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As the national educational organizations' standards evolve from students mastering discrete skills to demonstrating broad learning behaviors, often referred to as 21st century learning skills, pedagogy is slowly shifting from teacher- and textbook-centered dissemination of facts and information to student-centered construction of learning and knowledge. In this environment, students use a wide range of resources to collaborate with others to solve authentic problems by thinking critically, actively create content, and communicate with a wide audience. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills succinctly categorizes these participatory skills into the four Cs: "critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, communication, and creativity and innovation" (P21 mission statement). Both the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students 2007 call for students to use an inquiry approach when engaged in the research process. But what does it look like for a student to be engaged in inquiry? What is inquiry-based research, commonly referred to as inquiry-based learning or "guided inquiry"? This article provides an introduction to inquiry-based learning. (Contains 3 online resources.)

Tomlinson defines differentiated instruction as "attempts to meet students where they are in the learning process and move them along as quickly and as far as possible in the context of a mixed-ability classroom." Successful differentiation equals student engagement and understanding. Instruction can be differentiated in several ways: by student interest, as each student adds questions that are directed by personal interests; through readiness differentiation when each student adds personal research and writing goals; or by learning-profile differentiation, where students use different products to show their understanding of the key concepts, principles, and skills. Differentiated instruction and the Big6 process appear to be made for each other. In this article the author explains how instruction can be differentiated with the Big6 process.

Being committed to continuous improvement means having the will to engage in a journey. The journey's path may be long and unpredictable, but most believe the path is well worth navigating if improvement is the end result. Sometimes the most poignant and successful improvement endeavors begin when people examine themselves from within. When they assess themselves from the inside out, they can grapple with the reality of their strengths while honestly owning up to their needs or weaknesses. This article describes the case of a school district that courageously engaged in a year-long improvement effort focusing on its library media programs and practices.

What motivates middle school students? Hormones and success! There is not much that teachers can do about the hormones, but they sure can affect the success. "Teaching Information and Communication Technology Skills: The Big6 in Middle Schools," a new book from Linworth Publishing, offers classroom teachers and teacher librarians new strategies for helping students use the Big6 to succeed in the classroom. The book is the latest edition in the Big6 series which focuses on the information needs of learners in grades 5 through 9. Teachers will find some tried and true methods, such as the popular trash-and-treasure note taking procedure, in addition to new strategies for integrating information and communications technology skills into the curriculum. It also contains useful information of all kinds, including advice for educators, tips that can be used in the classroom, and even Big6 lessons. A few excerpts from the book, including strategies for implementation and sample lessons, are presented.

What administrators know and understand matters when it comes to organizing a school for teaching and learning. When principals and assistant principals discourage the use of practices unfamiliar to them or do not support best practices, they can actually hamper student achievement and professional growth. This is especially true when it comes to the library media center, where front office decisions directly affect program budgets, the master schedule, and the overall role as library media specialist. This article presents a discussion about the importance of partnership between principals and school administrators. Together they can actually bring forth change when they are on the same track. A quality library media center program has the potential to impact student learning the way no other support program can. In fact, the importance should move the library media center program from "support" to "critical" status by its ability to bring those real-world critical information, communication, and technology skills into the more traditional content area curriculum standards. Furthermore, along with the efforts, the principal is the other critical force to ensure the library media center program takes its appropriate place in the school's course of study. Bringing the administrator on board may be the most important challenge, but it will be well worth the effort!

A library media specialist believes students should go beyond the facts and other information they find in sources. They can stretch their intellect and engage them in the learning process. The students can produce more meaningful and significant results by combining information found in sources, their original idea and transferable skills in the synthesis step of Big6.

Students need much assistance if they are to successfully use the Location and Access procedure of problem-solving. Guidelines are presented on how classroom teachers and library media specialists can help elementary students manage this Big6 stage.

Teachers who design meaningful and developmentally appropriate tasks will motivate their students to engage in the content and as students work through the Big6 process, interacting with the content, they learn and practice information and technology skills. A valuable task definition technique is to develop questions that students in each group will need to answer to successfully complete the task.

The process of retrieving information from reference sources can be a problem for young students due to differences in terminology. Pointers on how library media specialists can assist young children to acquire information from sources are provided.

The various steps to be implemented in helping students to interact with the Internet in order to avoid wrong information sites are presented. It is significant that children need to be well guided to reputable sources of information in electronic subscription databases.