The Leading Learning Implementation Award has been established to recognize, honour and applaud school districts, provinces and territories who have successfully developed and/or enhanced their school library learning commons on a systemic basis founded on the tenets, principles and continuous growth and renewal focus of the five standards of Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada.
The Leading Learning Implementation Award was presented for the first time at the Treasure Mountain 6 Research Symposium and Think Tank 2020, to the Pembina Trails School Division, Winnipeg, Manitoba. The award was accepted by Jo-Anne Gibson, Library Learning Commons Consultant, on behalf of the school division.
It’s very exciting to be here this evening accepting the first ever Leading Learning Implementation Award on behalf of the members of the Board, Senior Administrators, School Administrators, Teacher-Librarians and Library Technicians of the Pembina Trails School Division. The Pembina Trails School Division is proud to accept this award and graciously thanks Canadian School Libraries for having the vision to create such an award and the honour they have bestowed upon our school division by selecting us for this prestigious award.
Pembina Trails School Division is one of six urban school divisions within the city of Winnipeg. It is a diverse and growing school division with thirty-five schools (soon to be thirty-seven) and approximately 15,000 students. Pembina Trails prides itself on providing a challenging and enriching experiences for all its learners in a safe and caring community. This caring community was recently put to the test as we had to say goodbye to two students and their families involved the Iranian airplane tragedy. We are all still mourning their loss and will never forget the courage of the Iranian-Canadian community and our staff and students as they came together to bid farewell to these bright young students and their families.
Pembina Trails is relatively young school division which was created in 2002 after the Manitoba government’s Department of Education, Training and Youth announced the amalgamation of several school divisions in the province. Following this order, two legacy school divisions – the Assiniboine South and Fort Garry School Divisions – became one. Both school divisions had a long history of robust library programs, staffing models and budgets which were fortunately carried over by the new Board upon amalgamation and has stayed strong to this day. Pembina Trails has a half time Library Learning Commons Consultant and all schools are staffed with a teacher-librarian who serves as the instructional leader and a library technician who oversees the day-to-day operations of the library learning commons.
The Pembina Trails School Division has been involved in the creation and implementation of the Leading Learning document since the idea for a renewed set of Canadian standards for school libraries began in Ottawa at Treasure Mountain Canada 2. When the call came to form a Manitoba committee as part of the collaborative cross-country working group tasked with developing the new standards, Pembina Trails School Division’s employees, students and community members willingly volunteered their time to ensure that Manitoba school libraries were well represented on the national school library level. Seven of the nine members on the committee were from the Pembina Trails School Division. Their insights into the value school libraries bring to a school’s learning community and their potential for leading participatory-based learning in all schools were instrumental in moving the concept of new standards for school libraries in Canada to reality.
When it came time to unveil the Leading Learning document at Treasure Mountain 3 in Victoria in 2014, two teacher-librarians from Pembina Trails attended the celebration. Upon their return to Winnipeg, these same teachers were instrumental in ensuring that school library staffs from across the province knew about and had the capacity to use the new standards in their daily practice. They encouraged the Manitoba School Library Association’s Special Area Group of Educators (SAGE) conference planning committee to invite two of Leading Learning’s project steering committee members, Carol Koechlin and Judith Sykes, to present at their annual 2014 fall conference.
Through the leadership of the Pembina Trails Media Library Consultant, Anita Brooks Kirkland, was invited to speak at an all-day professional learning session organized for teacher-librarians working in four school divisions in Winnipeg. Previously known as the Interdivisional Teacher-Librarian Day, since Anita’s presentation on Leading Learning, this day is now referred to as the Interdivisional Learning Commons Day.
At the divisional level, in 2014 the Pembina Trails Library Media Consultant gave a well-received presentation to the entire K to 12 leadership community about the new standards and the philosophy of a learning commons. Shortly thereafter, the Library Media Consultant offered similar professional learning sessions for the teacher-librarians within the division. These two presentations served as the catalyst for school administrators, library staffs, teachers and students to begin the transformation of the libraries in Pembina Trails to library learning commons.
the Leading Learning Implementation Award to Jo-Anne Gibson,
who represented the Pembina Trails School Division, recipient of the
award. CSL chair Anita Brooks Kirkland looks on.
The dedicated work in the division transforming libraries to learning commons began in 2014 with Leading Learning’s “Discussion Starters” and “Action Planning Guides.” Every school library team in Pembina Trails was asked by the Library Media Consultant to evaluate where their school library fell in each of the five standards and themes. These evaluations helped library staffs understand where they were, where they wanted to go and how they were going to get there. As suggested in Leading Learning, some library staffs went even further by establishing learning commons leadership teams in their schools. With more “buy in” across various levels, the transformation of school libraries to learning commons in these schools moved quite quickly. Although others have taken longer, due to the work all schools have done with Leading Learning, every school library in Pembina Trails is now called, and functions as, a learning commons. To reflect this change, in 2018-19, the title of the Library Media Consultant in Pembina Trails School Division was changed to Library Learning Commons Consultant.
