Leopards Library Assistants Course

Problem:

I’m the librarian at a middle school with just over 1650 students. I run the popular Library Assistants program in which students can volunteer to work in the library doing things like shelving books, solving tech issues, and helping patrons find and check out materials. This school year, I opened up the program to all students in grades 6-8 and had nearly 100 students apply to participate. In order to train the large number of students participating, I’m creating a Library Assistants course to train future library assistants.

Scope:

The Leopards Library Assistants course will help students learn and practice basic library duties including book check in, check out, holds, and shelving. The asynchronous Canvas course will also provide students with opportunities to interact with one another and build community. Additionally, students will have opportunities to work in the library with their peers and help build a community of readers and learners at the school. Students participating in the Leopards Library Assistants program will work through a series of modules that will include information about a particular library duty and practice to assess for understanding. The course will have two assessments: a Kahoot and a wrap up quiz to provide practice and feedback and assess for understanding. Badging will help play a role in student engagement. Rather than creating digital badges, we’ll be using physical badges that can be added to the Library Assistant name tags. The badges will indicate the level of knowledge that a student has about a particular library duty and make it simple for other assistants and library patrons to get their information needs met.

Process:

The perennially popular library assistants program has traditionally only been open to 8th grade students in National Junior Honor Society. This year I found myself without a library assistant to help run the day to day work of a very busy space. The solution to a lack of help in the library was to open up the program to grades 6-8 and train all students to work throughout the day doing the things that my assistant would traditionally be responsible for. I decided that the best way to solve the problem of a lack of library personnel was to create an asynchronous course for students to participate in prior to beginning their work in the library. This provided be with the opportunity to onboard the nearly 100 students almost simultaneously. Since Canvas is the LMS that my school uses, I decided that it would work best as my students are already familiar with this robust platform. I began with my learning goals: Students participating in the Leopards Library Assistants program will help create a community of readers and learners. The library is a place for sharing ideas and information and a place that fosters lifelong learning.