Librarian-Faculty Collaboration for Literacy Courses: Promoting Better Learning for Preservice Teachers

This narrative describes a collaboration between three university literacy faculty and a subject librarian undertaken to embed library instruction across the semester in three required courses--children’s literature, early literacy, and disciplinary literacy--in order to help undergraduate preservice teachers better understand and incorporate children’s literature and high interest literature into their teaching. Concrete, scaffolded, hands-on experiences for preservice teachers with teaching materials helped to build awareness of

The need for educators who are equipped with the necessary knowledge and experience to teach using quality literature-not only reading and English, but math, science, social studies, and more-is increasing, as evidenced by national and state educational standards requiring rigor of literacy and research skills for students of all ages (Pimental, 2013).That teacher education programs stay abreast or even ahead of this demand is essential and requires university program developers to be inventive and open-minded in finding practical solutions that have a lasting impact.This article describes such an endeavor: a university-based teacher education program collaboration between three literacy faculty and the education subject librarian.The collaboration was designed specifically to improve preservice teachers' (PSTs) understanding of teaching literacy and content with quality literature in three literacy courses.The first two courses-children's literature and early literacy acquisition-are required for those seeking early childhood through grade 6 (EC6) certification.The third, a disciplinary literacy course, is a required course for PSTs seeking secondary (grades 5 through 12) certification.
Classrooms today include technology and new media literacies requiring books and resources readily accessible to students in all grade levels.Revised and updated state and national standards call for classroom teachers to utilize online, print, and audiovisual resources to support students' successful navigating of the ever-changing literacy landscape.It is essential that school libraries and classroom collections be equipped with quality books, resources, technology, and reference materials to maximize student performance and literacy knowledge (NCTE, 2017).
Updating libraries, media centers, and classroom resources, however, is costly and requires institutional commitment.For many school districts that are strapped financially, this investment in libraries is not prioritized.While Title I schools can use some of their federal funding dollars to support their libraries, private and charter schools often rely on donations from benefactors and parent-supported fundraising endeavors.Further exacerbating the funding issues, school librarians are typically spread across multiple campuses-if the positions still exist (Golden, 2019).Additionally, many serving as school librarians are not university-trained in library science, leaving them underprepared to competently assist teachers and students with specific needs.Therefore, a focus in teacher preparation needs to be aimed at helping those preparing to be teachers develop the skills of selecting and using available appropriate books and materials for themselves.
Thus, teachers must skillfully build their own classroom libraries (NCTE, 2017) for a combination of high-quality texts representing multiple genres, various reading levels, and age-appropriate content.Additionally, in selecting classroom library texts, teachers must address students' interests and the wide curricular needs of any grade level, including supporting students' ability to navigate increasingly complex texts.By providing a variety of relatable, interesting, engaging and authentic texts for independent reading and curricular connections, a teacher's classroom library can expand the literate lives of students.Furthermore, teachers' understanding of varied literatures' uses can help them create rich text environments (Sailors & Hoffman, 2012).For example, educators can use literature for cross-curricular benefit of students by using different genres to enhance course content and for making connections to educational, social, and global topics.Teacher use of multicultural connections to content can create a more truthful and balanced approach to topics, such as science and math, while helping students better connect to subjects.
The Current Project This article's authors are employed at a mid-size, regional public university in the south-central United States.The faculty who share authorship on this article with the education subject librarian are teacher-educators whose backgrounds, interests, and expertise focus on literacy education from early childhood through adulthood.The librarian's background is the study of literature, including children's literature.Holding a master's degree in library science, she serves university departments representing fine arts, literature, and education.Each faculty member author collaborated with the librarian for a specific course, and with her designed experiences and assignments that attended to building in PSTs the knowledge base needed to construct rich and differentiated curriculum linked to literature and classroom library collections.Thus, the librarian is at the center of this work.Our shared narrative inquiry draws from this librarian-faculty collaboration and asks whether and how these experiences helped to deepen preservice teachers' ability to use in their teaching knowledge of genre, form, authors, and literary quality.

Place Matters: Contextualizing the Librarian-Faculty Collaboration
The university serves a rural and economically varied and challenged region of 13,205 square miles, that, like so many parts of the U.S., has seen thriving industries vanish.It is located in a small city, also the county seat, with a population 107,441 (World Population Review, 2020).Surrounded by many smaller communities that rose economically during the oil boom of the 1930s (AOGHS, 2012), the oil crash of the 1980s left these once-flourishing rural towns and counties lacking in resources.The 14 counties that surround the university face significant poverty with anywhere from 34% to 81% (StateSchools.gov, 2021) of the population falling into the economically disadvantaged demographic.Like many other economically strapped communities around the United States, high school graduation rates for these counties are beneath the national average, according to the U.S. Census data (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018).The counties feeding into the university are below the U.S. average high school graduation rate of 87.7% with a range for the feeder counties, between -2.5% to -8.4% below that average.In fact, according to the university's Office of Information Analysis, the percentage of undergraduates self-identifying as first-generation high school graduates, defined as undergraduate students who self-reported on their admissions application that one or both parents did not complete high school, had increased to almost sixteen percent for the academic year 2019-2020.It is not uncommon for these counties' populations to reflect both low levels of education and socioeconomic status.Individuals, families, and institutions like schools and churches suffer under impoverishment (Berliner, 2013).Small rural school districts often struggle financially and offer only low salaries for teachers; these lower salaries lead, in turn, to higher turnover rates than in more affluent districts (Tieken, 2017).These same districts also often end up hiring a high percentage of teachers, certified through fast-track so-called "alternative" programs and who, studies have shown, are markedly less effective (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017) than those coming from so-called traditional, university educator preparation programs.
Alternative certification programs typically provide individuals who already have a bachelor's degree with an alternative pathway to certification and licensure that does not require them to obtain another bachelor's degree….Requirements such as length of time, coursework, and training for these alternative certification programs can vary widely depending on state laws for teacher licensure and programs' design.(Yin & Partelow, 2020, para.7)Indeed, the state has a high rate of alternatively certified educators (38%), a group that also has a high five-year attrition rate (35%) (Rubiera, 2018, para. 2).In turn, these less effective teachers are more frequently employed by economically disadvantaged schools such as those districts and counties that feed into the university.

