Collection Development Policy for the Education Curriculum Collection

Subject Specialist: Pamela Bristah (x2076)
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The goal of the Education Curriculum Collection is to provide student teachers in both elementary and secondary education with access to materials that they can use in lesson plan preparation and can take with them into the classrooms in which they teach. The focus of the collection is on presenting students with exposure to the types of materials that they will encounter as they do field work and those that will stimulate the development of creative class design. The collection will also support the needs of students who are more generally interested in curriculum development.

MATERIALS COLLECTED
The core collection comprises basic teaching texts and resource materials in elementary-level language arts, social studies and sciences. While some materials in the specific subject fields in which the College offers secondary certification are acquired, students rely upon the Library's subject collections as the primary resource. These are supplemented by a basic collection of children's literature, focussing on award-winning titles but representing the juvenile literature of all cultures. An effort is made to add key publisher textbook series (along with their guides and associated teaching materials); however, only the latest edition of each series will be maintained. Standards for instruction in all subject areas and at both levels are collected. The focus of all materials is upon pedagogic practice in the United States.

FORMATS COLLECTED
The collection represents the major formats in which teaching materials are published: books, kits, consumables, games, etc. Audiovisual materials dealing with basic teaching skills are acquired selectively. Since students will generally use the software that is available in their fieldwork school assignment, only very select software will be collected as exemplars of the field. Both AV and software are housed in the Knapp Media and Technology Center.

SCOPE
Conceived as a basic resource collection, it is expected to grow to approximately 500-600 titles and will remain fairly stable over time, with weeding of outdated materials keeping the collection current.

USE OF THE COLLECTION
Due to its limited size and the fact that high demand can occur at very specific times in the academic year, a loan of 7 days has been applied to all materials in the collection. In this way, it is hoped that all students can have ready access to the materials as they need them for their fieldwork. Longer loans can be arranged through the Circulation Department if specific urgent needs arise.

LOCATION OF COLLECTION
The collection is shelved on the third floor of The Clapp Library, in the ranges of shelving on the back wall between the stairwell and Seminar Room 3.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE SUPPORT
The Education Curriculum Collection receives additional support from the rest of the Library's holdings, among which are education journals, electronic research resources, classroom maps, and books relating to the history of education, education policy, comparative education, child psychology and development, testing and learning, etc.

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Page Created: November 2005
Last Modified: September 21, 2007
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