Project Design
Educational Goals: The goal of this project is to familiarize 5th grade students with alternative ways of deciding which book to read next, focusing on classmate recommendations.
Objective: The objective is for students to consult with their peers for book recommendations and to eventually become comfortable writing their own book reviews.
Participants: Eight 5th grade classes , approximately 200 students, at Hoffman Elementary School in Glenview, IL
Duration: 2 weeks
Week 1: During the first week I will distribute a survey that asks students how they decide what to read next and to list any book recommendations. All completed surveys will be collected by the end of the week. Over the weekend I will compile a list of all the recommended book titles.
Week 2: When each 5th grade class comes to the library during their scheduled time, I will spend about 10 minutes revealing the purpose of the survey they took last week and have them share why they think talking to their peers is a worthwhile way to get new book recommendations. I will distribute the compiled list of recommended titles and have them fill out a post-assessment survey using a Google Form on an iPad when they check out books that same day.
Artifact: This is the survey I distributed to all 5th grade students during Week 1.
Objective: The objective is for students to consult with their peers for book recommendations and to eventually become comfortable writing their own book reviews.
Participants: Eight 5th grade classes , approximately 200 students, at Hoffman Elementary School in Glenview, IL
Duration: 2 weeks
Week 1: During the first week I will distribute a survey that asks students how they decide what to read next and to list any book recommendations. All completed surveys will be collected by the end of the week. Over the weekend I will compile a list of all the recommended book titles.
Week 2: When each 5th grade class comes to the library during their scheduled time, I will spend about 10 minutes revealing the purpose of the survey they took last week and have them share why they think talking to their peers is a worthwhile way to get new book recommendations. I will distribute the compiled list of recommended titles and have them fill out a post-assessment survey using a Google Form on an iPad when they check out books that same day.
Artifact: This is the survey I distributed to all 5th grade students during Week 1.
Reflection: Planning for this project was, at first, challenging for me. When I hear the word "impact" or think about the events that have been impactful in my life, the things that come to mind aren't things that can be formally assessed. When I initially found out we had to do an impact project, I immediately knew I wanted to try and implement a peer readers advisory program similar to something I'd learned about at the ISLMA fall conference. Then I found out there had to be a straightforward, formal assessment in order to prove whether or not the project was successful. This part stumped me. How am I supposed to assess something like this? After many talks with my mentor librarian, I decided that I could just assess a component of the overall project that I wanted to instate at the school. That is how these simple surveys came about.
I reached out to all eight 5th grade teachers explaining the project and left 25 surveys in each of their school mailboxes. They were instructed to hand out the surveys and return them all to me by the end of the week. They were all happy to help and almost everyone remembered to return the surveys to me on time. Collaborating with the teachers during the initial planning stages of this project helped facilitate the timely process of getting ready for the implementation stage.
I reached out to all eight 5th grade teachers explaining the project and left 25 surveys in each of their school mailboxes. They were instructed to hand out the surveys and return them all to me by the end of the week. They were all happy to help and almost everyone remembered to return the surveys to me on time. Collaborating with the teachers during the initial planning stages of this project helped facilitate the timely process of getting ready for the implementation stage.
Implementation
After getting all the completed surveys, I tallied how many students checked the "Recommendation from a classmate" box. Out of 191 students surveyed, 102 checked that box, or roughly half (53% to be exact). My original intention to create a bookmark with the recommended titles from the survey turned into a 3-page document! I ended up making a double-sided, alphabetical list of recommended titles stapled to a single-sided list of book series recommendations.
When each 5th grade class came to the library the following week, I followed this lesson plan, and we talked about why talking to their peers might be the best way to find a new book to read. I let the students do the talking, and those who raised their hands, nailed it on the head.
When I showed them the list I compiled of all their recommendations, their eyes grew wide and I heard a few, "Wows!" Then I held up the iPad and showed them the Google Form I wanted them to fill out if they checked out any books today.
The students were then set free to roam the library, with their new lists, to find new books to check out. The students in the stacks seemed excited about the list of books and were frequently consulting both the list and their friends.