First-Generation High School Graduates Head to College
Financially strapped school districts often report overall low standardized testing scores.The state's high-stakes testing data shows that for 2019-2020, the grade 4 reading assessment reporting for at "meets grade level or above'' for the state, as a whole, was 44% (State Education Agency, 2021a); for the region that figure was lower, at 43% (State Education Agency, 2021b); and for the local school district 39% (State Education Agency, 2021c).Unfortunately, a typical response by state and local administrators to low scores on high-stakes exams is an over-focus on teaching atomized, decontextualized skills in an effort to do better in the next round of testing, due to punitive state and federal consequences (Au, 2011).While it may be possible to improve test scores in this way, such an approach to teaching and learning incurs collateral damage of both under-educated and demotivated students (Reimann, 2015).Thus, if students are being "sponsored" (Brandt, 2001) into reading by institutions focused on the extrinsic reward of test scores, the seemingly paradoxical result is that many are likely to disengage with reading for their own purposes (Kohn, 1993;Willikes, 2014) and read only when rewarded for doing so.
The university's student enrollment percentage for all first-generation university students continues to grow, as illustrated by data showing this population increased from 19.2% in 2016 to 20.1% of total students in 2019 (see Table 1).Additionally, Table 1 shows the percentage of first-gen education majors-those planning to be teachers-to be 23% of all the university's first-gen students in 2019.Note.First-Generation is defined as those undergraduate students who self-reported on their admissions application that neither parent had attended college.Since teaching is a lower-paying profession, to students coming from areas with limited employment opportunities, the prospect of a steady, professional career--with benefits and retirement--is undeniably attractive.Teaching is a profession that has long been considered a gateway into the middle class (Samuels, 2013, p. 29).While many first-generation university students have successfully integrated into college life, navigated institutional expectations and bureaucracies, graduated, and had successful careers, we also note that other students' experiences bear out research trends about first-generation university students as cultural outsiders to universities.Also pertinent to this discussion, we have noted over the years that some educationtrack students enter the university with little exposure to children's literature or reading for their own pleasure or purposes.Perhaps unsurprisingly, many also struggle to understand concepts underlying reading education.

The Current Project: Organization
This article unpacks the efforts of a librarian and three literacy faculty serving undergraduate students preparing to enter the teaching profession.The three courses were selected because each has a central focus using literature in literacy instruction.In the next section we describe the evolution into current practices and how roles and relationships of librarian and faculty have shifted to become more collaborative.Reviewed, then, are several sections that examine relevant literature.Methods and results are combined within the three subsections which narrate and attempt to illustrate the work done in each course.The first, and the most detailed narrative of this article, examines the children's literature course in which the instructor conducted research that is reported here and from which student voices are heard.The second narrative describes the early literacy course in the instructor's voice and from which no formal research was conducted.The third course, disciplinary literacy, uses a combination of faculty point of view and selected data from a study conducted from the early days of the collaboration.All three follow ethical guidelines for conducting research, and discuss the operationalizing and negotiating of library sessions.This article seeks to illustrate how an evolving collaboration between three literacy faculty and a subject librarian points to promising practices in one teacher education program.

Pathways to Promoting Better Learning: Librarian-Faculty Collaboration
Then to Now.The university's children's literature course had been taught for many years in a face-to-face model and, later, in a hybrid format.As was the typical model, PSTs had a one-shot library instructional session (One-Shot, 2004).However, after the hybrid model was adopted, the librarian observed a pronounced increase in PSTs struggling with foundational concepts taught in the course: understanding genres, the correlation between reading and content levels, effectively using literature in the elementary classroom, and implementing an analytic assessment process needed to determine literature quality for inclusion in curriculum or classroom library.
Collaboratively redesigned, by the librarian and a literacy professor based on the review of pertinent research literature, the course retained a degree of hybridity, using a flipped model, combined with face-to-face instruction.The librarian contributed systematic, instructional support via online lessons, and, together with the professor, themed, experiential hands-on library sessions (Kolb, 2015) followed by written reflection.For example, research conducted by Hearns et al. (2010) showed hands-on learning improved the recall of information in all three stages of post-learning recall: immediate, short-term, and, more impressively, long-term.Their findings suggest the tactile and proprioceptive input of hands-on learning enhances memory and the sense of repetitive success experienced in the step-by-step process of doing.Taking it a step further, Dolničar et al. (2017) discovered that PBL (Problem Based Learning) and PjBL (Project Based Learning) resulted in more significant gains of student learning and retention than did LBL (Lecture Based Learning).Bearing in mind that "[t]he social purpose of academic reflection is to transform practice in some way, whether it is the practice of learning or the practice of the discipline or the profession" (Ryan, 2010, p. 8), the instructors incorporated reflection more intentionally into the literacy courses.Intentional cycles of action and reflection, can serve as a gateway, according to Whalen (2020), that "guide the learner to establish new ideas and to engage in new learning experiences" (p.4).

Learning Environment
According to the American Library Association (2016), many academic libraries are designing spaces to provide integrated approaches and programming that foster holistic student success.Similarly, the library-space-turned-classroom was reconfigured to provide the entire class with ample seating and table space conducive to flexible instruction.As Bieraugel and Neill's (2017) study suggests, specially designed library spaces, thoughtfully utilized, can help university students ascend Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) toward richer understanding of information and concepts.Revising these courses, then, centered on active learning (Elliott et al., 2016) with print books, class discussions, and students' concrete applications of learning objectives.

