This proposal outlines a staff development program to facilitate collaboration between middle school math teachers and librarians. It aims to address teachers' skepticism about library resources for math and help students make real-world connections. Short term goals include familiarizing 6th grade teachers with ratio and proportion resources. Long term goals are to establish ongoing collaboration and change views of the library. Activities include lesson planning workshops and presentations of online and physical materials. Assessment will evaluate increases in library use and application of skills. The budget outlines costs for planning, materials, and teacher resources.

1. Staff Development
Proposal
Amanda, Christine, Jamie, Mary, and Rhea

2. Statement of Need
• District dedicated to meet CCSS standards by 2014
• Math teachers are unlikely to utilize their libraries’
resources and staff when aligning their curriculum with
CCSS
• Shared skepticism about the relevance of library
resources for math concepts
• Math teachers are not receiving their equitable
proportion of the district's professional resources

3. Statement of Need
"CCSS challenges math teachers to integrate real world
scenarios and applications into their curriculum. This
initiative directly aligns with the American Association of
School Library (AASL) Standard 2.3.1, which is to guide
students to “Connect understanding to the real world.”
We believe that librarian-math teacher collaboration will
allow for an exchange of resources, materials, and
learning experiences through which students can
apply, synthesize, and evaluate the world around them.
This type of professional relationship will help students
meet both CCSS and AASL standards."

4. Support
• 2009 - Move to standardize curriculum
• 2010 - Final version of Common Core State Standards
by Council of Chief State School Officers (CCCSO) and
National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices (NGA)
• 2014 - Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium (SBAC) tests to roll out into
schools

5. Support
• Common core tied to success beyond walls of school
• Math is no longer about the answer alone - learners
MUST be ready to support their answers
• Professional opportunities should be present to give
guidance to teachers in bringing the core into the
classroom
• Librarians can provide professional development as the
Common Core matches main tenets in Standards for
the 21-st Century Learner

6. Goals
Short Term Goals:
• Familiarize 6th grade math teachers with a sampling of
available resources and collaborative opportunities for
their ratio & proportion lessons
• Fulfill CCSS and AASL goals by creating more
experiential learning with real-world applications in 6th
grade math classes
• Establish professional relationships between 6th grade
math teachers and school library media specialists

7. Goals
Long Term Goals:
• Create a pattern of math teacher-librarian collaboration
that can be extended to 7th and 8th grade math
teachers in subsequent years
• Remove preconceptions about a divergent relationship
between the library and mathematics, and views of the
library as strictly an extension of the English and social
studies departments

8. Examples
After the staff development workshop, 6th grade math
teachers will:
• Walk away with an updated ratio and proportion lesson
plan that has been enhanced using library resources
• Develop an enhanced collaborative relationship with
librarians and familiarity with library resources
• See an improvement in student understanding of
learning objectives and in test scores

9. Examples
Following successful collaboration between librarians and
teachers, 6th grade math students will:
• Use library resources to practice and apply math
lessons regularly in a setting that exemplifies the
practical use of the concept
• Gain a concrete understanding of abstract ideas while
making connections between the classroom and their
own lives
• Initiate use of the library to independently solve real
world math problems.

10. Examples
Through this process, librarians will:
• Develop lasting professional relationships with faculty
members and students
• Experience an overall increase in library involvement
• With the help of teachers and administrators,
accomplish goals established by CCSS and AASL
Standards

11. Activities
• Entrance slip: list 3 resources outside the textbook you’ve used
in the last month.
• Think-Pair-Share: consider your impressions of the CCSS in
general and what they mean for math standards.
• Workshop your ratio & proportion lesson plan
• Presentation of relevant library resources:
o Library book materials
o Databases
o Online resources: video lessons, gaming resources
o Online production tools: Glogster, Animoto
• Exit slip: what did you learn today? what will you use in future
lessons?

12. Timeline
Professional Development will be offered on the
district wide institute day during the morning session
from 8:30 - 11:00 AM, March 1, 2013

13. Preparation
•
• Monthly meetings for to develop and coordinate
professional development agenda and activities
o November 8th at 8 AM at Middle School A
o December 6th at 3 PM at Middle School B
o January 10th at 8 AM at Middle School C
o February 7th at 3 PM at Middle School D
o March 1st at 7:30 AM at Middle School E
• Promotion

14. Assessment
Program effectiveness will be measured both formatively
and summatively through a variety of methods.
• Teachers will be surveyed through entrance and exit
slips on the day of the professional development
• Teachers and students will be asked to complete online
surveys throughout the year to assess increases in
library use and application of skills addressed during the
professional development
• Data will be reviewed to determine the need for future
professional development at other grade levels.

15. Materials Required
•
• Computer lab with Internet access and gaming console
• Tables for spreading out
• Snacks and beverages
• Teacher copies of ratio and proportion lesson plans
• Hard copies of CCSS for Math (Introductory materials &
Grade 6)
• Pathfinder of online ratio & proportion resources
(including catalog)
• Relevant titles from the catalog: “juvenile literature--ratio
and proportion”

16. Facilitator Responsibilities
Our team of 5 librarians will collectively work on the
process of planning and implementing this staff
development.
o Rhea: Lesson Workshop and Assessment
o Amanda: Databases
o Christine: Online Production Tools
o Mary: Library Materials
o Jamie: Online Teaching Tools

17. Budget
Amount Purpose Explanation
$630.00 Staff release time for preliminary Library staff will need substitute teachers for their planning sessions.
planning The 5 staff members will need substitute coverage at the rate of $21
per hour for a total of 6 hours.
$75.00 Snacks Snacks include 2 dozen bagels, fruit, coffee, and juice
$100.00 Printing We will provide one copy of the 6th grade math CCSS as well as a
variety of handouts and lesson supplements.
$350.00 Teacher Resources Each middle school team will receive a set of 5 juvenile non-fiction
ratio & proportion storybooks:
• Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy
• A Fraction’s Goal--Part of a Whole by Brian P. Cleary
• If Dogs Were Dinosaurs by David M. Schwartz
• Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature by Sarah C.
Cambell
• The Book of Perfectly Perilous Math by Allen Sanders

18. Conclusion
It is our belief that together, we can put our
district in a position to not only meet these
standards, but also to provide our students with
relevant and dynamic 21st Century learning
experiences.
"There are many ways to organize curricula. The challenge,
now rarely met, is to avoid those that distort mathematics
and turn off students."
— Steen, 2007