Supporting global education: Creating an engaging experience with children’s literature

The poster highlights a collaborative project in which a librarian and an Education instructor worked together to teach future primary and secondary (K-12) teachers how to select multicultural books and create classroom environments that embrace diversity. The project addresses a high-stakes gap in teacher education. Often teachers are not taught how to critically select books; instead, they are left to make these decisions by themselves based on the assumption that these skills will be learned as a teacher grows into the profession. Selecting a book should not be taken lightly because it can have negative educational, social, and emotional impacts on students. Thus, K-12 teachers must consider how stereotypical books perpetuate cultural misconceptions. The presenters will show how they revamped an existing course to address this issue. Information and visual literacy instruction were implemented gradually based on experimentation, assessment, and feedback from students. The poster will also highlight how the library’s collection was made more accessible to the students; how multicultural information was integrated into the curriculum; and what the students were taught during the library session. Overall, the poster emphasizes that collaboration between librarians and instructors is imperative to teach future educators how to better integrate multiculturalism.