Collaboration
Librarian-faculty collaborations are not new (Ariew, 2014;Christiansen et al., 2004;Johnson, 2018).Documenting the history of collaborations between teaching librarians and faculty, Ariew's (2014) article documents the idea of the "teaching library" (p.212) and efforts to unify instruction, from the early 20th century to the present.Yet as Wishkoski (2018) argued, while librarians and faculty may agree on the importance of supporting students' information literacy, they recount that it is difficult for many librarians to get buy-in from faculty and to have influence at the curricular and assignment level (p.169).Interestingly, Christiansen et al., (2004) echo this issue in their review of the nature of the complicated relationship between university librarians and faculty: Although the two groups are mutually dependent, and are both necessary to the successful functioning of any academic institution (whether the emphasis is teaching or research), the two groups are generally separated.This is surprising considering their potential for interaction, collaboration, and shared interests in quality teaching and research.To an outside observer, the two groups may appear to be "tightly coupled" ….However, our findings indicate that the two groups are actually "loosely coupled;" that is, they have limited contact whereby changes in the work practices of one group would not necessarily have an impact on the other.(pp.117-118) Addressing, in part, the complexity of the librarian-faculty entwinement, Johnson's (2018) review of literature took up the changing and varied role of the librarian.Particularly in a university setting, librarians are now "[t]eaching in a variety of capacities-whether for-credit information literacy classes, one-shots, or online" (p.93), underscoring Detmering and Sproles (2012) scholarship on this point.Pritchard (2010) describes three levels of teaching librarian support with the highest level, embedded librarian, as a collaborative partnership between librarian and faculty to design the course.However, typically at the most, the librarian is added into a course the faculty has already designed.
Looking at embedded librarianship as a model for potential collaboration, our conversation began with a commitment to providing an immersive experience for the university students as well as housing that experience inside a space many had very little contact with, a library, in or out of college.The progression of the ideas for a unified effort between faculty teaching undergraduate literacy courses and the subject librarian quickly evolved into surpassing any add-ons, and instead, toward redesigning, with the embedded subject librarian (Mudd, 2015, p. 71), the work of educating PSTs in a unified manner.In fact, as research conducted by Mudd (2015) shows The concept of the blended librarian combines the information and research skills of a librarian with the knowledge and skills of an instructional designer…help[ing] enhance the teaching and learning process.The blended librarian can assist in meeting the educational outcomes of students along with assisting them in obtaining information literacy skills.(p.71) In this manner, PSTs were brought into programs with enhanced literacy courses, and were provided with opportunities to build relationships with the librarian, the library itself, and with the resources housed there.With this collaboration, the subject librarian, who had the blended librarian skillset, became a fully embedded librarian in the courses, from the design process to the final output of student engagement.
Represented in this paper are three undergraduate courses, each of which was taught by one of the faculty: a children's literature course, a course in early literacy, and one in secondary content literacy.Each professor met regularly with the librarian, then with each other, to discuss the classes.The work of the collaborative was to evaluate progress through examining student verbal responses to activities, online lesson quiz grades, hands-on library session reflections, and end-of-course professor and librarian evaluations in order to ensure high-quality programmatic alignment.Across the undergraduate literacy-oriented courses, this collaboration helped to ensure consistency and increased the likelihood that each course was regularly updated in response to changing circumstances and emergent needs.
The librarian, as a collaborative partner, not only provided stability but also ensured that purchasing for the children's literature collection remained in line with upcoming course objectives.The professors trusted the librarian's expertise in literature and ability to curate the library collections.The librarian set up the room with strategically selected materials to support hands-on work designed to increase PSTs' knowledge of the material-from identification to understanding, to application, and beyond-with exposure to a wide range of examples.Enabling professors to focus on pedagogy, the librarian's role enhanced the teaching team's ability to deepen the PSTs' opportunities to learn as well as demonstrated the efficiency of the collaborative model to them.

Instructional Framework Student-Centered Learning
Active, student-centered learning strategies have been proven to increase student synthesis of concepts (Elliott et al., 2016).However, incorporating these pedagogies into mid-and large-enrollment courses requires major course redesign: including designing discipline-appropriate student-centered learning activities, setting up the classrooms for those engagements, and achieving unity between departmental faculty, concerning course goals and teaching approaches.As a solution, Elliot et al. utilized faculty learning communities where faculty collaborated in instructional teams which allowed instructors to pool resources and sustain consistency between sections in order to incorporate student-centered, active learning strategies.

Information Literacy Instruction as a Disciplinary and Experiential Process
Identified as a student's ability to find, evaluate, and utilize quality information from credible sources, information literacy depends on the disciplinary needs of a given course (American Library Association, 1989).Junasbai (2016) emphasized the need for flexibility in designing and implementing information literacy teaching, and stressed that information literacy varies with each discipline.Junisbai (2016) also found that developing a faculty-librarian collaboration team not only increased students' discipline-specific information literacy skills, but also helped lessen the instructional burden on faculty.Subsequent research (Thacker & Laut, 2018;Wishkoski et al., 2018) has shown student learning is increased when faculty-librarian collaborations are designed and implemented on a course-by-course, disciplinary basis.
Information literacy acquisition depends upon subject matter and course goals: "library instructional support should include both procedural task-oriented support and higher-level cognitive tasks designed to reinforce instructor-developed content" (Edwards & Black, 2012, p. 287).Reflective of Deweyian constructivism, encompassing both a hands-on approach and subsequent reflection, "individual, social, and environmental interactions" make learning both meaningful and interesting (Beard, 2018, p. 28).
In the three courses discussed below, the information literacy goals revolved around building the students' abilities through experience, using quality literature, understanding differences between reading and content levels, and creating standardsaligned lesson plans across the subject spectrum.Therefore, the information literacy goals were less bibliographic in the traditional sense of library database research, and more pragmatic in students being able to use what they learned in their own classrooms.The faculty-librarian collaboration we undertook foregrounded a team approach to providing students with hands-on, active learning experiences that supported their disciplinary needs as future elementary and secondary educators.What follows is a discussion of each of the three courses and the ways in which the collaboration enhanced each.We consider our approach's trajectory of impact for our students, and sustainability for the people involved.Finally, we consider implications for the intentional evolution of practices between university librarians and literacy education faculty.

Changes Made and Impact on Students in Three Courses Course One: Children's Literature
Including the history and analysis of children's literature, this required course is designed for preschool and elementary education majors.Program advisors counsel these undergraduates to take children's literature early in their degree program because its content provides practical support for their other teacher preparation coursework and clinical experiences.What they learn in this course helps them in their teaching career, regardless of content area or grade level.
Using a mixed-methods design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), data were collected during fall 2017 across 22 PST participants to determine whether and how PSTs' attitudes about reading and teaching with children's literature shifted as a result of taking the course.As one of the first courses in their program of study, the participants' knowledge of children's literature was generally limited to their own personal experiences.Quantitative data included pre/post children's literature attitude surveys that were administered and collected during the first and last session of the children's literature course.Among the qualitative data collected, which included all course work, were written reflections completed at the conclusion of each library session as well as instructor field notes.Consistent with qualitative methodology (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), these data were coded in an iterative manner, which led from open codes to five emergent themes (Learning, Action, Education, Ease, and Challenge) during the analysis phase of the study.First, the PSTs expressed their own learning (e.g., "I learned…"); second, they were moved to take action (e.g., "I can use…"); third, they identified the educational implications in their future classrooms (e.g., "In my classroom I will…"; fourth, they realized the ease in applying their new knowledge (e.g., "This was easier…"); and fifth, they noted the challenges they experienced while attempting to apply their new knowledge (e.g., "It is confusing…").Admittedly taken from an early stage in this collaboration, selected excerpts from their reflections are offered later in order to illustrate, in their voices, their changing understanding of the value and use of children's literature.

