Five Year Horizon for My Library Learning Commons

 Reflect on the implications for your specific Library Learning Commons of the report’s timeline of one year, two to three years and four to five years. 

1-2 years

It may be questionable to have the library take a leadership position on coding and STEM when the school currently has a very strong ADST program. The library may be able to support these programs in a different way (research, physical and digital resources), but there may be no need to have the library start their own program. This may change if the curriculum requires all students to learn coding, but with the ADST department, it may be more wise to have the library partner with them to create something that meets the needs of the school. 

The library may be able to take a leadership position in interdisciplinary, inquiry, and collaborative learning, as the LLC is often considered a neutral space where there are few ties to specific subjects.

3-5 years

The LLC could take a bigger part in the changing assessment methods. There may not be an expert in the school yet who is adept with the online tools we have to use to keep track of grades, so the TLs could take that upon themselves to support staff at the school. 

The LLC is already following a model of a flexible, varied, and student-centered space. The furniture can be moved to combine for collaborative work, or separate for individual work. The shelves can be connected or disconnected to make it easy to move around the space and adapt for classes and students coming in.

5+ years

I could see the LLC becoming more involved with supporting (and even guiding) the school's vision and mission to create a school culture. This could also be done on a smaller scale in just the LLC if there are no opportunities to be involved with guiding the school's culture. The LLC could also provide leadership opportunities for students by staying updated on what is going on in the community (school and beyond) to point students to where there is a need. The library is also an ideal space to support student clubs or meetings as needed. 

I am not sure of the library's role in teaching/supporting SEL and soft skills aside from reaching out to bring in speakers or acquire subscriptions to resources that students may benefit from.

Identify the challenges you foresee for your Library Learning Commons, using Horizon’s scale of Solvable, Difficult and Wicked. 

solvable (understand and know how to solve)

Creating a space that is welcoming and functional for staff and students. There is currently unused space in the library which could be repurposed as a separate teaching/studying/reading space. The layout of the library is also not ideal in meeting the needs of staff and students, so the furniture could be moved around to make room for classes to do research, for small group studying, and individual studying.

difficult (understand but don't know how to solve)

Being more involved with the school community. The library could stand to utilize the space to be more helpful to the school community. There is not strict solution to this, but it is a desire of the teacher-librarians to be able to put the space to good use. The teacher-librarians also do much of their work behind the scenes, so it is questionable if they could be more involved with the school community. Perhaps there may be opportunities for co-teaching or leading in the school community. This problem may also pair with increasing exposure of the library to show staff and students what is available to them.

wicked (hard to define, require more information before a solution can be made

Taking a leadership role in the school's culture and partnering with other roles in the school. Requires more information to understand what the current leadership structure is like and where the library could be involved to benefit the school.

Include two questions for your readers

Where could TLs find leadership opportunities within the school?

What could be the library/LLC's role in shaping the school culture?

References

The New Media Consortium. (2017). The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition, pp. 10-37, retrieved 8 May 2021 from https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2017/11/2017hrk12EN.pdf