Scaffolding for the Life-Long Learner
by
Gerald R. Brown
Consultant, School Library & Information Services
Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3L 2G8 Canada

ABSTRACT:

        	Individuals, regardless of their age or experience, bring prior knowledge and levels of ability to each new learning task and teaching situation.  The Teacher-librarian is in an ideal position to work as a curriculum support team member for an administrator who wishes to initiate changes in the local school.   The kind of training that is needed for individuals to lead and mentor in this situation is a current challenge for colleges of library education and information services.  
Scaffolding is a concept that allows the teacher-librarian, the teacher, and the administrator to design learning opportunities for all levels of learners.  Existing staff can find opportunities for personal growth in both methodological and pedagogical approaches.  Leadership skills can be honed to a effective level.  Adaptation of curriculum to meet local needs can the results at all level of training and instruction. 
       	Opportunity to discuss the alternative directions in teacher-librarianship education will be welcomed.

Introduction:

Individuals (regardless of their age or experience) bring different prior knowledge and levels of ability to each new learning task.  Research indicates that all learners can make progress when the teacher and teacher-librarian present new strategies and process that are just beyond when the learners can apply independently.  Then, by building on what students know and can do, and providing a varying level of support and guidance the teacher and teacher-librarian helps the learners become increasingly more able to apply new learning independently.

Competitive Advantage

What is it that separates the quality of one school library & information services program from another ?  How do we determine the factors of success ? What happens in one school setting that makes it stand out from others ?  Is it the resources, the technology, the facilities, the location, the personnel, the administration ?  

Current management writers tell us that once you get past the intellectual horsepower and experience – no small things – that the difference can often be measured in the attitude of the teachers, administration and the teacher-librarians themselves.   However, if attitude where the only thing, then the only thing that would separate me from a successful singing career would be the belief that I could do it.   But trust me, there is another factor that stands in my way ... talent.  Hence, we cannot disconnect attitude from reality and expect success.

John C. Maxwell in his book “Difference Maker” (2006) deals with how attitude affects each of us personally.  He contends that attitude can be one’s greatest asset, what he calls “the difference maker”.

He points out that no matter who you are, or what you do, things will not always go well.   Each of us must contend with five constraints:
1.	Change
2.	Discouragement
3.	Failure
4.	Fear
5.	Problems in general

How one deals with each of these constraints is one’s personal choice.  “You can bemoan the fact, or you can do something about it,” states Maxwell.  He is relentlessly upbeat in his quest to get individuals to improve the way they look at life.   Sometimes his ideas border on corny, but for someone each strategy one will work.  Here are four examples:  
“Life often gives whatever you expect of it”
“A problem not anticipated is a problem.  A problem anticipated is an opportunity.”
“The happiest people in life don’t necessarily have the best of everything.  They just try to make 
  the best of everything.”	
	“The scaffold isn’t meant to hold you up; it is intended to help you learn to work on your own 
   initiative once you have learned the techniques”.

So what does this mean for us, as we open up a new school year?  Do we see these five constraints as limitations or opportunities for new kinds of scaffolding that we can use and share with each other ?  It is surely one’s attitude that will affect the outcome.   For example, is it possible to interpret “change” as “opportunity” ?
     Can “discouragement” be addressed as “need for renewal or other career options”?
     Does ‘failure” invite “learning to see what other techniques could have been used”?
     Does “fear” encourage one to “seek help from colleagues to learn how to do ‘it’ differently ?
     Do ‘problems” challenge us to ‘look for solutions that are a little out of the ordinary”?

Cynthia Barton Rabe proposes that we look at the “The Innovation Killer” (2006)).   She recommends that we seek and support from three sources:

1.	Knowledge to be gained from the best sources available, and esp. from professional colleagues.  Working in teams both at the school building level, and across the Division can provide a positive way to learn about successful strategies in other settings, and the stimulation of sharing success synergizes us to try new ideas in our own situation.  There are some scaffolds that can be shared as members of the group come up to speed with the developments in the field.

