Tiffani Thomas Collection Evaluation and Development Plan FRIT 7134-Spring 2011 March 9, 2011 DESCRIPTION OF SITE AND

LEARNERS I teach at Banks County Elementary School located in Homer, GA located northeast of Gainesville, GA. It is the only elementary school in the county grades 3-5. We have one middle school grades 6-8, one high school grades 9-12, and one primary school grades K-2. Banks County Elementary School is a Title I school in a rural low socioeconomic population. The school has approximately 725 students. The racial breakdown of the school is 89.1%=622 white, 1.8%=13 Multi-racial, less than .5%=1 American Indian, 5.7%=40 Hispanic, 1.8%=13 African American, 1.2%=9 Asian. Currently, 57% of the students at Banks County Elementary School receive free and reduced lunch. The administrative staff consists of 1 principal, 1 assistant principal, and 1 instructional lead teacher. The office staff consists of a receptionist, records clerk, office paraprofessional, and an attendance secretary. The support personnel consists of 1 full-time counselor, and one time counselor, speech therapist, occupational therapy, physical therapy, school psychologist, school nurse, full-time media center clerk, and time media specialist. There are 13 certified 3rd grade teachers, 12 certified 4th grade teachers, and 12 certified 5th grade teachers. In addition to our staff, we have resource and support teachers that include 2 Early Intervention Program (EIP) teachers 2 resource only SPED teachers, and 1 English Language Learners teacher (ELL), we have 4 connections teachers, and 5 classroom paraprofessionals. Overall, we have 52 certified staff and 26 classified staff.

Our school is a newly built school that was constructed in 2005. It is a beautiful one story building with 3 wings of classrooms for each grade level. The library is situated to the left of the building with an outdoor amphitheater attached. It is spacious with lots of natural lighting with a vast array of windows. The rows are wide to allow for traffic on both sides of the shelves. The shelves are low so students can see over them and be monitored while they are in the library. Our collection statistics includes 17,388 copies. Of those copies, 1,080 are professional material to be checked out by teachers and 796 copies are video/DVD/CD-ROM. The media center houses 2 lookup computers so that students can find resources. It has 6 desktops for multipurpose use. The LCD projector was taken down this year to be placed into a classroom and the smart board was also removed to update the software and be used on a portable basis instead of for the use in the library. All classrooms are equipped with LCD projectors, TV/VCR/DVD, so the use for this in the library is minimal. The library also produces a Morning show from the media room that is broadcasted throughout the school each morning. Our 5th grade is comprised of 12 teachers as mentioned before. There are 9 homeroom classes with 3 co-teachers. The co-teachers serve the SPED population and the 5th grade also has 2 resource teachers that pull out EIP and ELL students on a daily basis. The 5th grade special needs and services break down: Gifted Education Students: 18 Special Education Students: 43 EIP students: 35 in both reading and math combined ELL/ESOL students: 14

The 5th grade ethnic breakdown: Caucasion: 71% Hispanic: 19% African American: 8% Asian: 2% The reading levels of our students are determined using 3 factors in our system Lexia, Dibbels, and STAR Reading. Of the SPED students listed above, 26 qualify in the area of reading. These students are pulled out of reading class daily and are served by a resource SPED teacher. Of the EIP students listed above, 24 of them qualify in the area of both reading and mathematics and 11 only in the area of mathematics. These students are pulled out of their reading classes daily and served in a small group setting by a resource EIP teacher. CURRICULUM REVIEW/MAPPING For this assignment, I have chosen to focus on a 5th grade topic in the area of earth science. This topic includes volcanoes and earthquakes as destructive/constructive processes. The following standards are addressed within this unit: Georgia Performance Standard S5E1. Students will identify surface features of the Earth caused by constructive and destructive processes. a. Identify surface features caused by constructive processes. Deposition (Deltas, sand dunes, etc.), Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Faults b. Identify and find examples of surface features caused by destructive processes. Erosion (waterrivers, oceans, wind), Weathering, Impact of organisms, Earthquake, Volcanoes By the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to demonstrate the following: Demonstrate knowledge of terms, geological phenomena and processes, and landforms associated with earths constructive and destructive forces and processes

