The School Library Leading the Way

Providing Information Literacy Professional Development for Teachers

Abstract

In 2007 the principals of three schools in Auckland, New Zealand, formed a cluster with the aim of improving standards of information literacy in their schools over three years. Research, reported in a paper at the 2008 IASL conference, demonstrated that few teachers in the cluster were explicitly teaching their students the skills they needed when undertaking research or inquiry. In early 2008, a group of Lead Teachers, led by the teacher librarian in the largest school, and including trained library staff, designed a cluster model for teachers to use with their students when processing information. They also designed cluster-wide professional development which each school implemented in different ways. This paper reports on the findings of an evaluation carried out to measure the effectiveness of the first round of professional development.