Sonoma County Office of Education

New Library Media Services page

SCOE Library Resources for Teachers, Students, and Parents

SCOE provides library resources for classroom use and services to support school libraries. Our collection includes over 35,000 books and other items available for use in the classroom and for school libraries. Using our online catalog, teachers can reserve items for immediate and future use. Library staff maintain the instructional resources in this collection and can assist teachers in selecting instructional resources.

The SCOE Library:

Library and Resource Center Hours

The SCOE library is open during the following hours:

Monday: 8 AM - 1:30 PM and 3 PM - 5 PM
Tuesday: 12 PM - 1:30 PM and 3 PM - 5 PM
Wednesday: 12 PM - 1:30 PM and 3 PM - 5 PM
Thursday: 12 PM - 1:30 PM and 3 PM - 5 PM
Friday: 8 AM - 1:30 PM and 3 PM - 5 PM

If you require assistance from a Library staff member, an advance appointment is suggested. The Resource Center and access to equipment is available by appointment only.

Call (707) 524-2831 to schedule appointments.

SCOE Library Catalog

This is the SCOE library catalog. We have class sets, leveled readers, exploratory kits, and more that you can check for your classroom.

Click here to search for books, kits, teaching resources for your classroom via the catalog.

Check out these books from the Rosen Library of online books. They cover a wide variety of topics; and they can be checked out online by multiple users at the same time.

un: sonoma
pw: sonoma

Professional Development

ProQuest Professional Development

ProQuest Schools and Educators Complete Quick Access: to thousands of nonfiction books on academic subjects.

Resources for Teaching in 2020-21

Resources:

Explora teacher lessons (https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z)

Online teaching:

http://www.pbs.org/teacherline

Virtual IEP Meetings: a 6 step guide for parents and teachers.

Edutopia: starter kit for online teaching (https://www.edutopia.org/stw-online-learning-teacher-development)

Social Justice:

15 Classroom Resources for discussing racism, policing, and protest

Teaching Tolerance https://www.tolerance.org)

Resources

Once we’ve assigned the research project or asked students to discover new information, we need to help them find the resources they need, learn to identify reliability of the source, and compare different sources in order to get new information and to discover perspectives. Here are some resources to help.

The California State Library (library.ca.gov) hosts free state-wide online content for K-12 community. Use these to help with each step in the research process.

Research

Step 1: Dig and Dive

When we don’t know anything about our subject, we need to find those ‘terms of art’ – the jargon, the people, and the history of the field. Send students out to find their ‘first step’ knowledge of a subject to an encyclopedia or other

LINK to Britannica, ProQuest’s eLibrary

Spanish Britannica is called Escolar LINK

Step 2. Dig Deeper

These resources help students put their newly found general knowledge into a context. Search here for magazines, newspaper, journals, videos and more.

LINK to ProQuest / could use their ‘buttons’ (see https://library.ca.gov/k12-covid-19/).

ProQuest Research Companion (tutorials and more) to help guide students through the research process: https://www.library.ca.gov/

Step 3. Expand your knowledge

More resources from your public library:

Find more resources here at your Sonoma County Library: https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z

Especially noteworthy for K-12 are:

Points of View

  • Alternative viewpoints are given on a subject and supported with resources to help students make their claim.

A-Z (maps, USA, world culture)

  • These three resources have the best content for discovery on the geography and culture of the world. These can be ‘one stop’ locations for the dig and dive info for reports and other presentations.

Explora:
https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z

  • Three levels provide a way for students to find the information they need for a variety of uses.

Mango Languages:
https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z

  • Students create their own account and learn a new language – choose from over 50 languages!

National Geographic (Archives / Nat. Geo Kids)
https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z

  • Explore the historical National Geographic magazine articles through their archives. National Geographic Kids opens the doors to the world for younger learners.

Wildlife Encyclopedia: https://sonomalibrary.org/resources/premium/a-z

  • A true encyclopedia of every animal in the world!

    • Sourcing and citing/evaluating

    Ha! No one ‘likes’ the citation process. It is often tedious and difficult for students to understand. But... it has value:

    • It forces us to identify our source (who wrote it, when, what kind of source it is, etc.).
    • It helps us share our research journey.
    • It provides a context to show who we consulted.

    Get help citing: NoodleTools Express (free version)

    Inquiry and Research

    When “inquiring minds want to know”, they will pursue it until they are satisfied with their knowledge. Part of our job is to help students find a passion to study or follow an idea to its conclusion. The skills one gains within the research process are skills they will use every day of their lives from deciding what to wear in the morning, to determining a career path, to voting and participating as citizens in their communities.

    Here are 4 key concepts in the inquiry and research process. Each plays a part in teaching skills that build upon each other and drive the research forward. Engagement begins with a question that needs answering. Research answers that question and more often than not brings out more questions, many which place that initial question into a larger context. Just what we’re after as teachers!

    Teachers have many strategies at-hand that they can use to teach these skills. Below are 4 concepts for teaching with inquiry. They are only a part of a larger picture for For further explanation, please contact the SCOE librarian.

    Research answers a question

    RightQuestion.org

    The Right Question Institute has an effective easy-to-use strategy to get students asking more questions. When students ask their own questions, they’re more likely to be willing to go the distance to find the answers, write the report and share their new knowledge. The RQI has an easy-to-implement strategy to help students ask their own questions.

    Use the “5 whys” to solve a problem. Problem-solving requires that we identify what the problem actually is. This strategy encourages groups to auger down to the root of the problem so that they can then determine next steps. See SCOE librarian for info on how to use this in the class and with faculty problem-solving.

    The Stripling model for inquiry

    www.thinkport.org/casemaker/inquiry1.html (interactive)

    ...can help to organize a research inquiry. With this model, you can start with the engagement that piques student interest and then proceed through the different steps to creation and presentation of new knowledge. You can explicitly teach in each step of the process, the skills necessary to do the work within those steps. There are lots of ways to use this model.

    Information has a cycle

    Teach students how primary and secondary sources inform how information is created. A way to begin any project, unit, or big idea can easily start with an engaging primary source – helps students dig in by asking questions.

    DocsTeach.org

    Primary Source Starter Pack for Teachers

    Sourcing and citing/evaluating

    Ha! No one ‘likes’ the citation process. It is often tedious and difficult for students to understand. But... it has value:

    • It forces us to identify our source (who wrote it, when, what kind of source it is, etc.).
    • It helps us share our research journey.
    • It provides a context to show who we consulted.

    Get help citing: NoodleTools Express (free version)