Interview with a Librarian- Part 4: Include

This is the fourth and final post in a series of blog posts on the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards and shared foundations. In each post I will be reflecting on an interview with a school librarian about one of the shared foundations. Although all six AASL standards and shared foundations are essential to the success of a library, I have chosen four to focus on in my blog series.

Curate- Make meaning for oneself and others by collecting, organizing, and sharing resources of personal relevance.

Explore- Discover and innovate in a growth mindset developed through experience and reflection.

Inquire- Build new knowledge by inquiring, thinking critically, identifying problems, and developing strategies for solving problems

Include- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.

              For my final post I interviewed Kelley Rider about the shared foundation of Include. Kelley is the librarian at Pendleton High School (PHS) in Pendleton, SC. We started our discussion by talking about examples of ways that she implements the competencies in her library program. At PHS is she strives to purchase and promote library materials that are inclusive. The materials represent different interests, perspectives, life experiences, racial groups, socio-economic groups, religious groups, and more. Materials are also chosen to represent varying ability levels, formats (novels in verse, graphic novels, and children’s books, etc.), lengths, modes of delivery (physical material, digital material, audiobooks),  and genres. Ms. Rider also strives to cultivate an open and inviting library environment. She believes it is important that ALL students feel welcome in the library’s spaces. This requires an intentional effort to set clear procedures and expectations so that the greater school community is comfortable in the space because they understand the library is fair, open, and welcoming. Ms. Rider also uses the district, school, and library vision statements as a compass when making decisions about the collection or the library to prevent her own person preferences and biases for influencing that library. I admire Ms. Rider’s inclusive attitude and the intentional way that she goes about selecting materials for the collection as well as setting up her library.  Many people believe inclusiveness is simply choosing books that represent all types of people, but it goes beyond that to the reading levels, formats, modes of delivery, the library space, and the atmosphere in the library.

              We also discussed the resources she using within her library to implement the competencies under the shared foundation of Include. The school district mission, vision, and policies are used often. In addition to those she also references South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL) and  AASL tool kits and best practices when implementing the Include competencies. She also utilizes book review platforms such Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Horn Book Magazine, and Booklist to make informed decisions about the materials that she is selecting for the library. Paying attention to some of the major book awards such as Coretta Scott King, Newberry Awards, Pura Belpre Awards, and the Michael L. Printz Award also informs some of her decisions about library materials. This is an excellent way to insure that quality materials are a part of the collection and that the library is an inclusive environment.

              We also discussed how she included collaboration while implementing the shared foundation of Include. Ms. Rider collaborates informally and formally. She says that she informally collaborates daily by brainstorming, asking leading questions, and giving advice or offering the library as a resource to teachers. Ms. Rider collaborates formally several times per month by teaching or co-teaching lessons . She assists teachers with curating inclusive collections of materials for teachers to use in lessons or units in their classrooms. She also collaborates with school leadership to plan inclusive book clubs and helping with the school reading plan. I know that using collaboration to implement the competency of Include will look different in the elementary library than in a high school library, but Ms. Rider has some excellent strategies that I can apply in my elementary library. 

              I asked about the challenges that she faces when implementing these competencies she communicated that she often feels pulled in many directions. She has worked hard to create a space that is the heart of the school, a hub for learning, collaboration, and school culture. She is excited to have accomplished that, but at the same time when so many students and adults use the library regularly, it becomes very busy. It is sometimes a struggle to balance everything but having a clear vision, understanding and adhering to policies, practicing clear and kind boundaries, and prioritizing the libraries goals helps to keep things balanced. However, as we all know, sometimes that is easier said than done. I can definitely see where this would be a struggle in the library. It is tough to accomplish and maintain all the areas things that are needed. I would also think that another challenge in being inclusive is there may be a time when books or materials are challenged by parents or community members because they are inclusive and may not be everyone’s personal preference.         

              Ms. Rider was very insightful and offered a different perspective than the elementary and middle school librarians I interviewed. She has created a very inclusive library and learning environment at Pendleton High School. That is obvious when you enter the library and see the students enjoying the library or when you look at social media and see all the great activities that take place in the library at PHS.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

Interview with a Librarian- Part 3: Inquire 

This is the third post in a series of blog posts on the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards and shared foundations. In each post I will be reflecting on an interview with a school librarian about one of the shared foundations. Although all six AASL standards and shared foundations are essential to the success of a library, I have chosen four to focus on in my blog series.