2.	Experience, where every year we are willing to explore a new idea, new method, new technology, or new concept.  Experience can support us as we take our repertoire of skills and sharpen them to meet new challenges.  A great way to use scaffolding is to team a beginner with an experienced leader so that they can share their progress as they work on ideas together.

3.	Use “Zero-gravity thinkers” to help look at your goals, strategies, and methodologies.  “People who are outside the direct professional group can often bring insights to what one say and do, and can help us see ourselves as ‘the outside world views our actions’.  They can be temporary team members, who can help a group / team push beyond the limits of the existing mindset”.  Such members can be particularly helpful when the group is drafting a new policy, and new set of procedures, a response to a challenge, or gaining advocacy support.

Change is vital in school librarianship and in education, as more and more innovations are sought and initiated.  We need to be aware of the dynamics of change, and the ways it affects us and our teachers and students.  The need for a variety of kinds of scaffolds must be considered.

	Curtis R. Carlson, chief executive of SRI International, an independent research and development firm and his colleague William W. Wilmot, Director of the Collaboration Institute, say in their book “Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want” (2006), that if organizations (including schools) want to innovate more effectively, they must change their mindset.   As counter-intuitive as it sounds, if one wants to be come more creative, then one must become more disciplined.  Their five step plan has much to offer leaders in Canadian school librarianship:

1.	Focus on the most important needs of your students (and ultimately the teachers in the classroom)
2.	Create value by asking:
Which of the needs can I fill ?
What is the best approach for doing so ?
Will the benefits of that approach outweigh the costs ?
Will we be producing students who have the skills necessary to be able to face the future efficiently and effectively ?
3.	Ensure that “innovation initiative(s)” has a champion 
Who advocates for the team
Who keeps the team focused and on track
4.	Put together a team that will make it happen
At the Division level
At each school-building level
5.	Align the team to achieve the goal
•	Do consistent and clearly planned professional development
•	Mentor / scaffold staff who are having difficulty understanding or accepting the goal
•	Provide opportunities for professional transfer to other sectors which may have different goals, require different skill sets, or can accommodate alternative attitudes

“Talking with others about ideas and work is fundamental to learning.   Perceptive, challenging talk is the motor propelling intellectual engagement.  The learning of, and responding to other people’s talk triggers new ideas and connections.  Through it all we 
literally "grow" intelligence.  Calkin (2001)

“ By providing a supportive environment in which individual differences are  respected 	and conversation is the basic form of instruction, teachers encourage learners to share 
ideas, opinions and perspectives, clarify their own thinking and co-construct meanings.  MacFarlane (2004)

 	In some school library collections, there is a little children’s story that inspires determined leaders.   It is called “The Little Engine That Could”.  It is about a little locomotive that successfully climbs a seemingly impassable mountain, fueled by little more than optimism (“I think I can; I think I can”).  Was it actually a fable about success in school librarianship and how people adapt to their changing environment ?

		“It’s almost impossible to catch a cold from someone who doesn’t 
have one.  And it’s almost impossible for a child to catch the love of 
reading from a teacher who doesn’t have it.   Trelease (2001) 

Implications for Scaffolding

	New learning that presents a “just right” level of challenge lies within the students’ (or adults’) zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978).  This zone refers to the cognitive region that lies between what one can do independently and what one cannot do, even with maximum assistance.   Within this zone lie abilities that can be developed with support and guidance by the teacher, the teacher-librarian, student peer, district co-ordinator, and administrative leader.

	Assistance of this nature is known as ‘scaffolding’, a term that was introduced by Wood et al (1976).  Scaffolding is a metaphor for temporary “as needed” guidance and assistance that the educational leadership team provides to students, teachers, teacher-librarianship to help them accomplish the new tasks and to bring them to a point where they can do the task on their own.  The major goal of scaffolding is to transfer ultimate responsibility for the task back to the learner.

