As Juniors begin working on their second research paper, New Canaan High School librarians are facilitating the transition between the English and social studies research experiences.

During the first semester, students participated in a flipped learning unit of instruction. They watched videos, took mini quizzes, were assessed in class, and earned digital badges. Students then submitted their works cited list to the library Moodle for feedback. Additionally, students completed an exit ticket at the end of the semester.

As a result, librarians were  able to gather several data points from each student.

Number of digital badges
Score on in-class quiz
Grade(s) on works cited drafts
Responses to exit ticket questions
Score on the English junior research paper

They are compiling this information into customized learning plans for each student. 

From the open-ended responses to the exit ticket, we are able to glean what kind of support each student wants from the library for the second semester research paper. We found that there are essentially six categories of help requested.

Finding good sources
Advanced search strategies
Writing the research paper
Creating embedded references
Citing in MLA 8
Work independently

Combining this information with student performance on various checkpoints such as the MLA 8 quiz, the bibliography, or effort, we are organizing students into learning groups. This allows us to run mini-workshops and offer lots on one on one help to better tailor our instruction to individual students learning needs. We are sharing this information with both the English and the social studies teachers.


In the meantime, we continue to document our days in photos:

And here are some photos of New Canaan High School library learning this week:

How Will Your Librarian Help You?

Two years ago, we did a 44 day experiment. We set our alarms to ring every period of the school day and one more time at 3PM. Each time our alarm went off, we took a snapshot of what we were doing. At the end of the experiment, we analyzed how we spent our time. Here was the resulting post.

We wanted to see what changed over the last few years. Are services changing? Are we using our time differently? There was only one way to find out so we are rebooting our experiment. We are now three days in and this is what we have so far. It will continue to grow throughout the day, every school day through the end of May. We hope you will follow along!




On February 16, while students were on vacation, teachers spent the afternoon brainstorming strategies to personalize learning at New Canaan High School. Here are a few photos of what teacher learning looks like:

Here are some photos of library learning this week