Buffy Hamilton's Blog, page 7

Formative Assessments: Our Compass for Understanding Affective, Cognitive, and Physical Aspects of Information Search Processes

Original photo by Buffy Hamilton

I’m currently working with a section of American Literature/Composition students who have been asked to look at a historical or current event that embodies a degree of hysteria or abuse of power and compare that to the hysteria or abuse of power in the play The Crucible. This research task is a fairly typical high school assignment for this text and course. Initially, the teacher wanted me to cover five major areas of research in one class period in lecture fo...

SWON Webinar: Written Conversations and Academic Literacies in Libraries

Thank you SWON Libraries for the opportunity to share the possibilities for learning through written conversation strategies!

Resources:

Blog Posts/Write-Ups Pinterest Today’s PDF: SWON Webinar Written Conversations October 2015
Filed under: 2015, Participatory Librarianship and Learning, Written Conversation Strategies Tagged: academic literacy, Harvey Daniels, learning, presentation, SWON, written conversation strategies, written conversations

Write-Around + See-Think-Wonder + Gallery Walk-Big Group Share=Art Students’ Awesomeness

I’m continuing to collaborate with amazing art teacher Dorsey Sammataro in AP Studio Art and now with her extended period Introduction to Art class along with her fellow Fine Arts teacher Donna Jones. Dorsey and I began this mini-collaboration last week with a brief conversation and meeting about the new unit on graffiti and public art that is culminating in the students participating in a Free Art Friday drop in October at Atlanta’s Beltline. She then shared the unit planning guide (a Googl...

Artists and Their Work as Touchstone “Texts”: Unpacking Craft with Write-Around Conversation Strategies

Our AP Studio Art class and teacher Dorsey Sammataro continue to move forward with their current explorations on what inspires art and action and how art can be a catalyst for service and social change. After watching a video on the Genesis photography project by artist Sebastiao Salgado and reading this NY Times article about him and his work, Ms. Sammataro designed 5 reflection questions for us to use in our “write-around” questions activity. As I always do with write-arounds, I first gave...

Researchers as Artists, Artists as Researchers: Tinkering, Messiness, and Meaning Making in Libraries as Learning Studios

Last week, I sent out a needs assessment to our faculty. Initially, I was concerned it was too lengthy, but as a new media specialist here at Chattahoochee High, I feel a sense of urgency to get some idea of what teachers have done in the past, what they are interested in now, and their points of need. In spite of some lingering reservations, I shared the assessment with our faulty via email. The next morning, AP Studio Art teacher Dorsey Sammataro came by to see me because she was intrigued...

NHS Students Reflect on Learning Spaces and Design, Libraries, and Academic Capital

Today three of our TOK students stopped by to chat with me about their reflections on last week’s discussion activity anchored by written conversations around our dry erase/markerboard surface tables. In this thirteen and half minute video interview, they share their thoughts on the ways the markerboard surfaces elevated and created a more participatory medium for learning that they felt would probably have not happened in a traditional classroom or library setting. In the first third of the...

IB Teacher Dan Byrne Discusses Growing a Culture to Support Academic Literacies

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about our most recent collaboration with Dan Byrne and James Glenn and on a larger scale, the possibilities for libraries as places and catalysts for growingacademic literacies. Dan was gracious enough to stop by for a few minutes this morning to share some quick but poignant reflections on growing a culture of learning with students that supports academic literacies.

Filed under: 2015, inquiry, reflections, Teaching and Learning Tagged: academic literacies, Dan B...

Markerboard Surfaces, Collaborative Conversations, Academic Literacies, and Libraries

Yesterday I blogged about the use of our new markerboard surface tables as a way for students to collaborate and capture their group thinking. I’d like to briefly share another use of these dry erase surfaces in our library learning studio from last week with our Theory of Knowledge (TOK) students. This was an activity that came together very quickly Thursday morning and while not tied to a formal research project, threads of inquiry were essential to the learning experience. The group came...

Formulating Research Questions with Birds of Feather Collaboration and Writable Surfaces

We’ve been partnering with Language Arts teacher Sean O’Connor the last few weeks as his students have been engaged in presearch around topics that students identified and developed aroundmotifs and themes of To Kill a Mockingbird. After participating in the reading frenzy activity, students left with a topic of interest that they wanted to explore further and refine through presearch. After several days of gathering information and sources to build background knowledge, the students were re...

CU Boulder Symposium Keynote: Literacies for Every Season of Their Lives

Many thanks to my colleagues at UC Boulder for the opportunity to participate from afar in your symposium today! Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of your day of learning and sharing.

Links of Interest:

Bibliography 2015 Blog Posts Inquiry Project with Sarah Rust Media 21 Inquiry Project
Filed under: 2015, inquiry, literacy, Participatory Librarianship and Learning, Teaching and Learning Tagged: ACRL Frameworks, college, college readiness, CU Boulder, information literacy, inquir...