Whew!
I am feeling even better than at the end of my last post ... as I knew I would as my group continued to communicate and as we continued to receive guidance from our mentors.
The team (plus our mentor :) ) met today via Skype. Besides for a rocky start on my end (with my microphone "not working") and too many ideas than we had time to discuss, all went very well!
I have already posted the minutes to our wiki.
You will see that the audience and goal are indeed changed from what I interpreted in my last entry:
Audience: youth, parents, and families
Goal: to have the audience consider award-winning Coretta Scott King titles as purchases to populate children's home libraries
Our tasks now also support our new goal.
We still have a few team decisions to make in order to flesh out some of the new ideas, but overall, all of us now have the same vision.
This team excercise and overall experience definitely support the definition of leadership (idea of "vision") that I first blogged about on January 1 ...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Re-Evaluation
I devoted much of my time today re-evaluating our project description.
Overall, the biggest change that has occurred is in our audience and goal.
Jan 23 Meeting Notes
Goal: To increase awareness and inspire use of CSK
Audience: School (Classroom teachers, Media specialists), Public (Special services, Child detention centers), Academic (English Department = Professors of lit, Professors of children/teen lit; Education Department = Early childhood education teachers, Middle, High School), Library Schools
Mar 21 Project Description Evaluation
Audience: African American youth, parents and families
Goal: to have the audience consider award-winning Coretta Scott King titles as purchases to populate children's home libraries.
I am looking forward to hearing my team members' interpretations.
Today I also made many updates to our wiki. I added a timeline, our group name, our resource list, meeting notes from March 6 and 17, and our librarian/educator survey. I updated the "Group Communication" section.
I am feeling better.
Overall, the biggest change that has occurred is in our audience and goal.
Jan 23 Meeting Notes
Goal: To increase awareness and inspire use of CSK
Audience: School (Classroom teachers, Media specialists), Public (Special services, Child detention centers), Academic (English Department = Professors of lit, Professors of children/teen lit; Education Department = Early childhood education teachers, Middle, High School), Library Schools
Mar 21 Project Description Evaluation
Audience: African American youth, parents and families
Goal: to have the audience consider award-winning Coretta Scott King titles as purchases to populate children's home libraries.
I am looking forward to hearing my team members' interpretations.
Today I also made many updates to our wiki. I added a timeline, our group name, our resource list, meeting notes from March 6 and 17, and our librarian/educator survey. I updated the "Group Communication" section.
I am feeling better.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Frustration
All continues to be busy in my professional and personal life, and I feel even more busy since I was not at work at all last week.
As far as the Emerging Leader portion of my professional life is concerned, I am frustrated. I am guessing that many or all of my other team members are also frustrated.
Recent feedback from our mentors shows that our team is not on target. Here we are on March 19, and we seem to have come no further than when we started on January 23. We don't seem to have the correct goal in mind.
I believe that our team (self-titled "The King's Advocates") has great ideas, action plans, and networks/connections that tackle most of the aspects of our project description. However, it is challenging to determine where our ideas actually fit in the Coretta Scott King (CSK) committee's already in process, related projects. For example, in January we were told that a marketing firm had already been hired and was preparing for the July 40th Anniversary celebration of CSK.
I am confused and frustrated.
As I just re-read our project description, especially the title "Lift Every Voice and Read: A Personal Library for Every Child," I can see part of the reason why the teams' and mentors' vision may now be clashing. What we all discussed in January and have been moving toward since then is different from the written project description.
The Next Step
Each member of the team will again be looking individually at each task in the project description and will create or modify action plans for each task.
I am hopeful that this exercise as well as continued direction from our mentors will bridge the gap in our visions.
As far as the Emerging Leader portion of my professional life is concerned, I am frustrated. I am guessing that many or all of my other team members are also frustrated.
Recent feedback from our mentors shows that our team is not on target. Here we are on March 19, and we seem to have come no further than when we started on January 23. We don't seem to have the correct goal in mind.
I believe that our team (self-titled "The King's Advocates") has great ideas, action plans, and networks/connections that tackle most of the aspects of our project description. However, it is challenging to determine where our ideas actually fit in the Coretta Scott King (CSK) committee's already in process, related projects. For example, in January we were told that a marketing firm had already been hired and was preparing for the July 40th Anniversary celebration of CSK.
I am confused and frustrated.
As I just re-read our project description, especially the title "Lift Every Voice and Read: A Personal Library for Every Child," I can see part of the reason why the teams' and mentors' vision may now be clashing. What we all discussed in January and have been moving toward since then is different from the written project description.
The Next Step
Each member of the team will again be looking individually at each task in the project description and will create or modify action plans for each task.
