an ice axe to help him climb which would indicate that somebody he knew used an ice axe to climb.

Unfortunately Katrina didn’t get through all of the questions as a group of younger children had finished their activity and had returned to the nursery. This disrupted the older childrens concentration a bit.

The books also go home with the children on a Friday so that the parents can be involved in the learning activity. Reports indicate that  parents  are enjoying using the Blooming Bloom questions and children enjoy them too.

This has lead to plans which are under way to introduce Blooming Blooms in Primary 1 linking it to their reading bookings and the Oxford Reading Tree. Those parents that were involved in the nursery project are said to be keen to be involved in the extension to Primary 1.

 

 My thanks to Mrs Katrina Little, colleagues in the nursery and children at Kilmacolm Nursery and the headteacher for allowing me into their world.

Information Literacy in Junior (Primary) 1

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In December 2009 I spent the day in a Junior (Primary) 1 class as part of the work I’m doing for Learning and Teaching Scotland CfE Literacy Team – Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level). The day was amazing with lots of information literacy activities based around some of the CfE learning outcomes and experiences. For example:

Finding and using information: Early Level

I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices to learn new things. LIT 0.04a 

The children aged 5 years old listened to a chapter (chapter 4 I think) from a book about an owl finding out about night and darkness.

The book - The owl who was affraid of the dark The book – The owl who was affraid of the dark

They had to listened for a specific piece of information which they then had to remember. Questions were asked to ensure that they had heard and remembered it. Later on in the day they were each given a worksheet and had to draw a picture to represent what the chapter was all about. The teacher then went round each of them and asked them to complete a sentence with information they had heard. Some repeated the information exactly others put it into their own words. Whatever the child said the teacher transcribed it onto their worksheet.

Other examples of activities included:

  • selecting books in groups to find information about a particular night animal that the group had chosen i.e. a fox, badger, bat. Night animals and birds

With the help of the teacher reading the text the children decided on the 4 most important facts about the animal. Later each group told the rest of the class what they had found.

  • art of the week where they had to look at a picture of a piece of art Rodin’s Thinker and say what they thought it was about. It was amazing to see then looking at it, thinking about it and then giving their thoughts.

I could go on but will end there. My thanks to Mrs Lisa Bonar and her class at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh for allowing me into their world. Discussions regrading the sort of things that would be useful to teachers regarding their own information literacy was also covered. It has certainly helped my thinking for the work ahead of me and I look forward to using this knowledge along with other experiences of Primary 2 and 3 to come in the new year.

 

 

Scottish Further Education Colleges Service Development and Self-Evaluation Framework

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The Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) launched on 3 December 2009 a new service development and self-evaluation framework for library and information services in Scottish Further Education (FE) colleges, to replace the previously published toolkit Resources and Services to Support Learners. 

The framework includes a message of thanks to John and I from Charles Sweeney, Chair, SLIC Working Party on FE Libraries

Thanks are also due to Christine Irving and John Crawford of Glasgow Caledonian University’s Scottish Information Literacy Framework project who ably demonstrated to the Working Party the importance of information literacy as a core competence enabling independent learning in a vocational context.

The framework  has been produced in “consultation with colleagues from SFC, HMIe, JISC, the professional library community in colleges across Scotland and external expertise from Strathclyde University on quality library services”.  Included in the introduction are the following key statements

SLIC recognises that college library and information services are key strategic business assets, whose staff have a major contribution to make in supporting flexible, responsive, high quality learning and teaching programmes and in promoting learner engagement.

Together with changes to the strategic and policy context of further education Scotland has recently introduced the biggest education reform for a generation. The Curriculum for Excellence brings the key role of the library into sharp focus in supporting the development of successful learners and confident individuals. The library provides staff and students with the opportunity to exercise their entitlement to access information and develop comprehensive literacies in a supportive environment.

College library services offer:

  • Access to a wide range of information in a range of formats
  • Support for attainment across the college community
  • Support for the development of information literacy
  • Assistance with effective utilisation of ICT in learning and teaching
  • Knowledge and skills in promoting reading for enjoyment
  • Support for personal and social development and citizenship skills
  • The type of flexible learning environment which can encourage independent learning
  • Access to structured information skills programmes to develop critical thinking skills.

As a core curriculum support service, the quality of the library service  reflects the professionalism of the institution as a whole.

Hopefully library services and staff can use the above to support / demonstrated the work they do and their relevance to the college as a whole.

Within the different Elements of the framework Information literacy is specifically mentioned in the following: 

Element 2: Impact on learners and other users of college services 2.1; 2.2

Quality indicator and key prompt

An appropriate range and balance of learning resources and services is offered to support learners and curricular needs

In what ways do service staff work closely with curricular staff to embed and support the delivery of information literacy and research skills?

Suggested evidence sources

  • Information literacy embedded in learning and teaching strategy
  • Examples of integrated information resources in teaching packs
  • Cross-curricular information skills programmes
Element 5: Education, training and lifelong learning 5.1Quality indicator and key prompt

Element 8: Partnership and resources 8.2

The service participates in, and contributes to, programmes and services to meet the needs of all learners

Suggested evidence sources

Information literacy sessions and support

 

Information Literacy in Public Libraries – the lifelong learning agenda

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At a recent event at the Mitchel Library, Glasgow I was asked about examples of public libraries offering information literacy courses. Although there is some activity in this area we tend not to hear about it so whilst the following is not taking place in Scotland but Wales (one of our Celtic cousins) I thought it was worth a mention.

At the begining of December 2009  John attended An Information Literacy Framework for Wales event  to share the project’s experience in Scotland. One of the speakers was Gareth Evans, Senior Manager – Libraries, Caerphilly County Borough Council and he has allowed us to share his presentation – Information Literacy – a public view and the accompanying documents:

Gareth’s contact details are EVANSG1@CAERPHILLY.GOV.UK

Literacy across learning in East Lothian

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In East Lothian Anne Johnston, School Librarian / Field Officer at Dunbar Grammar School has been working with the Senior Librarian Young People’s Services, Agnes Guyon, from the public library service to look at information literacy for young people in East Lothian. They are hoping to

establish a consistent approach across all libraries – public branch libraries, primary school libraries and secondary school libraries.

To this end Anne is currently using the national information literacy framework to map skills for levels / ages and linking these to literacy outcomes and experiences. Their next step is to find out what is actually being delivered where. They realise they

can provide materials, training etc for primary and secondary schools and then it is up to individual schools.

In secondaries there are professional librarians who are already doing a lot of good work, as you know, who will be very happy to have a clear set of activities, curriculum links etc. We will be working together organising / providing materials, activities, suggestions. As Field Officer, I will be co-ordinating the secondary part. We are intending to include our links to QMU in this section.

We are using existing provision as the starting point for primary aged children too. The Young People’ s Services section of the library service is responsible for providing services to primary schools. They provide term loans of topic boxes to support investigations / projects and fiction boxes to each primary. They also help schools to maintain appropriate stock in their own school libraries and provide advice and professional support when requested. Agnes has also already met our NQTs this year. She and Susan Boylan, the Librarian Young People’s Services, gave a presentation to new teachers. Additionally, all branch libraries in East Lothian actively encourage classes from local primaries to take part in class visits on a regular basis. Activities during these visits are designed to develop information literacy skills as well as encourage children to visit their local libraries in their leisure time. We have already mapped these activites against CfE outcomes and experiences.

I’m sure that I will not be the only one who will be eager to see the outcomes of this work and will be catching up with Anne hopefully sometime in the near future. Anne’s contact details are ajohnston@dunbargrammar.elcschool.org.uk

Sharing practice information literacy case studies (Curriculum for Excellence)

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The Scottish Information Literacy Project worked with Learning and Teaching Scotland and Project partners:           

  • North Lanarkshire Council, Education Resource Service
  • Information and Learning Resources, City of Edinburgh Council, Children and Families Department
  • North Ayrshire Education Resources Service

to identify case Studies / exemplars of good practice within the cross curricular area of information literacy for dissemination through the LTS Information Literacy website under sharing practice.

April 2009

Literacy Skills Project – Dundee College

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Following a visit to Dundee College by Catherine Kearney, Sam Stirling, Learning Resources Manager at Dundee College contacted me about a Literacy Skills Project they are currently running for their Special Education Needs students at the College.

It is an amazing project which arose out of “a library service review which identified that they had limlited resources that were specifically aimed at Special Programme students. To ensure that they provided the necessary material to meet their special needs, a partnership project between the Library and Special programmes was established”.

The project has been running successfully for a few years and includes various external trips (Waterstones and DC Thomson) class based literacy sessions and project work. Last session the students created next year’s SEN Library Guide using Comic Life software.

The Comic Edition of the library and learning centres user guide 09/10 Dundee College is well worth a look and is an inspiration to us all along with the wider aims of this literacy skills project which has resulted in

The learners have taken ownership of the environment, as they have actively participated in the selection of the resources. Their voice has been heard and changes made that help develop their core skills and promote independent learning.

If you would like to find out some more about this project then I’m sure Sam Stirling s.stirling@dundeecollege.ac.uk would be happy to help.

Aberdeenshire information literacy activities update

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There has been much information literacy (IL) activity in Aberdeenshire lately as Sue Cromar sue.cromar@aberdeenshire.gov.uk their Information Literacy Officer outlines:

  • draft IL Strategy, which includes reference to the Curriculum for Excellence
  • paper drawn up for Aberdeenshire’s Literacy Steering Group on Supporting Literacies Across Learning, which includes elements of both IL and reader development.
  • working on a CPD powerpoint for teaching staff on: What is IL? the skills, integrating IL, partnership opportunities etc. 
  • working with one of the local academies to get an IL course for S1s up on GLOW – including workbook, powerpoints and teachers notes for each lesson
  • about to start working with Portlethen Academy to organise a shire-wide IL ‘competition’, based on a webquest they have been using for the past couple of years – core topic is geography
  • got funding from SLIC to develop an advocacy programme for school libraries, focusing on IL across the curriculum – outcomes will include staff development, and a DVD highlighting the vital role of IL skills within learning, leisure and working life .  This will be created under a creative commons license and shared with other Scottish  libraries/schools – hopefully in time for the start of the 2010/11 academic year. See Libraries R 4 Learning: supporting the Curriculum for Excellence in Aberdeenshire article by Sue Cromar (February 2010) and subsequent postings.
  • doing some work on setting Dewey to rap  
  • working on linking the library resources / IL to CfE outcomes and experiences.

I’m sure I am not the only one who will be interested in seeing this work come to fruition.

See also previous work in Aberdeenshire exemplar – Schools toolKit for Information Literacy – Nursery – primary 7 (12 year olds)