ISCI 794 Blog Assignment: Inquire (Post 1)

AASL National School Library Standards for School Librarians

Shared Foundation: Inquire

For the Shared Foundation Inquire, I spoke to a public school librarian in a Pre-K through 5th grade elementary school. In the Shared Foundation Inquire of the National School Library Standards, the school librarian's task is to help students become engaged in research tasks and foster their curiosity and interests to use in the inquiry process. In this Title 1 school, many students are reading below grade level. The librarian focused mostly on providing students with the basics of research skills. The third through fifth grade classes had lessons on dictionary skills, encyclopedia skills, and other general research skills.  Meeting students where they are in their research process is essential for this library program. After teaching lessons on how to use an encyclopedia, the librarian found that many students needed worksheets to scaffold their learning. Students the needed more support also worked on alphabetizing with word manipulatives. The librarian found that many students struggled with finding sources listed alphabetically, which hindered their ability to use dictionary or encyclopedia sources. A large part of using the standards in this program is adjusting the targets and assessments to be applicable to student need rather than matching a set of standards. 

In the Create Domain (I.B.2.), school librarians are tasked with "promot[ing] new knowledge generation by devising and implementing a plan to fill knowledge gaps" (American Association of School Librarians, 2018, p. 68). The librarian used the TRAILS assessment system to test students' informational skills. Using this assessment and standardized testing scores, the librarian starts teaching research skills with the 3rd grade classes to fill in the learning gaps. Students worked on writing and informational reading. The librarian tries to make connections between classroom content and research practices to help students comprehend and contextualize the research process. Along with research skills, the 4th grade class also focuses on digital literacy skills like being safe online and recognizing misinformation. In the 5th grade, students are reading research articles together to identify the different parts such as captions, heading, and citations.  

Since many students are below grade reading level, the librarian expressed how difficult it is to follow specific standard guidelines because she has to focus on getting students to the basic levels of reading comprehension. This limits how far she can take research lessons, which might not perfectly align with the standards. The librarian expressed how she uses the AASL standards as the goal rather than the practice. The standards show what skills to work towards even if students are not there yet. This is also reflected in how the library uses the Accelerated Reader system: the focus is on number of pages read instead of points earned from tests. 

One of the biggest hurdles to teaching these skills and implementing the AASL standards is time restraints. The librarian meets with each class for 45 minutes once a week. Maintaining skills previously taught and building on those skills can be a challenge when they are not reinforced every day in the classroom. This was a good example of how important collaboration is between the library and classroom. The librarian said she does not do much collaboration with classroom teachers, and it prevent a lot of students from being able to practice and maintain the library skills they are learning.

This interview showed me how different the AASL standards can look depending on the needs of the students and the school. The librarian implements the Inquire Shared Foundation by introducing students to research skills and scaffolds learning by making most activities collaborative between students and the librarian. This program meets students where they are and gives them the building blocks to reach the level of information literacy proposed in the standards. 

Reference:

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. American Library Association.