Everhart provides practical guidelines and ready-to-use forms for evaluating a school library media center, as well as important results derived in other studies. She includes qualitative and quantitative techniques for the areas of curriculum, personnel, facilities, collections, usage, and technology. She also gives step-by-step instructions on how to create in-house surveys, conduct interviews, and use observation to gather useful data. Conduct research, collect statistics, and evaluate your program with this useful resource. Everhart provides practical guidelines and ready-to-use forms for evaluating a school library media center, as well as important results derived in other studies. She includes qualitative and quantitative techniques for the areas of curriculum, personnel, facilities, collections, usage, and technology. She also gives step-by-step instructions on how to create in-house surveys, conduct interviews, and use observation to gather useful data. For example, there are directions on how to assess information literacy with rubrics. In addition, each chapter gives detailed references, a list of further readings, applicable Web sites, and dissertations. A quick and easy guide to justifying and supporting your SLMC operations and effectiveness, this book is invaluable to all school library media specialists. It will also be of interest to school library media supervisors and researchers.

Provides vision for strong school library programs, including identification of the skills and knowledge essential for students to be information literate. Includes recommended baseline staffing, access, and resources for school library services at each grade level.

Introduce your teachers, librarians, and administrators to the roles and responsibilities of educators in advocating a whole school library learning commons using this step-by-step guide for creating shared learning space in your school. It is no surprise that technology has shifted the way we educate—bearing on how, what, and where we learn. This guide lays the framework for helping turn your school library into a whole school library learning commons (WSLLC)—a space where traditional academics merge with the latest technologies to engage learners in a way never before realized. Author Judith Anne Sykes contends that since the WSLLC philosophy allows staff and students to co-create knowledge in a shared space, it is more effective than the traditional approach. Sykes addresses the differences between a school library and a WSLLC, provides reasons to champion its creation in your institution, and discusses how to use mentoring as a means to sustain its survival. The book explores the roles and responsibilities of educators in developing WSLLC goals and presents strategies for using typical assessment tools—including standardized tests, report cards, and anecdotal assessments—to help support its philosophy.

This volume aims to help readers respond proactively and help to lead the way to collaborative learning in schools.

Today's students need to be fully prepared for successful learning and living in the information age. This book provides a practical, flexible framework for designing Guided Inquiry that helps achieve that goal. Guided Inquiry prepares today's learners for an uncertain future by providing the education that enables them to make meaning of myriad sources of information in a rapidly evolving world. The companion book, Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century, explains what Guided Inquiry is and why it is now essential now. This book, Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School, explains how to do it. The first three chapters provide an overview of the Guided Inquiry design framework, identify the eight phases of the Guided Inquiry process, summarize the research that grounds Guided Inquiry, and describe the five tools of inquiry that are essential to implementation. The following chapters detail the eight phases in the Guided Inquiry design process, providing examples at all levels from pre-K through 12th grade and concluding with recommendations for building Guided Inquiry in your school. The book is for pre-K–12 teachers, school librarians, and principals who are interested in and actively designing an inquiry approach to curricular learning that incorporates a wide range of resources from the library, the Internet, and the community. Staff of community resources, museum educators, and public librarians will also find the book useful for achieving student learning goals.