Supporting Skills in My MYP and DP Library

As an IB teacher and librarian, my focus is on Approaches to Teaching and Learning, internal and external assessments, and delving deeply into the curriculum — and those are the things I'll be focusing on when I co-present Follett's IB webinar. Check out what we'll be covering!

Most of my days in a high school library are spent working with students and teachers on research skills and, depending on the time of year, on either Personal Project or Extended Essay. I teach website evaluation, beginning and advanced research database skills, academic honesty, MLA citation skills, essay writing skills, etc. These are all very academically focused lessons. As a librarian, I also love to focus on creating a culture of reading. Included in these efforts is a six-month “Battle of the Book” event and book-themed contests. Then this year, I decided to take a risk (yay IB Learner Profile) and support the skill of reading and literacy in a new (to me) way.  

As an IB teacher and librarian, my focus is on Approaches to Teaching and Learning, internal and external assessments, and delving deeply into the curriculum — and those are the things I'll be focusing on when I co-present Follett's IB webinar on June 9 at 2pm CDT. 

While preparing my part of the presentation, it was hard not to go off in a hundred different directions. But one of my tangents is on literacy and areas I can improve my own practice. In a library there are many different ways to approach skill building and instilling a love of reading within our students. We just can’t fit it all into one webinar! 

I was inspired by the Future Ready Librarian Facebook group to try something new this summer – allow students to check out as many books as they want for some relaxing and fun summer reading. I’ve already been allowing students to check out books for Extended Essay, but that was limited to DP students. Why not let current 9th and 10th graders check out books for fun? I think it will support the library mission by building literacy skills and will help prevent “summer slide” with our MYP students. I hope that it will also promote choice, because students can choose whatever they want. As a school, we do not have any required reading for the summer. My collection development focuses on selecting across a wide variety of genres. I read reviews to get the newest and the best recommendations, and I also stay alert to what is trending on social media and then bring it into our school library. Then, I let students choose what looks good to them. So, we will see how this experiment goes.

In the meantime, we will focus on collaboration with teachers and how we can help improve research skills across the IB continuum. As our year wraps up and we can plan ahead for new book purchases for the upcoming school year, I hope you will join us for some ideas.

Click to watch the video - Collaboration to Support Planning & Skills across the PYP, MYP, DP and CP

Here are some of the things we'll cover:  

• How educators can work together to best support inquiry and research across the IB continuum
• How to utilize the school library collection to meet the needs of student-led inquiry
• Showcase of strategies and resources essential to the success of IB teaching and collaboration

Klaudia Janek
IB Teacher, Librarian 
International Academy
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

MAME board member, Extended Essay Coordinator, IB Librarian, IB Workshop Leader, IB Online PD Facilitator, IB Workshop Developer, ALA / AASL / YALSA member. Visit my library portal page. Follow me on Twitter @kjanek.