Implications for Classrooms and School Library Programs

Rodgers and Rodgers (2004) identify four principles of scaffolding information literacy for life-long independent learning:

1.	Scaffolding learning is informed by careful teacher and teacher-librarian observations.  These professionals need to use a variety of on-going assessment tools (e.g., checklists, skill lists, anecdotal notes, running records) to help identify what independent learning skills individual students know and can do comfortably.

The INSTITUTE FOR LIBRARY AND INFORMATION LITERACY EDUCATION, operated out of Kent State University Libraries & Media Services has a program called TRAILS which is a knowledge assessment with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills appropriate for high school students. This web-based system was developed to provide an easily accessible and flexible tool for LMS and TLs to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students from approximately grade nine through post-secondary settings.
Check it out at http://www.trails9.org/

2.	Teachers and teacher-librarians need to respond to what they observe students actually doing rather than what they thing students should be able to do.  Observing students working in small groups provides data about the skills and strategies that they are trying to use as they implement their common problem-solving model to   (e.g. Empowering 8 Model)
a.	Identify their problem
b.	Explore the dimensions of the question under consideration
c.	Select the resources – print, electronic, and human 
d.	Organize the information collected and cited
e.	Create their response in a meaningful way for the audience
f.	Present individual learning appropriate to the format and audience
g.	Assess one’s personal performance & reflect on changes needed
h.	Apply the skills learned in another context

3.	Teachers and teacher-librarians must scaffold the information literacy learning by matching the problems to the student's abilities, and in line with the kinds of resources that can be obtained.   Vygotsky (1978) reminds the educators that resources should be chosen to challenge the learner, but should not be beyond what the students can make sense of “even with maximum assistance”.

4.	Teachers and teacher-librarians who group students based on ‘ability,’ ‘resource-level’, or project skills required’, or some other concept of learning readiness should keep flexible groups to reflect observed changes in individual learner and instruction needs.

“Curriculum can and should be a learner’s opportunity to envision the possible.  It should serve as a metaphor for the lives learners want to live and the people they want to be.   This means that we need to be able to support learners to imagine other ways of being in the world.’  Vasquez (2001)

The following chart adapted from Pearson & Gallagher (1983) called their Gradual Release of Responsibility Model shows the above concepts in a visual form.   The object here is to release the student as soon as competence in skill and content is mastered, and the student is able to move on to more challenging and creative learning.

Information & Life-Long Literacy in Action

	Teachers and teacher-librarians are expected to focus directly on:

1.	Observing and assessing learners as they engage in important tasks to determine what they know (learning outcomes), what they can do (skill development), and what they are trying to do (progress / assessment).  (Clarity of assignment and learning objectives is imperative in the minds of both mentors.)

2.	Focus instruction on tasks / skills that are just beyond students’ current level of competence, but that are manageable with appropriate scaffolding, coaching and support.
The application of various instruction techniques as appropriate to the learner needs, and which the teacher-librarian is expected to model regularly.

3.	Transfer responsibility from the mentor to the student, as new skills and problem-solving strategies are learned and applied.  	This is the ‘teaching role’ of the teacher-librarian in action.
        (modeled – shared – guided -  independently applied - assessed)
	
4.	Provide opportunities for students to transfer and practise their new problem-solving skills in an increasing range of meaningful contexts and media, and across the curriculum in various content areas or disciplines.

Summary:
	“Through help and discussion, direct teaching, hinting, prompting,  mentoring and modeling in the 
course of their own assisted performances, learners become aware of how and why the strategies 
work and how to engage them on their own.”
	                                     The National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement, n.d.)

	And so as we embark upon a new term in education, we have the opportunity to put our attitudes in positive gear, and apply our best intellectual horsepower, our experience and our resources to work to mentor and lead the learners for the next decade.   School librarianship has a great potential for change in all schools.  The personnel on the front lines in each school have some of the most exciting leadership opportunities to influence learning in this modern age.  By providing the scaffolds from an early age, learners can have confidence to develop the skills they need to be successful in school, in the community, and in their life-long learning.