Identify both constructive and destructive forces that shape the earths surface Apply understanding of weathering agents and process that are involved in creating a variety of landforms Apply understanding of human methods to control earths constructive and destructive forces and processes Demonstrate understanding of human interaction and relationships to earths constructive and destructive forces and processes

The assessment product for the unit is a Culminating Activity: Students will develop a travel poster of landforms that have been shaped by constructive, destructive forces, or by a combination of both forces. Specific details and requirements pertaining to the activity are given to students along with a rubric for assessing their final product. COLLECTION EVALUATION To prepare for my evaluation of our collection for this topic, I spent some time in the library looking up and searching for related material. Most material we have for the volcanoes and earthquakes are non-fiction. They are located in an organized section of our library with all other non-fiction books. They were labeled neatly with the Dewey Decimal system and to my surprise in good shape. There were a variety of books. My search led to 33 non-fiction books on volcanoes and earthquakes. I found very few books in the fiction section for my topic. The books that were fiction were outdated and the newest publishing was 1998. The books were worn and some repaired but not a vast amount that covered volcanoes or earthquakes. My search let to 8 fiction books on the topic of volcanoes and earthquakes. I also checked out the professional resources for teachers to be able to teach this content. Since out school does not have science textbooks, professional resources is a great need for teachers. My search let to 3 books about volcanoes and earthquakes. Lastly, I checked the kits/demonstration/videos or any other related materials that were available to teachers to help teach the content. I found 3

outdated VHS tapes and 1 very old volcano demonstration kit. This helped me to see what was lacking and what materials needed to be ordered for students as well as teachers. My focus will definitely be to budget for more current resources for students and teachers. More fiction reading material for students is a great need to address as well. The next part of my review was to see if the material that was available was being checked out by students and teachers. The students non-fiction books were checked out very often. Some books averaged almost 10 times per book. These were the brightly colored newer non-fiction books with great pictures of volcanoes and earthquake damage on the front cover. The fiction books however had hardly been checked out at all. The most of one of the books was 3 times. I looked at the books and they were old, outdated, and did not look too appealing from the looks of the front cover. Finally, I looked at how much the professional materials had been checked out by the teachers. I discovered the professional books had not been checked out at all, nor the outdated demonstration kits. The only material used by the teachers was the videos which had been used by all the science teachers. This discovery showed how the materials available were not useable by the teachers as effective teaching material or they would be using it more often. The purchase of additional professional resources will be a major focus in the budget plan. The last part of my review pertained to the multicultural aspect of the non-fiction and fiction books available to teachers and students. I found that the non-fiction and fiction books discussed and showed volcano and earthquakes around the word. This is true since this devastation does not happen in Georgia. Even the fiction books, demonstrated multicultural diversity by telling of a story in Japan with Asian characters

and setting. I feel like the topic of volcano and earthquakes is good to use for multicultural connections. However, I did not find a single book written in Spanish or another language. I plan on exploring the possibilities of finding material written in another language for my budget plan. In summary: 1. Updated material for students in both non-fiction and fiction section. 2. More selections of fiction books about volcanoes and earthquakes 3. Updated material for professional section 4. More selections of professional resources to use for teaching in the classroom 5. While purchasing, focus on the multicultural selections and see if Spanish versions are available MATERIALS ORDER See attached spreadsheet BUDGET SUMMARY During my research, I found a variety of vendors to order books. I feel as though my collection is a complete listing that can add to our existing collection with new items that address multicultural perspectives of volcanoes and earthquakes. In my budget, I will need $3,613.75 to finish my materials order for volcanoes and earthquakes. With this selection, the GPS curriculum is covered thoroughly. Teachers and students will have the opportunity to experience many types of resources. In addition to the materials order, I discovered many websites that can be useful when studying this topic. You may visit my class webpage at http://www.banks.k12.ga.us/segue/index.php? &login=logout&action=site&site=tthomas&section=889&page=2781 in order to locate

some very useful sites. Simply scroll down until you see Science websites and they are located under earth science.