I am hopeful that this exercise as well as continued direction from our mentors will bridge the gap in our visions.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Focus
Trying to get back on track with my project group, I finally posted our February 17 meeting notes to our wiki project page.
I think we have the right ideas and are covering a decent amount of ground with the following tasks. Now I just need to devote some individual time to my pieces of the puzzle:
Creating ready-to-use library programs involving CSK books (Hayley)
I am thinking that I will create a program for each of the following audiences: four and five year olds, families, grades K-3, and grades 4-6.
Creating bibliographies pertinent to each month (Hayley, Marissa, and Lana)
I will look at Chase's Calendar of Events, the themes I personally use each month, and the themes requested by teachers here at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County in order to align different CSK books to each month.
Creating a contact list of organizations and institutions who will be interested in receiving the above information/toolkit (Hayley)
After Sarah, sends her survey, I will have some listservs, but I plan to spend most of my time collecting the information from organizations I already know about as well as (e.g.) talking to some of the college professors across the street at Youngstown State University to find other appropriate organizations.
Just the other day over lunch, a professor reminded me of a potential interested organization in the Ohio Council of Teachers of Language Arts. Now that I am writing this, I wonder if there is a similiar organization in each state ... and this type of organization is only contacting (some) English Language Arts teachers ...
I have not yet begun to work!
I think we have the right ideas and are covering a decent amount of ground with the following tasks. Now I just need to devote some individual time to my pieces of the puzzle:
Creating ready-to-use library programs involving CSK books (Hayley)
I am thinking that I will create a program for each of the following audiences: four and five year olds, families, grades K-3, and grades 4-6.
Creating bibliographies pertinent to each month (Hayley, Marissa, and Lana)
I will look at Chase's Calendar of Events, the themes I personally use each month, and the themes requested by teachers here at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County in order to align different CSK books to each month.
Creating a contact list of organizations and institutions who will be interested in receiving the above information/toolkit (Hayley)
After Sarah, sends her survey, I will have some listservs, but I plan to spend most of my time collecting the information from organizations I already know about as well as (e.g.) talking to some of the college professors across the street at Youngstown State University to find other appropriate organizations.
Just the other day over lunch, a professor reminded me of a potential interested organization in the Ohio Council of Teachers of Language Arts. Now that I am writing this, I wonder if there is a similiar organization in each state ... and this type of organization is only contacting (some) English Language Arts teachers ...
I have not yet begun to work!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Busi-ness
It's already the month of March ... Time seems to be moving faster now than it did last year at this time ...
One project that I just completed and wasn't involved with last year was preparing a presentation for local MYCAP Head Start teachers. I correlated 100 (preschool appropriate) picturebooks and some extension activities to the (Ohio) Science Early Learning Content Standards.
This was supplemented by a bibliography of print, online, and audio, science resources. During my presentation, I also made a point to highlight some different storytelling/presentation techniques of the selected picturebooks. For example, I presented a singing technique, magnet/memorized technique, using rhythm sticks technique, and audience participation/dramatization technique. Additionally, I made a point to explain how the pre-reading skills could be emphasized in the presented picturebooks.
While it was an intense project that diverted my focus and time away from my Emerging Leader (EL) involvement, I found it extremely enjoyable and educational. I have a new perspective on children's literature and programming, better knowledge of the collection here at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, and a more intense desire to work with children.
It is interesting to note that our EL group has discussed the use of such resources (e.g. bibliographies by development/age, extension activities, collection of related resources) in our own marketing of the Coretta Scott King Awards.
This experience will no doubt play into my work on our EL project.
One project that I just completed and wasn't involved with last year was preparing a presentation for local MYCAP Head Start teachers. I correlated 100 (preschool appropriate) picturebooks and some extension activities to the (Ohio) Science Early Learning Content Standards.
This was supplemented by a bibliography of print, online, and audio, science resources. During my presentation, I also made a point to highlight some different storytelling/presentation techniques of the selected picturebooks. For example, I presented a singing technique, magnet/memorized technique, using rhythm sticks technique, and audience participation/dramatization technique. Additionally, I made a point to explain how the pre-reading skills could be emphasized in the presented picturebooks.
While it was an intense project that diverted my focus and time away from my Emerging Leader (EL) involvement, I found it extremely enjoyable and educational. I have a new perspective on children's literature and programming, better knowledge of the collection here at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, and a more intense desire to work with children.
It is interesting to note that our EL group has discussed the use of such resources (e.g. bibliographies by development/age, extension activities, collection of related resources) in our own marketing of the Coretta Scott King Awards.
This experience will no doubt play into my work on our EL project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)