Readiness, Advocacy, and Community Empowerment (READCON)
"READCON: A Curriculum for Library Readiness, Advocacy, and Community Empowerment During Challenging Conditions" partners experts in academic, public, and school librarianship with experts in education and family law, crisis communication, public and media relations, community reconciliation, and youth leadership to develop a targeted suite of blended professional development experiences. The project will also utilize an expanded and multilingual version of the Get Ready Stay Ready Community Action Toolkit, which is an accessible curated resource collection. Designed for parents, caregivers, and other community members, the toolkit provides resources to take action and protect the right to read and information access. Over 2023-2024, the READCON curriculum will be developed and expanded. In the summer and fall of 2024, beta testing will begin with recruited institutions and individuals. The program will be disseminated to a wider audience beginning fall of 2025. This project is in collaboration with Dr. April Dawkins at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and Valerie Byrd-Fort at the University of South Carolina. This research is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, #RE-254844-OLS-23.
Online Pedagogy and K-12 School Librarianship
"Online Ready: Designing Culturally Competent and Impactful K-12 Online Learning" is a three-year design-based exploratory study to examine, assess, and address school librarianship knowledge gaps in the design and delivery of targeted and culturally competent online learning. In partnership with Kristin Fontichiaro, University of Michigan, and Melissa P. Johnston, University of West Georgia, I am investigating two critical needs in school library research: a) a need to design, test, evaluate, and share rigorous and impactful online pedagogy techniques with practitioners; and b) a need to identify training models that help practitioners infuse online teaching techniques with cultural responsiveness, a set of skills and abilities to effectively research, understand, and connect with diverse learners. We launched the Fall 2021 Online Ready Webinar Series and are prepping our second cohort. This research is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, #RE-250017-OLS-21.
Educational Quality through Instructional Partnerships (EQuIP)
"Educational Quality through Instructional Partnerships (EQuIP): Assessing the Efficacy of Collaboratively Implemented Guided Inquiry Design on K-12 Student Learning" examines how student completion of a Guided Inquiry Unit, designed and delivered by EQuIP-trained school library-classroom teacher instructional partners, affect student mastery of target curricular learning outcomes. The study addresses a severe gap in school library research that examines the effect of pedagogical practices for fostering inquiry (in the case of this project, Guided Inquiry Design) when these are applied within the context of instructional partnerships between school librarians and classroom teachers. Data from all EQuIP cohorts has been collected and analyzed. Initial findings were presented at AASL 2021 and SITE 2022, and full findings were presented at AASL 2023. Research findings are currently being written by the research team with a publication goal of Fall 2024. This research is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, #RE-14-19-0001-19.