Curate- Make meaning for oneself and others by collecting, organizing, and sharing resources of personal relevance.

Explore- Discover and innovate in a growth mindset developed through experience and reflection.

Inquire- Build new knowledge by inquiring, thinking critically, identifying problems, and developing strategies for solving problems

Include- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.

              For my third post I interviewed Amy Marshall about the shared foundation of Inquire. Mrs. Marshall is the librarian at Mount Lebanon Elementary. Mrs. Marshall has been a librarian for 15 years. When asked about examples of how she implements the competencies under Inquire she discussed how she likes to allow students choice at the beginning of research projects and encourages them to choice topics that interest them when they are discussing research or learning how to use a database, find informational texts, or biographies in the collection. She notes that often student work to find answers to teacher given questions or locate information they stumble upon new questions. She tries to help them with deliberately recording answers to those questions or finding new materials that will help them in their ever-changing search. She has specifically done this with 5^th grades working on biographies and 4^th graders working on poetry about individual topics. I am inspired by how she encourages inquiry not just with older students but also with her younger students. I often tend to just assign my younger students something to find or give them a list of questions to find the answers to rather than encouraging them to use their own inquiry skills to choose topics or develop questions. Mrs. Marshall also teaches broadcast as a part of her librarian duties. During this time students get the opportunity to write, record, ask/answer questions about topics they find interesting. The students then record segments that make up the weekly broadcast. In addition they conduct research about broadcast personalities and careers. Her broadcast team uses inquiry constantly. On one of my visits with her I was able to see the broadcast team in action, and they really do create and write their own scripts and develop their own interview questions based on their interests and inquiry.

              We then discussed the resources in her library program that she uses to implement these competencies. Students in her school are equipped with chrome books on a 1 to 1 ratio, which enable them to use online resources often. She teaches the use of Discus databases such as Britannica Elementary, Britannica Animal Kingdom, and Gale in Context Biography. Access to these is provided through the state library. She is also fortunate to have resources such as Scholastic Trueflix and Bookflix that her school pays for yearly. In addition to these digital resources, she has many print resources available to students for inquiry. These are all amazing resources, and she does an excellent job of showing students how to use a variety of resources and not just one type of resource.

              We also discussed how she includes collaboration while implementing these competencies. This year she has implemented the inquiry competencies while collaborating with 1^st grade teachers to have students complete research activities. She has also collaborated with 2^nd grade teachers while having students use inquiry to find out about animals before an upcoming field trip. She has worked in collaboration with 3^rd grade teachers to develop inquiry and problem solving in 3^rd grade with a library escape room. Mrs. Marshall has also helped implement inquiry with 5^th grade students working on a wax museum and 6^th grade teachers to work on a dystopian fiction unit and historical fiction units. Many of these collaborations occur via email due to scheduling restrictions since she is on a fixed schedule and a part of the related arts rotation for most grade levels.

              Mrs. Marshall states that one of her greatest challenges is getting teacher to realize that she can be a resource and getting administration to see that she is more than a related arts teacher who just provides a planning period. She finds that it is very difficult to find an adequate amount of time with students to build inquiry when you only see students for 45 minutes once a week or 45 minutes once every other week. I can definitely see how this is a major challenge. Unfortunately, I think it is the reality for most elementary librarians. Mrs. Marshall does a great job with creative solutions to tackle this issue and is an excellent resource for me as I begin my library career.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

 

Interview with a Librarian- Part 2: Explore

This is the second post in a series of blog posts on the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards and shared foundations. In each post I will be reflecting on an interview with a school librarian about one of the shared foundations. Although all six AASL standards and shared foundations are essential to the success of a library, I have chosen four to focus on in my blog series.

Curate- Make meaning for oneself and others by collecting, organizing, and sharing resources of personal relevance.

Explore- Discover and innovate in a growth mindset developed through experience and reflection.

Inquire- Build new knowledge by inquiring, thinking critically, identifying problems, and developing strategies for solving problems

Include- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.

