LIS 60600 Assignment 3 Presentation

1. Preparing Teachers and Librarians
to Teach 21st Century Skills:
Views of LIS and Education Faculty
DON LATHAM- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
MELLISSA GROSS- PROFESSOR
SHELBIE WITTE- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES
AN ARTICLE REVIEW: STEPHEN SANDERS

2. Citation
Latham, D., Gross, M., & Witte, S. (2013). Preparing
teachers and librarians to collaborate to teach 21st
century skills: Views of LIS and education faculty.
School Library Research, 16. 1-22. Retrieved from:
http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content
/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_PreparingTeacher
sLibrarianstoCollaborate_V16.pdf

3. Goals of the Study
 In LIS literature, a school librarian’s major contribution
to an academic institution is being able to collaborate
with teachers to help them and the institution achieve
their educational goals.
 Collaboration between the two groups, however, is
usually the exception rather than the rule
 Latham et al. hope to find out why that is the case in their
study, using interviews with LIS and education faculty of
a research university in the U.S. to find the answers

4. The Interview Process
 Interviewing six faculty from both the LIS and
education departments, Latham et al. sought to find
out how both sets of faculty viewed:


How 21st century skills are being taught to pre-service students
at their institution. (Are they integrated into the curriculum?)
And:
Do they teach/promote librarian-teacher collaboration
techniques to their students?
 The interview also took into account the participants
experiences with librarian-teacher collaboration,
where such collaboration is taught, and where it
could be taught

5. Results of the Interviews
 Both LIS and education faculty felt that their fields address 21st
century skills
 Both sets of faculty believe that collaboration strategies should
be taught at pre-service institutions
 Both sets of faculty felt that librarian-teacher collaboration in
schools is a worthy goal, and is possible, but is difficult to achieve
in practice
 Suggestions were made on how to begin teaching librarian-
teacher collaboration techniques in LIS and education
classrooms, but no real solutions were reached

6. Conclusions
 The article is well written, by authors who are
knowledgeable in the LIS field
 Methodology is sound and well explained
 The study is limited, given the small sample size of
participants in the interview. However, the study does
provide a good basis for further research on this topic.
 Until then, any librarian-teacher collaboration will have
to be preempted by LIS and education professionals in
the field, at all levels of education.