Author Archives

NBCTeacher Librarian and author of "Understanding Government Information: a Teaching Strategy Toolkit for grades 7-12". Member of the CA State Library Services Board, and History Room Librarian at the Petaluma Regional Library [Sonoma County Library]. She welcomes all conversation.. give a holler!

• Integrating Constitution Day into Your School’s Curriculum

  By Connie Williams on 08/20/2020 • ( 1 )

  What interesting times we are living in. Teaching and learning within a set of unprecedented challenges that includes: a pandemic that keeps students at home most, if not all, of the school day learning from online courses, Zoom meetings, and… Read More ›

• Got Civics?

  By Connie Williams on 06/18/2018 • ( 0 )

  Recently, while sitting in a jury pool at the local courthouse three days into jury selection, I realized that there was no possible way that I’d be chosen. Each side had already used up several options for peremptory cause dismissal,… Read More ›

• You want me to remember what?!

  By Connie Williams on 05/15/2018 • ( 0 )

  

  Remembering things – like multiplication tables, grammar rules, or algebraic operations – can be made easier if there are interesting ways of learning them. Even as we embrace large ideas of learning, what needs to be learned includes many things… Read More ›

• Optimism

  By Connie Williams on 04/19/2018 • ( 2 )

  It’s hard to imagine how quickly time flies and just how many things happen within that flying. And yet, sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I hope, however, that we can always look back over… Read More ›

• 5 Whys

  By Connie Williams on 03/16/2018 • ( 1 )

  

  Given that all of the standards we use in our teaching require that students ask questions, it behooves us to think about some of the processes we have to help them do just that. In previous blog posts (actually almost all… Read More ›

• Next up – March: Women’s History Month

  By Connie Williams on 02/22/2018 • ( 0 )

  

  I’m going to start this month’s blog post on Women’s History by hearkening back to last year’s post: It’s March: Time to Talk Girl Talk. In that post, I gathered some resources we could use to look at history from the… Read More ›

• 4 Words Can Change Your Whole Day

  By Connie Williams on 01/16/2018 • ( 0 )

  You gotta love Facebook. Really. From the ridiculous to the sublime and all the variations in between – and I’m totally ignoring the horrible or otherwise negative here – there are moments we can savor together. Early in the fall,… Read More ›

• Building a Professional Library – Part II

  By Connie Williams on 12/21/2017 • ( 0 )

  In my last blog post (November 2017) I proposed that the best opportunities we have to support student learning lies with the connections we make with faculty and administrators. They may not always get a chance to see what’s out there… Read More ›

• Building Our Professional Library: Part 1

  By Connie Williams on 11/14/2017 • ( 0 )

  One way school librarians can make important connections, help classroom colleagues, and support students is by helping administrators, counselors, and others in their quest for effective programs, excellent research, and strategies for administering their schools. Purchasing and maintaining a professional… Read More ›

• Creative Constraints, Passion Projects, and Those “Bird Reports”

  By Connie Williams on 10/16/2017 • ( 6 )

  

  Librarians have been thinking long and hard about how to help redefine the “Bird Reports.” We help far too many students in the library locate information on subjects the student neither cares about nor really has an understanding of the… Read More ›