Teacher Librarian Day 2024: Looking Back to Move Forward – Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Western Region

– Written by Michael Wodzisz

This year was the 20th anniversary of Teacher Librarian Day, an innovative professional development day for teachers and librarians. What a milestone! Participants at TLD received 8 hours of professional development (PD) hours toward the renewal of their teacher licensure, as well as an optional .5 graduate credit to help teachers progress up the pay scale.

This year, speakers came to talk about all subjects from LGBTQ+ identities to Colorado water to outer space. Check out their presentations below.

TLD Western Region 2024 Keynote – TPS Western Region
LGBTQ+ Identities – MATTHEW PEDREGÓN
The Cosmic Perspective – Dr. Jeffery Bennett
Water – Dr. Matthew Mackley
Panel Discussion – Kelly Jones-Wagy, Cathay Fuller and Keith Jones
Wassup with all the Black boys in the Principal’s Office!? – Dr. Rashad Anderson

The afternoon breakout sessions allowed teachers and librarians to choose which speaker they wanted to go to. Within these breakout, participants engaged in hands-on learning and were provided with classroom ready strategies and materials.

Sherrie Galloway coordinated a coinciding professional development for folks in the Grand Junction area. Here they watched and listened to a stream of the TLD speakers in Denver, and then engaged in breakouts with local museums and libraries.

Teacher Librarian Day is a great place to learn how to implement primary sources into the classroom for any grade levels. Students have fun looking at primary sources and inferring the purpose and meaning of it through collaborative inquiry.

“I always have a primary source on me no matter what grade level I am subbing for.” Says Michael Wodzisz who has been a substitute for over two years. “It is enlightening to hear from students on what they think is happening in a photo I give to them. The best part of doing this is there are no wrong answers, and students love to know there are no wrong answers. From my personal experience I can say this type of inquiry activity is a blast to do in the classroom.”

One of the activities at this year’s TLD was primary source BINGO. For this activity, everyone chose which primary source image they wanted from a random pile on each of their tables.. Then, participants searched for people with the other images they needed to fill out a BINGO. This activity is a great icebreaker and gets people to think about connections between content and skills.

Primary Source Bingo

Throughout the day participants utilized the GooseChase mobile app to encourage participants to explore place-based learning and primary sources through a scavenger hunt. Points were given to folks who complete each task, and at the end of the day, folks were given prizes for having the most points. This app is an easy-to-use tech tool that can be used for just about any classroom activity or lesson.

All of this year’s presenters were awesome. In addition to the breakouts given by the speakers, the TPS Western Region held two breakout sessions. See the presentations and resources used in the links below:

At the very end of the day was a raffle where everyone got a prize, from printers donated by Colorado National History Day or a Library of Congress book pack, for example.