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Standard 4:  Program Administration
  Developing a student-centered library that supports student learning and achievement and develops effective and ethical users of information and technology is part of the vision a Library Media Specialist supports.  The overall management of the library involves a wide range of functions that provide the foundation for this vision.  The experiences I gained during my Practicum as well as during my classes, such as cataloging, budgeting and marketing, support the goal of effective management found in Standard 4.

Artifacts:


 Catalog Policy
   As part of the Cataloging for School Library Media Specialists course I created a Cataloging Policy for a high school library, a policy intended to align itself with the school’s mission of being of service to students, assisting them in becoming successful students, effective users of information and lifelong learners.  Working in a high school library provided me a solid knowledge base for creating this policy, as I was had already developed some familiarity with how cataloging, purchasing, collection development and circulation were handled in our library and so used that as the basis for creating my policy.  The high school did not have an existing Cataloging Policy so this was offered to the LMS as a template for an official policy.
  
 
Marketing the Library - Brochure and Flyer
  In one of our assignments for the School Library Media course we were presented with a scenario where we were to present our ideas as to how, as a new media specialist, we could communicate to the teachers and students the changes we’ve made to the library’s collection, how technology resources have been incorporated and how we’ve expanded the print collection.  This assignment spoke to the heart of the role of the media specialist in many ways, looking at how the media specialist can connect with others concerning the resources available and how the LMS can best serve others needs.   
 
        

 Practicum

    West Geauga High School - Fall 2008 -
Log and Journal
                                         Spring 2009 - Log and Journal
                                         Fall 2009 - Log and Journal
                                         Spring 2010 - Log and Journal
    University School, Upper School - Spring 2009 - Log and Journal
    Bissell Elementary -  Spring 2010 -  Log and Journal


  
My practicum journal and log about my experience can be accessed through the links above.  I found the practicum to be an incredibly valuable experience. I learned a tremendous amount and became more acclimated and familiarized during the course of time.  Hands-on learning, where I am provided with the opportunity to take tasks on, gain a sense of how things work, and from the experience discover how to do things more effectively is for me the most powerful means of learning.  It helps me apply in ‘real’ terms that which I learned through my courses.
  The majority of my practicum hours were completed at West Geauga High School, a school of about one thousand students in grades 9-12.  I also spent about 40 hours of part of my practicum hours at University School, a small private boys prep school.  It was important to me to have a varied experience as I saw the practicum as an opportunity to be exposed to different settings.  I had been in a public high school and middle school so was curious what a single sex private school would be like. 

  
It was my hope to also work in a larger public high school, but due to scheduling conflicts was not able to make that happen.  I ended up making arrangements to finish out my practicum in a large elementary school, grades 2-3, again about 40 hours.  They all were enlightening experiences allowing me glimpses of, not only the range and complexity of skills needed for the Library Media Specialist to fully perform their duties, but also of the developmental process involved in learning information literacy skills and the role reading plays in their education.