Learners INQUIRE

As we delve into the American Association of School Librarian's (AASL) standards, the biggest issue that librarians have is how do the standards fit into a real life library - what does it actually look like when the standards are incorporated into a program?

I spoke with four librarians to get an insider's perspective on incorporating the AASL standards into their library program, each focusing on one of the Shared Foundations in the Framework for Learners.

Jennifer Chesney is the school librarian at Powdersville High School, serving students grades 9-12. She and I discussed how the Inquire competencies fit into her library program.

Jennifer implements these competencies extensively in her library program and it is due mostly to the extensive collaboration she does with the high school ELA teachers. At this level, there are a lot of research projects; anytime possible, she allows students to choose their own research topic. Jennifer also runs lit circles in the ELA classes and she gives the students choice for which books they want to read from her pre-selected list of top circulating titles.

Some challenges to providing authentic experiences, a core piece of the Inquire foundation, include issues with resources, difficulties with collaborating with teachers, and challenges sharing with the public. Since the school does not have a lot of extra funding for databases like ERIC, students are not able to do research using databases like they would in college. They are limited to using Google and the Discus databases, a slightly less authentic research experience. Jennifer says that she stresses the research skills like using appropriate keywords and narrowing searches with filters.

There also is a challenge when it comes to collaborating with teachers. A lot of teachers, she says, are not really looking to work with you but instead are looking for you to teach for them. This kind of defeats the purpose of collaborating to integrate library into the content areas.

Jennifer said that one difficulty with this particular foundation is sharing with an authentic audience. There aren't a lot of opportunities to share with the public so students will sometimes share with each other; feedback isn't incorporated much into these presentations. She has shared on social media some of the work her students have completed but she did say that presents a challenge with comments from the public and appropriateness for posting on social media.

Jennifer had some great advice on keeping a library program that meets the needs of teachers and still teaches the standards. Here are some main take-aways from our conversation:

• collaborate, collaborate, collaborate!
• do the best you can with the resources you have
• let the teacher's content curriculum drive the content of your program