The Road to Concurrent Sessions

May/June 2009

by Ernie J. Cox

When conference attendees settle into a lobby chair and begin reviewing and plotting their individual plans, they will become members of a trip that began months earlier, the journey of conference proposals as they makes their way on the road to concurrent sessions.

When members of the school library community arrive in Charlotte this November, they will discover mild winter weather, a thriving metro area, and the 2009 AASL National Conference program guide bursting open with over 100 informative concurrent sessions.  These sessions will offer the latest news, views, practices, and research related to dozens of important school library topics. Session presenters come from a variety of settings including school libraries, district offices, and universities. When conference attendees settle into a lobby chair and begin reviewing and plotting their individual plans, they will become members of a trip that began months earlier, the journey of conference proposals as they makes their way on the road to concurrent sessions.

In the summer of 2008, the National Conference Committee issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for concurrent session programs. Throughout the summer and fall the committee zoomed along making decisions about keynote speakers, visiting authors, conducting site visits, and recruiting program proposal reviewers. As we assembled the pool of reviewers, we worked to create a balanced representation of the profession.
These reviewers come from all levels (Elementary, Middle, HS, or Upper Ed) within public and independent schools and departments of education and LIS, have varied expertise (i.e., collaboration, standards, research, intellectual freedom, etc.), and reside in assorted geographic locations. Our reviewers were ready when the deadline arrived for RFPs in December and the reviewing began immediately. Each proposal was carefully read and commented on by three reviewers with these key elements in mind:

• Information Power and Standards for the 21st-Century Learner,
• meeting the learning needs of adults with a focus on interaction,
• offering materials that can easily be extended to the back-home setting of attendees, and 
• relevance to the current state of the profession.

An enthusiastic response generated almost three times as many proposals than we could accommodate in the conference space. The sessions that we could not fit into concurrent session space were offered a spot in the Exploratorium, a venue that offers the opportunity to speak informally with colleagues about their ideas. Proposals that were the best matches to the above goals were organized into strands. These strands cover a wide range of relevant and timely topics and questions. A few of these strands with sample session information are provided: 

21st Century Standards – One of the central items of interest for the 2009 National Conference will be the new AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. This strand of programming will be dedicated to explaining, demonstrating, and engaging participants in an exploration of these standards. Come prepared to learn more about:

• student dispositions in action
• guided inquiry
• technology for 21st Century Learners

Collaboration – These sessions will share recent success stories and current thinking about how to make collaboration work in your school. Sessions in this strand will address:

• Collaborative research projects in the elementary school
• Bringing collaboration to after school and tutoring programs
• Connecting collaboration to student achievement

Information Literacy – Cutting edge technology meets 21st Century Skills:

• Teaching in an information rich society
• Electronic note taking to develop critical thinking
• Using action research to understand student information literacy

Literacy – Library media specialists make decisive contributions to all literacies in your school library programs. You will be able to sharpen your literacy role:

• Teacher-Librarian as literacy coach
• Author studies
• Reading workshops in the library

Management – School library media center facilities are changing to meet the challenges of 21st century learning. Sessions in this track will address how they will function and the emerging professionals:

• Information commons, learning commons and the media center
• Mentoring programs

Personal and Professional Development – If you are ready to attain National Board Certification, establish a Professional Learning Community, or take a leadership role in your school, this strand will rev up your professional development focus.

Public Relations & Advocacy – It’s more crucial than ever that your role and your impact are understood by your whole school community. This strand will help you prepare to:

• Gain the critical support of administrators and school board members
• Market your Media Program to the larger school community
• Use the newest AASL Advocacy toolkits

Teaching and Learning – Sessions in this track address:

• Teaching for Understanding
• Research skills, models, and approaches
• Open ended brainstorming sessions for emerging topics

Technology – A buffet of sessions will address your questions about how to use web 2.0 technologies as well as the latest tech hardware and software. This strand has something for every school situation and budget.

While you can’t attend all of these sessions in real time, you will be able to get many of them through a digital archive. This repository is one of the many technological tools we will use to foster networking, discussion, and interaction before, during, and after the conference. See Joyce Valenza’s article in the May/June 2009 Knowledge Quest for more details.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a proposal and to our pool of reviewers for their thoughtful readings of these session ideas. The conference committee has worked to prepare a concurrent session experience designed to get attendees revved up.

See you in Charlotte!

   
Ernie J. Cox, teacher-librarian at St. Timothy’s School in Raleigh, N.C., is the 2009 AASL National Conference Programming Co-Chair. He is currently serving on the ALA Children’s Book Council Joint Committee.