For my second post I interviewed Jamie Gaines about the shared foundation of Explore. Mrs. Gaines is the librarian at Townville Elementary where I currently teach. Jamie has been in education for 37 years and been a librarian for 21 of those 35 years. Jamie currently has a fixed schedule in the library and says that time constraints are one of the biggest challenges to meet all the standards and skills that should be taught in the library. Due to the fact that she is in the related arts rotation for some grade levels it is difficult to make herself and the library available.  Mrs. Gaines strives for the collection to contain a wide variety of genres and levels that will appeal to all readers. She believes that having variety encourages students to find something that appeals to them.  She also uses current events to lead discussions and debates within the library. The library also contains a variety of STEAM related makers space activities that students can interact with. Mrs. Gaines uses resources such as print books, MyON daily news, Scholastic News, hands on materials and problem solving activities to encourage students’ curiosity and exploration of topics. Often these are topics that are suggested by classroom teachers that connect with the current curriculum standards.

              I have been observing Jamie run her library for many years.  I have seen her maximize her fixed schedule and make the most of the time that she has with students. She incorporates as many of the Explore competencies as she can with the schedule she has, and has provided me with a great skeleton of how I can effectively operate a fixed schedule elementary library. Exploration is important for developing student minds. It is essential that they have a variety experiences and experience learning through a variety of ways: print books, digital books, magazines, hands on exploration and makers space activities. One important factor will be working with classroom teachers to coordinate activities that support the classroom curriculum to further students’ learning. 

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

Interview with a Librarian- Part 1: Curate

 

    This is the first post in a series of blog posts on the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards and shared foundations. In each post I will be reflecting on an interview with a school librarian about one of the shared foundations. Although all six AASL standards and shared foundations are essential to the success of a library, I have chosen four to focus on in my blog series.

Curate- Make meaning for oneself and others by collecting, organizing, and sharing resources of personal relevance.

Explore- Discover and innovate in a growth mindset developed through experience and reflection.

Inquire- Build new knowledge by inquiring, thinking critically, identifying problems, and developing strategies for solving problems

Include- Demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community.

For my first post I interviewed Tara Jenness about the shared foundation of Curate. Tara is the librarian at Riverside Middle School in Pendleton, SC where I did my primary internship. Tara has been a librarian for over 10 years and has experience at the elementary and middle school level. We first talked about examples of how she uses the competencies under Curate in her library and the resources in her library that she uses. Tara works hard in her school to teach students how to search for information using library catalogs, online databases, print materials, and search engines. The primary resource that she uses in the library with her students is SC Discus. Mrs. Jenness also provides instruction on evaluating the credibility and reliability of sources through lessons with different ELA classrooms. I believe these will be important activities especially with the older students I teach such as fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Student often take anything they see on the internet as the truth. They do not consider bias and reliability when they are conducting research. In my opinion, this is an excellent way of showing students a variety of choices to use when gathering information and curating assignments.

When I asked about using collaboration to promote the foundation of Curate, Mrs. Jenness discussed how she works with classroom teachers when she is implementing these lessons. Teachers will work with her prior to beginning an assignment or project that will require research. Mrs. Jenness is then able to schedule times for those classes to come to the library for a lesson on searching effectively, using available resources, and credibility and reliability of resources. She also schedules in times for these classes to come in to work on their research when she can be available to assist and help students with finding reliable sources as well as organizing the information they are gathering. This will be more challenging in and elementary school with a fixed schedule rather than a flexible schedule. My library may not be available at the times that teachers need to bring their classes to the library for instruction so I may have to be more creative. I could possibly create some videos on the topics of credibility and reliability, selecting resources, and citing information that teachers could show students at times that are convenient. Another option would be to take a few class periods at the beginning of the year before they do any research and teach lessons on these topics before they need them in their classrooms.

We ended our discussion by talking about the challenges that she faces when trying to implement these competencies. She says the biggest challenge she encounters is that student constantly just want to Google something rather than look through the reliable sources that she recommends to them. They don’t want to use the resources in SC Discus or in the print resources that she has in the library. I see this also at the elementary level and saw it in the middle school setting when I was completing my internship there. My conversation with Mrs. Jenness was insightful and provided me with some valuable information for the future. 

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd