Editorial: Getting It Together
Sure, collaboration is good, but we need data—and we need it now
Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2007
Last month, I attended a symposium at Kent State University called "The Multiple Faces of Collaboration" on—you guessed it—collaboration between school librarians and classroom teachers (and, in a few instances, university librarians). Jointly sponsored by Rutgers's Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) and Kent State's Institute for Library and Information Literacy Education (ILILE), the centerpiece of the conference was the release of the findings of a three-year ILILE study in which 130 school librarians and teachers worked together to create and implement programs in their schools.
"Collaboration is good" and "you must collaborate" are two of the mantras of school librarianship in this country. So it's always worth paying attention when someone pulls aside the veil to provide some fresh insights into how collaboration really works.
What did we learn in Ohio? That teachers primarily collaborated to build collegial relations, but librarians did it to market library services and increase their status in the school. Both groups felt they brought their own areas of expertise to the relationship; for teachers, it was curriculum knowledge, but for librarians it was technology and information skills. What each group hoped to gain through the experience also differed. Classroom teachers wanted to improve their pedagogy and content knowledge while—again—media specialists wanted to better integrate the library into the school.
Overall, the study, authored by CISSL's Ross Todd, showed that collaboration is hard, and that the mandate to "go out and collaborate" needs sustained professional support (something this group was fortunate enough to have, thanks to ILILE). There are plenty of impediments along the way, with time and scheduling leading the pack. But in the end, collaboration was seen as powerful, with many tangible benefits to the school, as well as to the participants. In fact, since the study, librarians reported that, on average, they had each engaged in three more collaborative projects.
On that congratulatory note, we could have left. But educational consultant Allison Zmuda, in responding to the study, was quick to point out what was missing. "Shouldn't the point of collaboration be improvement in student learning?" she asked the researchers assembled at Kent State. As with any school or classroom activity, learning outcomes are the bottom line, Zmuda asserted, and not, necessarily, improved professional relationships or advocacy of the library program.
Now I have no doubt these collaborations had a positive impact on student learning, and in fact, there was an exhibit of the wonderful portfolios that were created by kids who took part in these joint programs. And participants reported that they perceived that collaboration led to improved information literacy and increased content knowledge among their students.
But perceptions and portfolios are no longer enough. We live in a world where school librarians are having their jobs cut right and left, often to be replaced by other educators who are believed to have a greater—and measurable—impact on outcomes. And improved student outcomes are, after all, what every principal wants.
If there's a conundrum for the school library community to solve, it's this: What is our impact on student achievement? Neither better relations with our colleagues nor more preaching about the importance of information literacy will save our jobs. Data—that measurement of a library program's impact on student learning—isn't something we traditionally collect, or even know how to collect. But if we are to survive, it's the information we desperately need.
