Ban Those Bird Units
Action Research Project
David V. Loertscher
In conjunction with the
AASL Research Committee
Too many of the learning activities in school libraries are low-level cut and paste activities, such as transferring facts from library resources on to worksheets or just cutting information off the Internet to pass in for a report. Little learning results and plagiarism dominates. Such activities are termed "bird units" after the ubiquitous 4th grade bird reports, but they can be on any topic: explorers, state reports, old famous dead men, or other common K–12 topics and across all disciplines. Many teachers, feeling pressured to have their students achieve, have stopped all interaction with library research reports, because they understand that the time invested in these reports will not produce any positive results. Library media specialists are reluctant to have such activities continue because the potential of the library media center and its resources are being ignored.
What is the impact on learning and collaboration of high-level learning activities in information-rich and technology-rich environments? In other words, when higher-level learning activities replace “bird units” in libraries, what is the impact on learning and collaboration?
Library media specialist and teacher teams K–12 are asked to transform "bird units" into higher-level learning experiences and evaluate the results on learning. Two-page descriptions of the transformation and the results will be returned to David Loertscher at 312 South 1000 East, Salt Lake City UT 84102 or by email attachment to davidl@slis.sjsu.edu
The results will be posted on http://www.davidvl.org under Ban Those Bird Units Project and in other appropriate publications. Participants are also urged to use the experience to promote the teaching role of the library media program.
1. Who Can Participate? Library media specialists and their collaborating teacher partners in K–12 education worldwide.
2. Timetables: Two time periods will be covered: Spring 2005 begins January 1, 2005 and ends May 15; Fall 2005 begins May 16 and ends Dec. 15, 2005. You may participate in either or both sections.
3. How do I indicate interest to participate? Email David V. Loertscher with your intention to participate. This will cause your name to be put on the official list and you will be put into a group that can communicate (listserv, blog, or discussion group). In this group, news, progress, questions, and a host of other helpful hints will be forthcoming.
4. What does it cost and why would I want to participate? There is no cost to participate except your own time. Realistically, the most benefit of the project will be local. That is, as library media specialists and teachers replace low-level learning experiences in the library media center with higher-level ones, the impact on learning will be greater—thus contributing to achievement and the ability of young people to work and learn in an information-rich environment.
5. How many units can a team contribute to the project? As many as they would like. But make sure that each is identified with participants and contact information. And you may include the phrase in the footer: Copyright 2005 by (add the collaborator names here).
6. What will happen to the units contributed? The units will be analyzed by a team of researchers doing content analysis. If specific examples are to be used in publications or presentations, the authors will be contacted for permission. Otherwise, contributions will be treated anonymously. Permission will be sought to post examples on the web site for this project to help others who are participating.
7. What are the expected outcomes? Two presentations or summaries are anticipated at the moment. The first is at the AASL Research Forum scheduled for the ALA national conference in Chicago, June 2005. The other is at the Tresure Mountain Research Retreat in October 2005 in conjunction with the Pittsburgh AASL national conference. Participants in the research may be asked to present in person or a group of participants, such as a school district of library media specialists might be asked to report their findings as a group.
8. Do we have to use one of the recommended Ban Those Bird Unit Models to participate? No, but it is encouraged. The models in the attached handout have been designed to work in a school library setting where there is a wide variety of information sources and technology available. They don't work well in textbook/lecture environments. However, you can use adaptations of the models or create models of your own as long as you have faith that your model forces learners not only to extract information from the library media center but to THINK and USE that information in such a way that learning is increased.
9. Why this project in the first place? Much research already exists at the macro or organization level that school libraries have a positive impact on learning, but many of the specifics of why this happens are not known because the measures are at the organization level. This action research looks at a second level that is much closer to the learner. It examines the impact of the library media center on the teaching unit. It asks two witnesses, the teacher and the library media center, to not only redesign a learning experience, but evaluate its impact on learning. True, this research will not actually assess the learning of an individual student, but it attemps to assess the impact that two teaching partners can have when working in an information-rich and technology-rich environment. Because this action research consists of volunteers, the results will not be "scientific" but will lead the way to more experimental probing. Collaboration continues to show up in national research as one major factor in why school libraries contribute to achievement. This study seeks to understand how and why. And, in the true standard of medicine, this action research is deemed to "cause no harn." That is, it is difficult to imagine a teacher and a library media specialist joining forces to create and implement a high-level learning experience in the LMC that would be worse than or detrimental to studends had they remained in their classroom reading textbook chapters and answering questions at the end of the chapter. The potential for decreasing boredome alone is cause for hope.
1. Print out the pdf file handout and read it carefully. Look through the various models and begin to plan how to transform a learning experience from a low-level bird unit into a higher-level learning action plan.
2. Email David Loertscher at davidl@slis.sjsu.edu of your intention to participate. This will link you into a discussion group for support throughout the project.
3. If the handout seems insufficient, you may wish to puchase the books upon which the project is based.. Ban Those Bird Units by Loertscher, Koechlin and Zwaan and the accompanying volume, Build Your Own Information Literate School by Koechlin and Zwaan are available at www.lmcsource.com, however these are not needed to participate. These two resources give many examples and advice for working with the models across all disciplines.
4. For each unit you transform, use the worksheets in the pdf file to report your unit. The first page describes the old and the new ways of teaching the unit. The second page is an assessment by the teacher and library media specialist of the impact of that experience on teaching and learning. On these sheets, put as a footer your names and contact information, including a copyright notice if you so desire. If the unit is to be published or put on a website, you will be contacted for permission before this occurs.
5. Begin sending these two-page unit descriptions to David V. Loertscher as soon as they are completed and up until the two deadlines of May 15 and December 15, 2005. Paper copes can be sent to: David Loertscher, 312 South 1000 East, Salt Lake City UT 84102 or by email attachment to davidl@slis.sjsu.edu
6. Report success not only to David Loertscher, but more importantly to your local faculties and principals. Is the library media center a force in achievement? What evidence do you have that teaching and learning are being improved? What could happen if all bird units were replaced by high-level learing experiences? How can teachering and learning be maximized in this school? How many times do we have to demonstrate the power of transformation until such high-level learning experiences become accepted by a faculty as the norm?
Here are the materials you will need to help:
1. The handout in pdf files here can be downloaded and shared with anyone who would like to participage.
2. Sample units will be linked here as they develop. We hope to have a variety across all grade levels and disciplines.