Evolving Education

      For the final blog of this course, I will be reflecting on my philosophy and pedagogy on instructing critical literacy to students. I will discuss how I would introduce critical literacy and reference resources to students as a teacher-librarian in an elementary learning commons.  Video:  How to Use Reference Materials         Once students have grown more confident in their reference use, I would implement resource-based learning into lessons. This would help students develop their research and critical literacies. Both print and digital reference resources would be included in these lessons as tools for meaningful and relevant learning. According to the Canadian Association for School Libraries, “To implement the resource-based teaching and learning model, school libraries must provide access to a rich range of print, non-print, media-based, electronic, and digital resources- tools that teachers and student...

         If I could pick five reference resources for my elementary school library collection, I would   choose digital and print materials that are appropriate for primary level students. These resources    would support teachers for multiple curricular subjects in their classrooms, such as science,    social studies, language arts, etc. I also wanted to find reference resources that primary students    would be able to navigate independently for projects and understand the content at various    reading levels. The 5 reference tools that I would add to a school library collection consist of 3    digital apps and 2 printed books. The digital apps include 4Canoes, Worldbook Kids, and DK    Findout! The books are  National Geographic Science Encyclopedia:  Atom Smashing,    Food Chemistry, Animals, Space, and More!  and  Henile Picture Dictionary .  1)  ...