Outcomes for Students Taking the Children's Literature Course
By the end of the course, university students should be able to define children's literature and its qualities; apply understanding of the different genres and forms; and take into consideration relevant histories of children's literature and make judgments about children's books for literary and academic (e.g., disciplinary) value, including reading level and grade level.They should be able to take into consideration contemporary societal issues and how they are reflected in children's literature.And, they should develop an awareness of differentiation of high-quality, age-and abilityappropriate book selections for diverse student populations.By the conclusion of the course, university students should be able to incorporate selected children's literature into their lesson planning in order to stimulate interest, tap prior knowledge, and increase motivation of their K-6 students.The library work sessions were particularly rich sites of engagement and were pivotal in supporting the outcomes of the course.What follows is a brief description of each library work session, as well as a discussion of the findings related to the themes and representative examples of reflective responses.

Children's Literature: Library Sessions and Other Assignments
Prior to each library session, PSTs completed an online lesson focused on that day's topic--genre versus form, illustrations in children's literature, managing content versus reading levels, use of credible sources for determining reading levels, deploying poetry across grades and subject areas, or utilizing multicultural books in the classroom.These online flipped lessons, developed by the librarian, were integrated into the class's learning management system and included multiple modes (e.g., video, image, text, audio, etc.) of information delivery, interactive activities, and embedded quizzes.With detailed feedback, PSTs could revisit the lesson and retake the quiz until they achieved mastery.Thus, the consistent use of flipped lessons prior to the library sessions allowed for more student hands-on time with the books and discussion with classmates.
The librarian provided a specific selection of books for each table to expose the PSTs to a wide array of authors and illustrators for each topic.Excellent and poor examples provided opportunities for PSTs to make comparisons.For example, among the books included were those that misrepresented people yet purported to be multicultural, such as Who Cares About Disabled People (1989) by Pam Adams, or, Five Chinese Brothers (1938) by Claire Huchet Bishop, as well as samples of wordless picture books that were not intended for children.These examples helped PSTs see the distinctions between low-and high-quality literature for children.For instance, the topic of content versus reading level was challenging for them to fully grasp and required explicit instruction supported by concrete examples.The wordless picture book for adults, Cats as Cats Can (1997) by Tomi Ungerer, was used to help PSTs understand the distinction between reading level-none for a wordless picture bookand content level-adult, since the images are risqué.Specifically chosen books helped PSTs distinguish what they needed to be on the lookout for when judging and selecting books for classroom use.
Across semesters, sessions were continuously redesigned to better illustrate particular topics.PSTs were required to critically analyze various features and qualities of different books.In the illustrations lesson PSTs were required to select titles representative of the nine functions of illustrations (see Tunnell et al., 2016), including: depicting action, creating depth with detail, establishing setting, defining and developing characters, reinforcing text, providing a differing viewpoint, extending or developing the plot, providing interesting asides, and/or establishing mood (Tunnell et al., 2016, pp. 43-44).These in-class activities reflected both the required reading for that day and the flipped lesson PSTs were to have completed prior to class.

