Week #1 - An Odyssey To Centerville HS

Due to scheduling conflicts, I spent the first week of my practicum experience with the fine folks at Centerville HS. I expect this will be interesting on multiple fronts, comparing the situation and students of Centerville (an affluent community with considerable tax base whose schools consistently receive "Excellent" ratings from the ODE) to Xenia HS (a district with much more economic diversity that is facing $2 million in cuts for next year yet still shows continuous improvement, effectiveness, etc.).

The media center, or IMC as they call it, is not centrally located but it is a beautiful and large space. That beauty comes at the price of accepting some architectural quirks, which unfortunately limits the space they can use for practical purposes, but it is very visually appealing and comfortable. It is so large, in fact, that they employ two certified librarians and two full-time aides, a luxury few districts can afford. Having two circulation desks keeps the traffic very manageable, though, and allows for considerable one-on-one interaction without rushing.

Rather than having a large, arranged "computer lab" type space, they have two classrooms, one at each end, designated for classroom use that teachers can reserve as needed. One has a full suite of desktop computers, the other has a laptop cart. I found the laptop cart to be particularly intriguing in the way I observed one teacher employing it. While researching diseases, the instructor had students split into groups and limited them to one laptop per group. Sharing this technology resource was an interesting way to encourage student collaboration, making them cognizant of the need to cooperate (3.1.2). While it might not be efficient for some projects, it was worth noting, and they had to select, as a group, a method for designing and presenting their results (3.1.4).


While examining their budget and expenditures, I noticed that Centerville spends a considerable sum of money (nearly a third of their annual budget) on database subscriptions in addition to the offerings from InfOhio. The amount spent on this surprised me, but on two different occasions I saw the benefit of having these databases as we helped students identify and pursue research goals (1.1). The students attend an orientation their freshman year to familiarize them with specific databases. Jessica Moore (the librarian who hosted me) has adopted an approach to searching that I found interesting in that she starts with Google and shows them some of its more advanced functions. Students are going to use Google, there's no point in competing, so she makes sure to show them how to be more effective at using Google, as well as how to decide when to utilize databases instead (2.1, 2.2). I saw several students utilize Wikipedia as a source of information, but very few of them attempted to use it as a legitimate resource so the approach must be having some success (3.1.6).

 It was a very pleasant week at Centerville HS, and most things at the IMC function like a well-oiled machine. My only real complaint is that it almost felt a little too impersonal. The IMC almost always has students in it, but the space is so large that they often feel far away and separate, making it difficult to "float." That combined with the fact that some 2800 students are enrolled there make forming deeper connections with students that much harder, especially in a single week. You can go most of the week without seeing the same student twice. I find that it is much easier for me to approach teachable-moments with students I have some knowledge of, even if it's just a name or face recognition, so it was valuable for me to try to create those connections in an environment where that kind of recognition may not be possible. Ideally, I should be able to seize any opportunity to support 21st century skills with any student, and libraries certainly exist where there are so many patrons that it's difficult to form deeper connections. This is certainly something I'll have to keep in mind.