Since 2014, each of the five standards in Leading Learning have served as the foundations from which they operate. “Designing learning environments to support participatory learning” was the first standard to be used extensively. Recognizing the significant shift to active centers of learning, making and doing, Pembina Trails School Division has provided extra funding spanning many years to help school libraries establish and run their Makerspaces. Computational and critical thinkers, innovative designers, problem solvers and collaborators from Kindergarten to Grade 12 are spurred on by engaging opportunities led by the library staff. This transformation would not have been possible without the guidance provided by Leading Learning.
“Fostering literacies to empower life-long learners” have been hallmarks of Pembina Trails libraries for many years. School libraries have always been at the forefront of creating a school culture of readers and writers and providing information and media literacy instruction to support to all students. Since the introduction of Leading Learning, teacher-librarians in Pembina Trails have become very adept at integrating digital citizenship and leadership skills within authentic, inquiry-based projects where a variety of technology tools are used to learn, to demonstrate learning and to share learning with a wide audience.
Cultural literacy is extremely important in Pembina Trails School Division. The students who make up the Pembina Trails student body come from all parts of the world. To support these language learners, in the past five years, the Pembina Trails School division has offered special grants to all school libraries to purchase mother-tongue and dual language books. Students new to Pembina Trails have been thrilled to find books in their first languages in their school libraries. The connections made with families with these materials has enabled school libraries to take a lead on building relationships and communication within their wider communities.
Pembina Trails School Division is also committed to reconciliation and improving the outcomes for all Indigenous learners within their schools. Teacher-librarians and library technicians within Pembina Trails have worked hard in the past several years to educate themselves about the true history of Canada, Indigenous ways of knowing, beliefs and cultures so that they can provide support for all teachers wanting to do the same. The Pembina Trails School Division has made this possible by providing funding for teacher-librarians to take Treaty Training, to attend various Indigenous-related conferences and professional development sessions and to take part in numerous Indigenous book and film studies. The result has been teacher-librarians who are able to take a lead in Indigenous education in their schools and beyond.
Teacher-librarians in Pembina Trails have also taken the lead in collaboratively working with classroom teachers to improve inquiry-based learning in all grades. In 2018-19, Pembina Trails provided funding for each of their teacher-librarians and up to two teachers from their schools to attend an inquiry-based cohort. Through a series of five professional development sessions, these teachers were able to work together to build teacher capacity in inquiry-based instruction in their schools. In 2019-20, this work will continue as a series of similar professional development sessions will be led by the Library Learning Commons Consultant on critical inquiry for teacher-librarians and two of their staff members.
Based on the standard, “Facilitating collaborative engagement to cultivate and empower a community of learners,” teacher-librarians in Pembina Trails have been examining the most effective ways on how they can support the classroom teacher. The need for this type of support continues to increase as schools in Pembina Trails shift to a more inclusive model of education. Together, teacher-librarians and classroom teachers have been supported by the Pembina Trails School Division to find ways that support all learners within the school.
Teacher-librarians in Pembina Trails take the lead on learning by “Cultivating effective instructional design to co-plan, teach and assess learning.” Collaborations between classroom teachers and teacher-librarians occur on a regular basis, multi-modal literacies are embraced, and learners are driven by their own questions and curiosities led by the library learning commons team. Pembina Trails library learning commons empowers learners by designing learning opportunities that allow students to become constructors of knowledge, to find their own voices, to become global collaborators seeking justice and environmental stewardship, and to creatively communicate their learnings and passions with others.
Pembina Trails School Division library staffs continue to use Leading Learning as a guide for continual improvement. Every year, new teacher-librarians in the division receive a copy of this document. During the year, teacher-librarians in Pembina Trails uses Leading Learning to guide their practice based on the theme that the Library Learning Commons Consultant has chosen for that year based on the needs of their learning communities. The standards have helped Pembina Trails libraries become recognized both within their communities and by the greater learning community. In the past several years, teacher-librarians and library technicians in Pembina Trails have been honoured by the Manitoba School Library Association as “Teacher-Librarian of the Year” and “Library Support Staff of the Year.” In 2018-19, both awards were given to educators in Pembina Trails. Two Angela Thacker Award recipients also hail from Pembina Trails, which is the highest honour any teacher-librarian in Canada can receive.
Clearly, we in Pembina Trails are very proud of our library learning commons. Thanks, once again, to CSL for recognizing our belief that well-supported school libraries have a tremendous impact on student learning and well-being. Our school division will continue to lead learning from the school library learning commons as long as there are students to educate for life in Pembina Trails.
