Troy School District staffers receive School Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

TROY — Troy School District librarian Christina Chatel and Boulan Park Middle School teacher Michelle Slaviero were recently honored by the Michigan Association of School Librarians with the 2024 MASL School Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award. 

“The Troy School District is proud to celebrate Christina and Michelle’s accomplishments, which reflect the district’s commitment to providing a world-class education,” a TSD press release said. 

“Their work highlights the critical role school libraries play in student achievement and reinforces the district’s contribution to the advancement of school libraries.”

The purpose of the MASL is to further encourage student success by supporting school libraries in Michigan. The award is meant to recognize the collaborative efforts between school librarian staff members and teachers as they work together on curriculum-related programs or events that incorporate library resources.

Chatel and Slaviero were recognized for their work on the Genius Hour and Michigan History Day Passion Projects with Boulan Park Middle School eighth grade students. 

The two have been working together as a collaborative team since the 2014-2015 school year, when Slaviero sought help from Chatel to start the Genius Hour project for her Effective Teens classes which later led the two to include the National History Day project into their work.

“Eager to help, Christina provided her expertise in teaching Michelle’s students how to write research questions and how to do research for their passion projects,” Slaviero and Chatel’s application for MASL School Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award said.

“Michelle and Christina collaborated again on this project in the 2015-2016 school year, and they were accepted to present at Mercy High School’s 2016 Tech Talk conference in a session titled ‘You Can Do Genius Hour, Too.’ 

“When Michelle found out that she would not be teaching Effective Teens in the 2016-2017 school year, she felt strongly that she wanted to continue guiding students through Genius Hour, and she would do this in her US History 8 classes. She discovered the National History Day (NHD) project, and Christina was ready to support her as Michelle worked to interweave NHD as a passion project for her eighth-grade students.”

The NHD project is an educational competition for students in grades 6-12 to choose a topic to extensively research through utilizing libraries, archives, and museums and presenting their work through papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries, or websites. The students’ work will be evaluated by historians and educators.

Genius Hour is meant to provide students with assistance in their research and creation process through a weekly work schedule and learning more about the different research tools and resources available to students.

“Michelle saw this as an opportunity to introduce student choice into the US History curriculum, and teach the skills of historical writing and research while each student focused on a US History topic they were interested in,” the application said. 

“Christina supported this endeavor with pre-research opportunities, as well as lessons on digital citizenship, Effective note-taking skills, and sourcing.”

This project has led to recognition for the students and their respective project as well as further interest into implementing aspects of the project for other grades.

“The eighth grade National History Day project at Boulan has always culminated in some sort of celebration, followed by select students moving on to regional, state, and even national levels,” the application said. 

“Some years, Christina and Michelle hosted an evening event in the media center where students presented their projects to the community. Since 2020, the celebration has evolved into students showcasing their projects in the media center during the school day to sixth and seventh grade social studies classes. 

“After seeing the success of NHD in eighth grade, the seventh grade social studies teachers were inspired to do NHD with their classes, too, in a modified format. This meant that seventh grade classes needed lessons in the media center on research and citations, and it led to better quality projects from eighth graders, since they had the experience in seventh grade.”

Chatel and Slaviero received their recognition for the MASL School Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award in October 2024.

“I have enjoyed collaborating with Michelle for the past ten years and helping her bring Genius Hour into her classroom through the Michigan History Day project,” Christina Chatel, librarian at Boulan Park Middle School, said in a press release. 

“I’m honored that MASL is recognizing our partnership as one of the best school librarian-teacher collaborations in the state this year.”

“It’s such an honor to be recognized alongside a colleague as creative and knowledgeable as Christina,” Boulan Park teacher Michelle Slaviero said in a press release. “Our collaboration benefits our students immensely and shows them how essential teamwork is in delivering rigorous 21st-century learning.”

For more information, visit mimasl.org or troy.k12.mi.us.