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 5th grades working on biographies and 4th 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
1st grade teachers to have students complete research activities. She
has also collaborated with 2nd grade teachers while having students
use inquiry to find out about animals before an upcoming field trip. She has
worked in collaboration with 3rd grade teachers to develop inquiry
and problem solving in 3rd grade with a library escape room. Mrs.
Marshall has also helped implement inquiry with 5th grade students
working on a wax museum and 6th 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
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