Not everyone checked out books that same day, and although I was keeping an eye on the iPad when I was present at the circulation desk, I was also assisting students in the stacks, so it's unclear how accurate the data from the Google form really is.
The drastic change in the number of students surveyed (147 vs. 191) is caused by either absences or the fact that some students don't check out new books every week. 56 students, or 38%, chose "Recommendation from a classmate."
Reflection: If I only looked at the numeric data, I might assume my project failed at making an impact on student learning. However, I realized afterward that the pre and post data can't really be compared, since the questions on each survey are worded slightly differently: the pre-assessment asks about methods they use in general, while the post-assessment asks about the method(s) they used just on that same day. To get a more accurate comparison, I should have given them an identical survey afterward (maybe during Week 3) either instead of or in addition to the Google Form they filled out while checking out a book the same day I talked with them.
Regardless, what I witnessed and what the numbers show are vastly different, which proves my initial issue with the word "impact." What I witnessed, albeit data that is not formally assessable, was proof enough that this project did, in fact, make an impact. During Week 1, a 5th grade student approached me in the library and asked if I had all the surveys. She was super eager to see what her peers had recommended. I told her the list wasn't yet complete but that we could look at what I had so far to try and decide on a book for her to check out that same day. She thanked me and said she thought the list was a really good idea. A mom of a student, who volunteers occasionally in the library, also asked me about the list because she said her son came home from school the day he took the survey and said he couldn't wait to see what books everyone else recommended.
Not only were the students and parents inspired by the list, but the 5th grade teachers expressed they thought it was a great idea as well, and one even asked me to e-mail her a digital copy. All of this positive feedback tells me that the project was successful, and hopefully, in the future, the students will remember the benefits of consulting with friends as a worthwhile method of selecting a new book to read.
In the mean time, we're working on creating an additional voluntary component to this project. Soon there will be book review worksheets (see rough draft below), which students can fill out in the library when they finish a great book if they want to share why they loved it with their classmates. The reviews will be organized by last names of the students so that the searcher can easily find which books their friends have recommended and will become a permanent resource for Hoffman students to use as a reference tool.
I was happy with the outcome of this project, and I am eager to try it out with different grade levels. I think it would work well with 6th-12th graders because the older they get the more recommendations they'll have and the more thorough they'll be.
Reflection: If I only looked at the numeric data, I might assume my project failed at making an impact on student learning. However, I realized afterward that the pre and post data can't really be compared, since the questions on each survey are worded slightly differently: the pre-assessment asks about methods they use in general, while the post-assessment asks about the method(s) they used just on that same day. To get a more accurate comparison, I should have given them an identical survey afterward (maybe during Week 3) either instead of or in addition to the Google Form they filled out while checking out a book the same day I talked with them.
Regardless, what I witnessed and what the numbers show are vastly different, which proves my initial issue with the word "impact." What I witnessed, albeit data that is not formally assessable, was proof enough that this project did, in fact, make an impact. During Week 1, a 5th grade student approached me in the library and asked if I had all the surveys. She was super eager to see what her peers had recommended. I told her the list wasn't yet complete but that we could look at what I had so far to try and decide on a book for her to check out that same day. She thanked me and said she thought the list was a really good idea. A mom of a student, who volunteers occasionally in the library, also asked me about the list because she said her son came home from school the day he took the survey and said he couldn't wait to see what books everyone else recommended.
Not only were the students and parents inspired by the list, but the 5th grade teachers expressed they thought it was a great idea as well, and one even asked me to e-mail her a digital copy. All of this positive feedback tells me that the project was successful, and hopefully, in the future, the students will remember the benefits of consulting with friends as a worthwhile method of selecting a new book to read.
In the mean time, we're working on creating an additional voluntary component to this project. Soon there will be book review worksheets (see rough draft below), which students can fill out in the library when they finish a great book if they want to share why they loved it with their classmates. The reviews will be organized by last names of the students so that the searcher can easily find which books their friends have recommended and will become a permanent resource for Hoffman students to use as a reference tool.
I was happy with the outcome of this project, and I am eager to try it out with different grade levels. I think it would work well with 6th-12th graders because the older they get the more recommendations they'll have and the more thorough they'll be.