Portfolio Introduction

"Effective collaboration between classroom teachers and school library media specialists enhances the mastery of both information literacy skills and subject area content by merging the development of information processing skills and strategies with the learning of subject area content."

~ Montgomery County Public Schools Library Media Learner Outcomes
(MCPS Board approved 4/15/04)

Spoonfeeding students with subject area content taught in isolation will not nourish the growth of lifelong independent learners.  As a media specialist, I will integrate information literacy skills within the curriculum of the various subject areas.  In recent years, MCPS has been providing revised comprehensive resource guides for teachers to use in their content areas.  Attempts have been made to incorporate information literacy skills in these new guides.  However, the school library media program identified a need to do even more to ensure that information literacy was being taught by providing media specialists with an actual Information Literacy Guide. This comprehensive guide allows me to utilize tools for designing instruction that models the application of information skills while students learn curricular content. 

Artifact 1 provides an example of the resources provided in this guide.  I can use the charts to plan a master research schedule for each class.  Placing the charts in the staff shared folder and emailing them to teachers will heighten my colleagues' awareness of how content and information literacy skills go hand in hand.  Although these charts help to provide a correlating timeline of when certain units are being taught, I wanted to condense all of this information into a simple one-page format for ease of reference (see Artifacts 2 and 3).  By cross-referencing my curriculum chart with my library chart, I see that the 4th grade studies Native Americans and the thirteen colonies during the year.  I can refer to my library chart to target appropriate information literacy skills such as locating resources to meet an identified need. Gathering relevant information from those sources to integrate into the students' learning of that content is another equally important focus skill. 

By using these charts to facilitate my efforts to integrate curriculum content with information literacy, I ensure that several things occur.  These include making the appropriate print resources available, modeling how to cite the sources used, and demonstrating how to navigate various online resources.  Providing a "buffet" of grade-level opportunities to become information literate citizens will allow students to flourish throughout their lives as "well-fed" users of information.