	“If we teach children the power of writing to learn across the curriculum, we will also teach 
them the power of research – and of thinking – across their lives.  Could anything matter 
more ? “    Calkins (1994)

Sources:

Australia School Library Association.  A Teacher Librarian Advocate’s Guide to  Building Information 
Literate School Communities, 2006      http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy.kit.pdf
Accessed 2006.09.13

Calkins, Lucy.   The Art of Teaching Reading. Heinemann, 1997

Calkins, Lucy.  The Art of Teaching Writing.  Heinemann, 1994

Carlson, Curtis R & William W. Wilmot.  Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers 
Want.  Crown Business, 2006  

International Association of School Librarianship.  The 2007 IASL Conference: Gis Convention Center, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 16-20 July 2007
	Theme: Cyberspace, D-world, E-Learning:  Giving Libraries and Schools the  Cutting Edge.
	http://www.iasl-slo.org/conference2007.html    Accessed 2006.08.13

MacFarlane, Norma.  On-line  http://www.oaje.org/OAJE_Events.htm   Accessed 2006.08.11

MacFarlane, Norma et al. Literacy Talk. Pearson Education Canada 2006

MacFarlane, Norma et al. Reflections on literacy. Pearson Education Canada 2006

Maxwell, John C.  The Difference Maker. Nelson Books, 2006 

Marzano, Robert J. et al.  Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-based  Strategies for Increasing 
Student Achievement.   Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001

National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement.
	On line at http://cela.albany.edu/    Accessed 2006.08.09

Pearson, P. D. & M. C. Gallagher. “The instruction of reading comprehension” in Contemporary 
Educational Psychology, 1983, Vol. 8, p. 317-344

Piper, Watty et al. The Little Engine That Could. Platt & Munk, 1930.

Rabe, Cynthia Barton. The Innovation Killer. Amaxom, 2006 

Saffo, Paul. From Gutenberg to McLuhan to What’s Next ? 2006
	An interview hosted by Brendan Greeley, the blogger-in-chief for the US  public radio program Open Source  interviews Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future, as reported in the Economist. Research Tools. Surveys.   http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6822784
            Accessed 2006.09.12

Singh, Jagtar and Gerald R. Brown.  Proceedings of Information Skills for Learning: Part II 
“Empowering 8” International Workshop – Applying a Problem-Solving Model in South and 
South East Asia to Promote Information Literacy, 03-05 October 2005 in Punjabi University, 
Patiala, India.

Trelease, Jim. The Read-aloud Handbook. Penguin Canada, 2001

Valenza, Joyce.  Our times / our jobs have changed 2006
	http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/lifechanged.htm
	She charts a picture of the past with the present reality of being a teacher librarian.  Check out this blog.   Accessed 2006.09.12

Vasquez, Vivian. Negotiating a Critical Literacy Curriculum with Young Children.  Phi Delta Kappa 
Center for Evaluation, Development and Research, No. 29   Available on line at 
www.pdkintl.org/edress/resbul29.htm       Accessed 2006.09.14

Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich. Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes.  Harvard 
University Press, 1978
www.kolar.org/vygotsky/    Accessed 2006.09.14

BRIEF PERSONAL RESUME 
Gerald Brown retired as Chief Librarian from Winnipeg School Division, Manitoba, Canada in 1992.  That system had 80 schools, 3500 teachers and 55 000 students.  He was responsible for all aspects of school librarian service, audio visual & computer software and equipment repair services, and an ordering, acquisition and cataloging program for all materials ordered by the schools.  The system was highly regarded for its program of school library and program implementation, and for its staff development programs.  
Since that time he has been active as a consultant in 36 countries around the world in the area of school library & information services.  His special interests are information literacy, reading, and applying problem-solving models through the SLIS setting.  He has been attending and lead presentations at the Crimea conferences in 2003, 2004, 2005.