Introduction and Background

  • My original project focused on how collaboration between teachers and media specialists can impact student achievement.  I wanted to work with a science teacher and collaborate on science fair projects.  Finding someone to work with proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated.  As a new faculty member at a school that did not meet AYP, I was hoping to work with the department that had the biggest challenge for improvement.  Even knowing the department head didn't give me an "in" with the rest of the teachers.  No one wanted to volunteer for what they felt was an intrusion rather than an opportunity for collaboration and student success.  I ended up working with a special education class.  The teacher was very willing to work with me after she saw me interacting with her students during media center orientation.  She was impressed with my patience and was very open to working on a collaborative project.
  • Information literacy skills are necessary in every facet of life.  Knowing something is great but few of us know the answers to all questions.  Being able to locate the answers to questions is vital to being an informed citizen and a productive member of society. Standardized test scores are used to measure a variety of skills that have been identified as being important to student learning.  The school where I am currently a media specialist has seen a steady dip in test scores across all disciplines (including special education).  I believe that this is the result of several factors including students not being taught the skills necessary to be critical thinkers.  Information literacy skills help students to hone their deductive reasoning and think critically about the information they are searching for.  
  • By focusing primarily on special education students who will be entering the work force after graduation, this need for “real life” applicable skills is even more pronounced.  These students need to refine the skills necessary to be productive workers.
  • “Real world” skills will be useful to these students not just in an academic setting but also for being productive members of society.  
  • My project focused on job searching skills utilizing the online database Georgia Career Information Center.  This database provides interest surveys to aid in finding appropriate jobs for students, detailed job descriptions, salary ranges, educational requirements, and lesson plans for teachers focusing on a variety of life skills including budgeting, interviewing skills, and how to keep a job once you have it.

Research Question

  • How does collaboration between special education teachers and media specialists impact student information literacy skills? 

Importance of Study

  • Information literacy skills are necessary in every facet of life.  Knowing something is great but few of us know the answers to all questions.  Being able to locate the answers to questions is vital to being an informed citizen and a productive member of society.  Standardized test scores are used to measure a variety of skills that have been identified as being important to student learning.  The school where I am currently a media specialist has seen a steady dip in test scores across all disciplines.  I believe that this is the result of several factors including students not being given the skills necessary to be critical thinkers.  Information literacy skills help students to hone their deductive reasoning and think critically about the information they are searching for. 

Context  

  • School Background Information and Context 
  • Students' lack of information literacy skills is reflected in recent standardized test scores and has been observed by teachers in various cases.  I recognized this weakness as an issue as a classroom teacher and it became even more evident when I was doing 9th Grade Orientation.  Students played a game of Clue to become acquainted with various areas of the media center.  It was interesting to see how many students weren’t able to do effective searches to locate the hidden clues.  Other observations with classes showed me that students (without any instruction) are much more likely to go straight to Google or Wikipedia as a research source than use any print materials or research databases.
  • The special education students worked on a modified version of the 9th Grade Orientation game the other classes did.  Instead of working in groups, the class worked together to figure out the answers to clues.  These students had a very difficult time figuring out the key words necessary to complete an online search and were unable to correctly identify the resources that they would need to answer the questions.