Organising Picture Books By Learner Profiles and Attitudes

The last week was Curriculum Enhancement Week (CEW) in the secondary school, but some students did not participate.  From them, I had four students who did not and offered to help me in the library.   For some time now, I have been toying with the idea of identifying  every picture book, and eventually I hope, chapter then nonfiction books by the IB Learner Profiles and Attitudes (IBLPAs).

First, I sat with the students as we went through some picture books  and reviewed the traits of both IBLPAs, and how to see evidence of them in the books.  I also had a last option, " This is just a great picture book", because, hey, sometimes a book is just FUN to read and we don't have to learn anything from it. 

After we did this a couple of times so that I knew we were all the same page, I let the students do it on their own.  Each time a book was done, a sticker was stuck to the inside front cover of the book.  The purpose of this was so that teachers or students who are just browsing can see right away, without a computer, what IBLPAs are in each book. This fosters spontaneity and serendipity in browsing the books, as well helping those who don't want to search the online library catalog, a way to search manually for IBLPAs. ​

Then I created a Google Doc with all the IBLPAs. This was so that students could cut and paste the relevant ones into the subject headings of each book without errors and more consistency. ​

I then created a short video for the students to follow.   Instructional videos seem to engage students and adults more, as we all become more visual learners.  Also since they will not finish all the books in one week, it is likely I will have to train other students to do the same task, and perhaps even some parent volunteers.  For this reason, I decided to make a short video.

I gave students administrator access to the catalog.  This was because they needed to edit library records and I wanted to track which individual student for accountability reasons.  After doing a couple of books, I checked in with the students to make sure they were doing it correctly, which they were.  

Although they did not finish, I will get two more Y11 students who will come in weekly to help complete this task, as well as two parent volunteers.   I hope to finish at least the picture book section by the end of the school year.

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