Library Sessions' Logistics and Sequencing
The PSTs' physical position in relation to the materials appeared to impact the degree of engagement with the hands-on learning tasks.In an early-in-semester lesson on illustration, for instance, PSTs spent the whole class at one table working with a variety of picture books.Each table was set to accommodate six to eight PSTs, with a similar variety of books.However, for topics such as poetry or multicultural literature, the tables were arranged, by type of poem or representation of marginalized populations, respectively.PSTs rotated between tables which appeared to help energize them and by virtue of movement and interactions with books, gave concrete distinctions between subtopics, and perhaps, lessening of the cognitive load (Beard, 2018).Also, having a variety of representations of the given topic exposed the PSTs to a substantive array of that particular form (e.g., haikus, free verse, quatrain, etc. for poetry) in the different subject areas (e.g., math, science, social studies).PSTs were also provided time within each session for discussion of text features, important for co-construction of understanding.Small group table discussions were followed by a loosely structured, whole-class discussion, giving an opportunity to hear what other groups were thinking.In the final moments of each class, a one-minute, written reflection invited each PST to process how their thinking may have changed.In addition to the written reflection, they often followed up with comments to the librarian and course instructor about how their views and understandings of children's literature were changing.
Library Session: Genre Versus Form.PSTs completed the flipped lesson and reading assignment on genres and forms.For the genre versus form library session, the librarian assembled stacks of books representing particular genres (e.g., fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc.) at marked stations which included a variety of book forms (e.g., graphic novel, picture book, engineered book, etc.).PSTs selected one book from each to analyze by identifying and explaining their analysis of the genre and form of each book.Finally, PSTs were prompted to verbally discuss any new thoughts they had regarding genre and form at the completion of the work session.A majority of PSTs (19 out of 22) commented that they had experienced at least some Learning from this experience.For example, Rosa (all names of people and places are pseudonyms) wrote, "I honestly didn't know the difference between genre and form before today so that's definitely helpful!"Ten PSTs realized the Educational implications related to their new thoughts regarding genre and form.Violet wrote, "All the different book formats serve a different purpose, and can benefit different students.This is something I can use in my future classroom."This statement also implies the Action theme in the phrase "I can use."Action was indicated in eight reflective responses.Overall, PSTs had a positive response to the library work session, with minimal challenges indicated.Likewise, four students commented on the Ease associated with genre and form, as evident in Oliver's response: "Finding genre & form isn't as hard as I thought."On the other hand, an example of Challenge was evident in Ursela's response: "Genre is much more confusing than form-the lines seem to be shaded in which book belongs in which categories." Her confusion is understandable given the current merging of formats and genres.The distinction of "novel" typically refers to fiction, but the classification of a "graphic novel" is a different format completely.Referring primarily to its format and secondarily to its genre, a graphic novel can be either fiction (e.g.Telgemeier's (2010) Smile) or nonfiction (e.g.Spiegelman's, 1986, Maus: A Survivor's Tale; or, Krosoczka's, 2018, Hey, Kiddo).Similarly, confusion can occur when students try to determine between different genres as in the case of fiction books that also relay nonfiction information such as Cole's (1986Cole's ( -2020) ) Magic School Bus series.In this library session, the PSTs were beginning to understand that children's literature can be more than just picture books or chapter books, or fiction, or nonfiction.In fact, they began to understand that children's literature covers a wide, sometimes overlapping variety of genres and forms.
Library Session: Poetry in the Classroom.Prior to the library session, PSTs completed a flipped lesson that provided background information about structural patterns and examples of various poetic forms via lecture and readings.The librarian then provided stacks of children's poetry books in a range of subjects (e.g., dragonflies, dinosaurs, alphabet, humor, epic stories, etc.) and age levels (pre-K through grade 6, mostly) at different workstations, organized by poetic form (e.g., haiku, quatrain, free verse, limericks, lyric, etc.).For this session, PSTs completed a poetry scavenger hunt where they found and noted features of the following types of poems: color poem, nonfiction poem, poem for two voices, narrative poem, lyric poem, limerick, haiku, free verse poem, and a concrete poem.Afterwards, they reflected in writing on whether and how their thinking had expanded and/or changed regarding using poetry in their future classrooms.This library session on poetry, out of all the library sessions, had the largest responses for the themes Action (20 out of 22), Education (19 out of 22), and Learned (18 out of 22).A representative sample of the themes Action, Education, and Learned came from Penny, who stated, "My thinking has changed [Learned] about poetry because I have never liked it, but now I do.I have learned [Learned] about a lot of great poetic authors other than Shel Silverstein that I can introduce [Action] to my future classroom [Education]."Only two PSTs found the task challenging and no statements indicated that the task was easy.Leo stated, "I really did not understand [Challenge] the difference between all the poems & styles, like narrative, lyric, haiku, and etc."As a result of this library session, PSTs were better able to identify both the genre of poetry and its various types.They learned how they could use poetry in their lesson planning in order to stimulate interest, increase motivation, tap prior knowledge, and activate engagement of their K-6 students.
Library Session: Utilizing Multicultural Books in the Classroom.For the purposes of this article, multicultural literature refers to literature written for children and youth that represents characters' experiences in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation (e.g., Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer-plus: LBTQ+), language, experience, religion, and abilities.Prior to the library session, the PSTs read about the history, selection, and use of multicultural literature in the elementary classroom, then, they viewed the library lecture that discussed accurate representation using books that represent multicultural standpoints year-round in any content-related lesson such as in science, math, or language arts.
Books were stacked at each workstation and separated into the following categories: different ethnic groups, socio-economic diversity, LGBTQ+, different family types, body image, and disabilities.The PSTs rotated through stations to peruse the books and chose two books to analyze more deeply based on a rubric for analysis of literary merit and representational accuracy developed by Bucher and Hinton (2010, pp. 41-42).The elements of this rubric included: literary qualities; accuracy and currency of facts and interpretation; stereotypes in lifestyles; plot (e.g., "Do European Americans in the story have all the power and make the decisions?"(p.41); theme (e.g., "Would the book promote a child's self-image and self-esteem?"(p.42); language (e.g., "Do any dialects reflect the varieties found in contemporary life?" (p.42); author's perspective (e.g., "Is the author (or illustrator) able to think as a member of another cultural group and to intellectually and emotionally become a member of that group?" (p.42); and illustrations (e.g., "Are there stereotypes, oversimplifications, and generalizations in the illustrations?" (p.42).At the end, a class discussion was held to discuss the session and the PSTs' responses.Many PSTs found that literature contextualized in the wide variety of human experience was illuminating and important.To the instructor's surprise, a clear majority of students had never encountered any LGBTQ+ books prior to this experience.According to fieldnotes attending to verbal comments during that discussion, a handful of PSTs felt strongly that books with LGBTQ+ themes should neither be in the classroom nor written at all.Specifically, these same students expressed fear of confrontation by disapproving parents or administrators.By the end of the discussion, however, many more PSTs indicated that they began to realize the benefits in having high quality books with LGBTQ+ storylines and characters in their classroom libraries in order to help create an inclusive environment where representation matters.
Finally, at the end of the library session, the PSTs had several minutes to reflect in writing on how their thinking may have changed regarding using multicultural books in their future classrooms.Five PSTs were either absent or did not complete the final reflection, so data was collected and analyzed for the remaining 17 PSTs.The largest response (13 out of 17) pertained to the educational implications of using multicultural books.Susan's response, while general, is emblematic of all 13: "I realized the importance of multicultural books in the classroom [Education]."Beyond the educational merit, nine PSTs learned something (e.g., Rosa: "Yes my thinking has changed [Learned]"); eight PSTs would take action (e.g., Abby: "Yes, I would use [Action] this for my personal classroom [Education]"); three PSTs noted challenges (e.g., Greta: "I am still not 100% on board [Challenge] with the multicultural books"); and two PSTs noted their ease of use (e.g., Jana: "I wouldn't have a problem at all [Ease] showing these kinds of books").While it is fair to say that some learning took place, the PSTs' guarded, reserved, and vague reflections for this library session as contrasted with their enthusiastic reflections following the poetry library session are noticeable.This course's learning outcomes of first, appreciating and understanding representative samplings of different genres and forms of literature and, second, considering contemporary societal issues represented in children's literature, were both reinforced by the instructor/librarian collaboration.By structuring the class to be a guided, active learning experience, the professor and the librarian invited the PSTs to develop a deeper awareness of how and why to use quality children's literature for use in lesson planning in order to stimulate interest, increase motivation, tap prior knowledge, and activate engagement of students.
Library Session: Content Level -Reading Level.This library session required PSTs to choose at least five different children's books to analyze for both content levels and reading levels.Prior to the session, the PSTs previewed an online flipped library lesson that explained and demonstrated the differences between reading level and content level of children's books and provided step-by-step directions on how to determine these levels using several online leveling resources.The librarian provided stacks of purposely chosen children's books at the different workstations.After the PSTs chose their five books, they wrote their findings, provided citation information, determined the content level and reading level of each, and gave rationales for their decisions.Class discussion followed, which led to their written in-class reflections to consider whether and how their thinking had changed regarding choosing content and reading level appropriate books for students in the classroom.
For this library session three PSTs were absent, so data was only collected for the remaining 19 PSTs.The highest response (13 out of 19) focused on educational implications related to leveling books.Whereas 11 learned new information, 10 were planning to take action.three found the task of leveling books challenging as Ursela stated, "It's not exactly easy [Challenge], but I am sure with practice it should get easier."None stated that the task was easy.A representative sample of the themes Learned, Action, and Education came from Elsa (emphasis original), who stated, "This class made so much sense!I clearly understand [Learned] the difference of their ability vs. their maturity & that because of this difference, we as teachers, must find out the different levels of books [Action] to know whether or not we should have it in our classroom [Education]!".These "aha" statements suggest that now PSTs had tools with which to make informed and professional judgements about texts' appropriateness for various grades and individual readers.That PSTs indicated some shift in their grasp of reading versus content level points to the importance of a focused, interactional, and layered set of educational experiences to get at these sometimes confusing concepts.

