What is the impact of Teacher-Librarian Additional Qualification programs and Teacher-Librarian Certificate courses on Canadian-based, university-level research on school librarianship? How might teacher-librarians ensure Canadian university scholarship on school librarianship grows and thrives?
by Diana Maliszewski and Joanie Proske
Course writers and instructors for the Queen’s University Continuing Teacher Education Department’s Teacher Librarian Certificate / Additional Qualification discuss the state of teacher-librarian education across Canada, focusing on examples from their home provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. They pose challenging questions about the future of TL education courses, although popular, with TL positions in decline.
Diana Maliszewski (OCT BA BEd MEd) is the teacher-librarian at Agnes Macphail Public School in the Toronto District School Board and has worked as a school library professional for over twenty-five years. From 2006 - 2018, she was the editor-in-chief of The Teaching Librarian, the official publication of the Ontario School Library Association. Currently, she is the co-Vice President of the Association for Media Literacy and Canada's representative with the North American and European chapter of UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy Alliance. Diana developed and still facilitates the Teacher Librarianship Additional Qualification courses for York University and Queen's University. Diana has been honoured with several awards, such as the Follett International Teacher-Librarian of the Year in 2008, the OLA President's Award for Exceptional Achievement in 2013, and the CSL Angela Thacker Memorial Award in 2025. Like her friend and co-writer of this TMC paper, Joanie Proske, Diana is a proud graduate of the University of Alberta Teacher-Librarianship via Distance Learning Masters of Education program. She blogs weekly as part of her reflective professional practice at
http://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com.
Joanie Proske is a retired elementary and secondary teacher librarian from Langley, BC, whose contributions to the profession were honored with the BCTLA Val Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She is a coursework writer and current instructor for Queens Teacher Librarian Certificate program.
As a fellow TLDL graduate, I am enormously impressed with the history and overview of the different programs and emphasis on how much we need graduate level research based courses like U of A's TLDL program. I had, prior to taking on the Chair of CSL and way too many other things, been looking at starting my PhD to examine School Libraries. It's still on the agenda but I need sometime to get my feet under me with the CSL role. Another barrier has been the lack of a Canadian choice for pursuing a PhD. While I am looking at San Jose State University's program, I haven't had time to write a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal which is a requirement for entry, as I've been committed to writing for CSL Journal and doing various larger projects for BCTLA. I hope UofA can reconsider the closing of the TLDL program, it is instrumental in building capacity within TLs across Canada to be leaders.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, thanks for your comments. Although I love learning and researching, I did ask my spouse to prevent me from pursuing my PhD. (It would have been too expensive, too lengthy, and with not enough gain for the effort.) As Joanie can attest, writing that MEd paper itself was tough. It's interesting that a requirement for the PhD program at San Jose is to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. You almost need the skills that you'll get in the program before you begin the program! (If it's any comfort, I graduated from TLDL in 2010 and had my first peer-reviewed academic journal publication in 2018, with a great deal of credit to my co-writer, E. Soleas!) Make sure to read Dr. Oberg's paper to see how U of A plans to offer something "same but different". Do you think it would equal the TLDL MEd program? Maybe free PhDs for those who do the MEd with U of A and then write for TMC? (We can dream, right?)
DeleteDiana