artifact 4 - Library Orientation

1. What? (What is the CONTEXT of the artifact? What is it? When and why was it produced?)

The document linked to my ePortfolio is what I used this year to introduce and re-introduce my middle school students to the library and to my expecations for them while in the library and related to the school library. This document is an example of how I am managing student behavior, which is part of Danielson's Domain 2 standard. 

2. So What? (What is the ROLE of the artifact? Why did I select it as evidence for meeting this standard? What does it say about my growing competence as a teacher?)

I selected this document as evidence of how I am managing student behavior. As part of my library orientation for 6-8th grade students I invite each language arts teacher to bring all of their students into the library for a lesson. We go through each of the items on this list together. I project the form onto the big screen through my projection system and have class discussion about each item. I ask students to write in their own words what the expectation is for each of these items. I believe by making this an interactive lesson where students are participating in the discussion and taking/writing notes in their own words, that I will be able to better manage student behavior because students who understand what the expectations are in the library are better able to behave according to those expectations. I find I do not usually have very many problems with student behavior due most likely to activities such as this library orientation activity.

3. Now What? (What is the IMPORTANCE of the artifact? How did producing the artifact help me improve my professional competence and what will I do to continue to improve relative to this standard?)

I feel that this sort of activity is an important piece of managing behavior and I continue to tweak my beginning of year library orientation to be more and more interactive each year. I am in my 12th year as a library media specialist and each year I learn to have me talk LESS and my students talk MORE! I imagine next year I will do something similar to this year for the library orientation but may make this shorter.