Sweet Spot for Prompting Learning in Children's Literature
The library work sessions for this course were pivotal for exposing the PSTs to the large variety of children's books available to use in their future classrooms.In the online library lectures, the librarian explained and showed examples for each lecture topic, while the library work sessions provided physical books for PSTs to handle, read, analyze, and consider for use in their future classrooms.Evidence gathered from classroom discussions and assignments, including analytic guides, reflections, and the final bookshelf project, shows that PSTs demonstrated an increasingly sophisticated understanding of concepts concerning children's literature-from merely remembering, to applying and analyzing, to evaluating (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).This understanding related not only to the books as stand-alone artifacts, but also to their possible uses in developing future lesson plans.Prior to this class, the PSTs demonstrated limited knowledge of the different types of children's books.However, after taking this course, with its several embedded library sessions, PSTs' content and pedagogical knowledge grew regarding how to incorporate children's literature in their future classrooms.

Course Two: Early Literacy
Addressing early literacy, the second undergraduate course centered on the reading needs of children in preschool and the primary grades.Areas of emphasis included incorporating a balanced literacy model using literature; comparing more traditional and progressive methods and materials for the teaching of reading; identifying and addressing elements of emergent literacies; applying state and national standards; and writing balanced and comprehensive lesson plans that incorporated reading, writing, and word work.In addition, PSTs learned how to administer and analyze the results from various formal and informal literacy assessments in order to identify early elementary students' strengths and needs.Not having conducted research in their class, this narrative is centered on the point of view of the course instructor with two illustrative and anonymous student comments coming from standardized end-ofcourse university evaluations.

Early Literacy Outcomes
The early literacy course learning outcomes were designed to ensure that PSTs understood literacy development in young children, from birth to the lower elementary grades.The three outcomes were, first, building foundational knowledge of literacy development; second, studying literacy development theories, and reading research reports that detailed effective literacy instruction practices; and third, planning effective literacy lessons.Holding all class sessions in the library, with both the course instructor and the librarian, supported and reinforced the learning outcomes.This structure allowed easy access to multiple teaching resources, expertise in pedagogical and literary considerations, and assistance in finding lesson materials.
Learning outcomes were further supported by the library's continual collection updates of big books, picture books, and other resources, in both English and Spanish, and in multiple genres, that were specifically selected to meet the literacy needs of young learners.Subsequently, the professor and librarian modeled the materials' used for reading and writing instruction.As well, the librarian provided PSTs with step-bystep instructions on finding pedagogical research articles, identifying different text genres, and determining text reading levels to help PSTs discern and locate the best books and resources for each lesson.

Early Literacy: Library Work Sessions
The library sessions focused on three main concepts: lesson planning, frameworks of literacy development, and instructional execution and evaluation.Each is discussed in turn.The first concept, literacy in lesson planning, requires the PSTs to preview exemplary examples of lesson plans, district scope and sequences, and curriculum maps in order to learn how curriculum is planned over the academic year.The second point of learning, theories and principles of literacy development, involves PSTs researching developmental theories of reading, writing, and oral language development; understanding of literary genres; and effective instructional practices to support each type of development.The third concept, literacy instruction, requires PSTs to plan, implement, and evaluate literacy instruction in an EC-6 setting.
Library Session on Lesson Planning.PSTs prepared for the library session on lesson planning by previewing exemplary samples of lesson plans, district scope and sequences, and curriculum maps in order to become familiar with how curriculum is planned over the academic year.During the session, PSTs collaborated in small groups to create targeted and engaging lesson plans.They reviewed state content and English learner proficiency standards, selected literacy research articles with effective teaching methods, and then identified children's literature that could be used to teach particular skills.PSTs used this assemblage of texts to thoughtfully and skillfully create literacy lesson plans that reflected appropriate developmental stages for guided reading groups, as well as for whole-class interactive reading using teacher-directed plans.

Library Session on Alignment between Literature Selection and Standards
Across Grade Levels and Genres.The overall intention of this library session was to help PSTs understand how the same story can be presented in different genres and forms at various developmental levels.Coming to class with state reading standards in hand, PSTs examined, through the lens of one particular grade, various stacks of texts that were selected by the subject librarian.For example, one stack of books consisted of multiple representations of Greek mythology written for readers from pre-K to young adult.Guided class discussion, then, underscored the vertical alignment that was achieved in this library session which, in this way, simulated a professional learning community (PLC).
Library Session on Literacy Instruction.For this library session, PSTs selected a genre that served as primary foundational pieces for their literacy lessons.Building on the prior two library lessons of instructional planning and theories and genres, PSTs drew on knowledge of standards, literacy theory, and literary genres to construct original lesson plans.One PST put it well when they shared in an end-of-course reflection that they "loved all of the hands-on activities [because] it really helped me gain a better understanding of elementary literacy."Practicing their chosen literacy instruction techniques with classmates who provided feedback gave PSTs a practical, hands-on approach to the theories researched.

