School Librarians and Educational Leadership: Productive Pedagogy for the Information Age School

Abstract

Against a backdrop of emerging paradigms of educational leadership, this research paper will explore and elaborate some of the fundamental dimensions of quality teaching and learning in information age schools based on the framework of Productive Pedagogy, and in the context of instructional interventions of school librarians in partnership with classroom teachers. This exploration is based on an analysis of extensive data collected during an extended school librarian-classroom teacher collaboration at Gill St Bernards’ School Gladstone, N.J. in 2003-2004. Underpinning productive pedagogy is the belief that high quality teaching and learning should be the focus of professional learning communities and all stakeholders in the school environment. This paper overviews the significant findings of this study, with particular emphasis on an elucidation of the dimensions of productive pedagogy that have enabled students to learn successfully in this collaborative inquiry learning program.