By Diana Maliszewski
Climbing Mountains: Methods for Mentoring Teacher-Librarians
Abstract
The Toronto, Ontario District School Board (TDSB) offers a variety of professional learning methods and tools as mentoring supports for new and practicing teacher-librarians such as “group mentoring, informal mentoring, and online mentoring” as described in this paper by teacher-librarian Diana Maliszewski. The author documents criteria and findings from formal teacher-librarian mentorship programs created over time in Maryland, Iowa, Georgia and Virginia. York University in Toronto developed a Mentorship Additional Qualification course for TDSB teachers that Maliszewski participated in to mentor a new teacher-librarian. She reflects upon the process and discovery of the benefits of mentoring first hand as both mentor and mentee became better teachers.
Diana Maliszewski is the teacher-librarian at Agnes Macphail P.S. with the TDSB in Toronto, ON. She is the editor of The Teaching Librarian, the official magazine of the Ontario School Library Association. Diana’s writing credits also include articles in The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research and School Libraries in Canada. She maintains a library-themed blog, Monday Molly Musings. In 2010, she completed her Masters of Education degree from the University of Alberta in the Teacher-Librarianship via Distance Learning program. Diana has presented at conferences and workshops all over North America on topics such as gaming in education, graphic novels, popular culture, professional learning communities and children’s literature. In 2008, Diana Maliszewski was awarded the Follett International Teacher-Librarian of the Year Award from the Canadian Association of School Libraries for her contributions to the field of school librarianship.