Sweet Spot for Prompting Learning in Early Literacy
By breaking down the topics and utilizing hands-on exploratory methods, the library sessions made potentially abstract concepts more concrete, understandable, and attainable by undergraduates.Their capstone project was a literacy lesson plan designed to display their learning by identifying appropriate standards, understanding teaching applications that incorporated literary genres, and practicing teaching methods.Like Dolničar et al. (2017) argued, through integrating Problem Based Learning (PBL) via the library sessions and Project Based Learning (PjBL) through the capstone project, PSTs integrated the comprehension of complex concepts to produce developmentally appropriate lessons.
Giving PSTs the learning experiences and tools necessary to be successful as beginning teachers is one of the goals of the EC-6 teacher preparation program.One PST indicated that the exercises undertaken helped them to grow conceptually.By virtue of the end-of-course comments, PSTs indicated confidence regarding their readiness to step into a classroom.Exemplifying many conversational and written reflections within the context of the course, this end-of-course evaluation comment, that the professor "taught me things I can actually apply in my future classroom," speaks to this instructor's success in meeting her PSTs where they were and giving them practical skills for their careers.

Course Three: Disciplinary Literacy
The third undergraduate course of the literacy/library collaboration was focused on disciplinary literacy in grades 5-12, a required course for those PSTs seeking secondary (e.g., mathematics, science, history/social studies, English, Spanish) or alllevel (e.g., music, physical education, art, theater) certification.This course was intended to help PSTs better communicate specialized concepts in ways that engage students, thereby increasing their motivation for engaging with disciplinary content.While this narrative is drawn primarily from the faculty member's point of view, there is an illustrative data excerpt taken from a qualitative inquiry (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) conducted in fall 2015.The data collected included all coursework and instructor fieldnotes.PSTs creation of multimodal text sets has been reported elsewhere (Consalvo, 2016) from data obtained from this research.

Disciplinary Literacy Course Outcomes
The four overarching outcomes for the course center on: first, building the PSTs' understanding of literacy as disciplinarily based; second, enhancing their ability to plan lessons incorporating disciplinary literacy learning strategies that build motivation and engagement in middle and high school students; third, exploring various technological applications that are disciplinarily relevant; and fourth, building an understanding of how to differentiate disciplinary literacy instruction for secondary students across multiple continua of diversity (e.g., language, religion, gender, academics, race, ability, etc.).All of these desired outcomes come together in the final project for the course, the text set, which is the focus of the library sessions offered.
Scheduled after the midterm, this course's two library sessions were designed to support PSTs in their creation of their culminating project: a text set.A text set is, fundamentally, a selected collection of texts of any length often arrayed around a unifying theme (Bersh, 2013, p. 48).As defined in this course, the disciplinarily oriented text set is a thematically linked group of multimodal (Elish-Piper et al., 2014), short, high-interest texts and accompanying activities designed to activate background knowledge, interest, and motivation for middle and high school students' learning.In order to best meet the various disciplinary needs of the PSTs, the librarian identified library resources for each of their many content areas.
Library Session on High-Interest Text Selection.The first library session was designed to familiarize PSTs with short, teen-friendly, authentic texts across modes, such as images, maps, videos, audio recordings, newspapers, magazines, children's books, and poetry collections.The librarian carefully attuned the collections to the PSTs' needs, keeping in mind their widely varying disciplinary concentrations.
Grouped by mode, the various artifacts were laid out on tables (e.g., newspaper table, map table, poetry table, etc.) so that their movement from one table/mode to another reinforced their developing conceptions of multimodality.To guide their exploration, the instructor created a treasure hunt activity across multiple modes that mirrored the expectations of the final assignment.PSTs also located materials in library-provided online databases (e.g., art collections, national historical archives, etc.) to address, in part, the course's selection and use-of-technology outcome.As part of their reflection at the conclusion of this first library session, the PSTs were asked to submit a one-or two-sentence draft idea for their text set.Spread across five weeks, the text set assignment had a sequence of increasingly complex products due in order to support their sustained engagement with the concept of multimodal, disciplinarily focused teaching.
Library Session: Text Set Workshop.During the second library session, PSTs each conferenced briefly with the instructor in order to focus their ideas, consider various designs, and address misconceptions.They also consulted freely with the librarian, who helped them develop search terms and identify and locate the best resources.PSTs were given time and support to concentrate on finding various texts for their project with the resources of the library at hand and with the assistance of both their instructor and librarian.With this early-stage intensive library support, and the time-intensive and resource-rich opportunities in both library sessions, PSTs developed a broader understanding of what texts can be and how they can be deployed for increased learning for secondary students.
For example, student Arnold Smith (pseudonym), music education major, created a text set centered around the music of the American Shakers, a Christian sect that is now practically extinct.In his introduction to one of his text set activities, he wrote: Short term objective: The short term goal of this activity is to engage the class in a visual example of authentic Shaker music and dance in reflection to the music being rehearsed in class.
Long term objective: The long term goal of this activity is to express to the students the importance of music and dance throughout various cultures.Through watching this video, the class is fulfilling the eighth National Standard of Music Education: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts as well as the ninth: Understanding music in relation to history and culture.(Artifact, 2015).Here, Arnold strives to bring together engaging audio and visual texts to the in-class task of playing music using instruments and reading musical notation to do so.In Arnold's second section, the reader glimpses his vision for broadening for his students the cultural context in which they encounter content.While this is but one example of many, it is emblematic of the kinds of integrative thinking that PSTs evinced as they designed and constructed their multimodal text sets.Most eschewed worksheets and instead, like Arnold, provided instructional invitations into disciplinary thinking through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels in order to provide opportunities for grade 5-12 students to collaborate and talk through disciplinary problems on their way to solving them.
In each library session, the use of tangible objects grouped by mode allowed PSTs to better relate to the idea of a text as high-interest, and potentially the importance of presenting content to youth in more understandable ways.For instance, the PSTs were able to identify relevant non-fiction poetry and newspaper and magazine articles that held the potential to both intrigue and educate their future students.Since these PSTs were not required to take either the children's literature course or a young adult literature course, conceptual understandings-like how varying age ranges and subject matters of picture, chapter, and poetry books can engage or repel students-were unknown to them.The library-literacy collaboration not only enabled PSTs' increasing competence in delivering instruction that is grounded in their own discipline's literacies, but also developed teacher expertise in content-rich and developmentally appropriate ways to make subject matter more available and appealing to children and youth.

