Secondary practicum completed

On Friday, I finished my secondary practicum at Fulton Junior High. Overall, it was a great experience. I learned a great deal and made some great friends and a colleague along the way. The following takeaways:
Takeaways from my secondary practica
-How to catalog books
-Setting up a reading incentive program is a multifaceted process; requires promotion, staff support, include student input when possible
-Great idea: Hold mini contests to attract students to library (book fair promotion, 3 Apples Award vote, etc.)
-Collaborate wherever! Halls, copy room, email... Know your staff and what works for them
-Try to integrate technology through lessons; students extremely engaged!
-Make suggestions to teachers for technology integration
-Whenever you host a collaborative project, look at students' finished products. Evaluate the skills you taught, take notes, and report back to teacher. Make some comments on students' overall projects too.
-Folders are great organizational tools!
-Library helpers can be a great program to implement: tasks like dusting, shelve-reading, shelving graphic novels and fiction, decorating, special projects
-Separate processing orders and check off books as they come in. Make sure the secretary or office need a copy when order is completed.
-Try to save a bit of your budget for student book requests
-Create engaging lesson hooks!
-Classroom Management- something I need to try to focus on more when teaching
-Display library expectations and consequences for those who do not follow them
-Allow past issues of magazines to be checked out by students
-Use Magazine check out envelopes- create a temporary record in the system
-Use Bibliography sheets for students to collect citation information
-Set up displays for special occasions, events, and holidays: Halloween, research projects
-Email everything to a superior first and always spell check your emails
-Keep things short and sweet in emails, announcements, etc. Easier for everyone to read

I had such a great experience and I cannot wait to start my elementary practicum in January.
I also took the Library Media CST yesterday. I met some new people including someone from my alma mater, SUNY Potsdam; I also ran into a couple classmates from SU: Amanda B. and Erin B. As for the test itself, some of the questions were challenging but I still think I passed the test, which is what matters.


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