School Librarians Advancing STEM Learning is a three-year project that includes training
School Librarians Advancing STEM Learning is a three-year project that includes training school librarians and STEM teachers to collaboratively build literacy-focused, STEM lessons for K-12. The goal is to support professional learning cohorts to elevate and expand the role of school librarians as leaders in building cultures of inquiry, STEM learning, and literacy.
The project is working on two fronts: first, in supporting cohorts of school librarians and STEM teachers in New Hampshire school districts to work hand-in-hand in co-planning and co-creating lessons that put STEM inquiry and literacy at the center of the lesson. Through this process, ISKME and partners are aiming to forge more connections between school librarians and their colleagues, with respect to curriculum, other resource and technology needs, and to building a culture of student inquiry and engagement, particularly in the STEM areas of study–science, technology, engineering and math, (and, STEAM, when including the arts). Participants will collaboratively create and review curriculum using ISKME’s OER Commons library of freely available resources. The resources developed will support student critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving across STEM disciplines as well as close reading of texts and math integration, in alignment with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and state and national science standards.
Second, the project is also providing processes and tools for faculty and advisors of Granite State College’s new Library Media Specialist certification program that will enable each of these education experts to integrate open education practice as well as open educational resource (OER) creation and improvement into their course creation workflows.