Discussion
Collaborations between university faculty and university librarians, as discussed earlier, are not new (Ariew, 2014) within the field.However, for our particular context, drawing from the model of a teaching group composed of both faculty and the subject librarian as an equal/ stabilizing partner is (Johnson, 2018).Using this collaboration model-and without increasing faculty time-we were able to incorporate several instructional techniques (e.g., active physical engagement, information literacy, reflective writing, PBL and PjBL, and flipped classroom design) that have been proven to increase student learning on their own (Dolničar et al., 2017), and when we used them together, pointed to steady increase in student development.Furthermore, because of integrating these instructional modes in course curricula, students came to the library sessions with sufficient background knowledge enabling them to build their understanding using the hands-on learning experiences (Hearns, 2010;Kolb, 2015).PSTs were able to complete assignments more efficiently because they knew, from the flipped classes, how to navigate online searches for journals, books, and resources.Since many of our PSTs commute over thirty miles to attend classes, work full-time jobs, and have significant family responsibilities, time is an essential variable.With the full support of the subject librarian, who was able to marshal the library's capital (Johnson, 2018), the faculty member could then focus on other course content.
The PSTs in the children's literature course study reported that the combination of these hands-on learning experiences, interactions with the books (PjBL), and application of the skills (PBL) helped to solidify their understanding of the concepts (Dolničar et al., 2017).One PST commented, "I…enjoyed being able to actually read and have children's books at our disposal…[Before this class] I personally did not care for reading in general, but I can now say that that has changed."Likewise, another PST stated, I have always had a general understanding of literature, but now looking back on this semester, I have gained so much more knowledge….I…loved researching the different genres and forms of children's books.I feel that it opened my mind to what else is out in the world today and how to integrate them into the classroom correctly.The university librarian specifically created hands-on learning experiences that helped students become actively engaged with the different library collections.These learning experiences provided the students with opportunities to apply what they were learning within each literacy course.PSTs discussed how they thought they understood the concept from the online lesson but found that they didn't fully grasp the concept until they were applying it in the hands-on lesson.Such guided, concrete encounters were essential for the PSTs-our students-many of whom came to college with limited meaningful exposure to the different educational assets that libraries offer.The relatively intense and sustained use by the PSTs of the campus library services throughout these three college courses may impact whether and how they research, read, and implement literature and professional materials (NCTE, 2017) as they develop into professional educators.This collaboration also prompted the librarian to create an online, publicly available children's literature guide containing many resources (e.g., genres, award books, books lists, book reviews) so PSTs would have easy access to information regarding children's literature during their preparation and even beyond graduation.(To view the Children's Literature Libguide: https://libguides.uttyler.edu/c.php?g=357600).Collaborating with the librarian (Wishkoski et al., 2018) in their courses has enabled three teacher-educators to provide deeper learning experiences for university students in teacher preparation courses.The rich text environment (Sailors & Hoffman, 2012) PSTs encountered and which was modeled for them supported their conceptions of curriculum.The PSTs enrolled in these courses learned how to participate in literacy learning experiences, to reflect on their experiences (Whalen, 2020), and how to recall and apply their new knowledge into future teaching experiences.

Implications
University librarians can support faculty across content areas in a multitude of ways.Future inquiries could include investigating whether and how graduates of teacher education programs continue (or not) to use their school and community libraries and whether they retained key learnings to build appropriate and inclusive classroom libraries.Other research could feature ways in which other programs, such as engineering, nursing, or fine arts, could embed their subject librarian into courses and provide students with similar-but disciplinarily appropriate-concretized encounters with the texts of their own disciplines.
So, what does this mean for university subject librarians?The subject librarians have an opportunity to develop collaborative relationships with faculty and become more fully immersed into their courses by providing interactive and engaging lessons for students that potentially could bolster the students' content attainment for the courses.Likewise, the faculty can experience content delivery support from these collaborations.University faculty and subject librarians, both, need courage to step out of their silos and enter the world of trusting collaborations (Wishkoski et al., 2018).Faculty must build up trust in the librarian before a collaboration can take place.After all, students do not distinguish between the librarian and the faculty provided content when filling out the course evaluation, and therefore faculty have much to lose by bringing in another person.This trust-building takes time, and as subject/liaison librarians strive to build these relationships, becoming more present with the faculty is a must.As noted in Christiansen et al. (2004), "physical and temporal separation of librarians and faculty impacts the opportunity for meaningful interaction and the mutual recognition of expertise" (p.118).This separation can create a vacuum, where, devoid of collaboration, the student experience may be less impactful, and faculty workloads heavier.The subject/liaison librarian must be organically and professionally present in the faculty space.Proaction on the part of the librarian goes a long way to bridging the gap between a supplemental one-shot session to a fully embedded librarian who, ultimately, can be a significant catalyst for student learning and improved course design.
What started with one course has since branched into other courses.The inclusion of the subject librarian in the literacy faculty teaching group has led to further developments in other courses and projects within the department with similar results: increased learning/production without an increased burden on faculty.From the librarian's perspective, this leads to a more embedded relationship with the department, their faculty, and students in which the liaising ability of the librarian is increased, as is knowledge of the department's plans in order to anticipate library purchases or needs, and the students' information literacy/critical thinking skills are improved through course content, rather than an add-on to the course load.For faculty, the librarian can be a sounding board, a wealth of technological delivery information ideas, an outside perspective, and, as an embedded librarian, an expert who can work with the students at the point of need.
struggle with reading and writing, reading motivation, using alternative texts (i.e.graphic novels) during literacy instruction to increase children's reading and writing skills, and service learning to enhance preservice teachers' literacy content knowledge and implementation of reading and writing strategies instruction.
Vandy Dubre is the Fine Arts, Literature, & Education Librarian at The University of Texas at Tyler.She received her M.L.S from Texas Woman's University with an emphasis in children's literature.Her research interests include local history and education, ethnomusicology of Scottish folk music and life, and the promotion of inclusive literature.
Joanna Neel is an associate professor of literacy, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at The University of Texas at Tyler.Her research interests include early literacy acquisition, differentiating literacy instruction for all learners, teacher education preparation, and establishing collaborative partnerships to improve literacy.

Table 1
Percent of Undergraduate Education Majors Who Self-Identified asFirst-Generation  2016-19