Engage

          On April 9^th, 2019, I met with Melissa Broadway, the librarian at Swansea High School, to discuss the AASL National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries Shared Foundations. Mrs. Broadway chose to discuss the Shared Foundation VI., Engage.  As with the interviews I conducted with Ms. Scaglione, Mrs. Morrison, and Mrs. Donovan, I asked Mrs. Broadway the questions outlined in our instructions from SLIS 794. The Competencies addressed by Mrs. Broadway were based on the following statements:

A.   Think - School librarians promote ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information.

B.   Create - School librarians act as a resource for using valid information and reasoned conclusions to make ethical decisions in the creation of knowledge.

C.   Share - School librarians promote the responsible, ethical, and legal sharing of new information with a global community.

D.  Grow - School librarians support learners’ engagement with information to extend personal learning.

         When asked what some of the ways were that she was implementing the Competencies for Engage, Mrs. Broadway spoke about how he teaches students to research and then cite sources when they write papers.  She talked about how some of the English teachers bring students to her library and how she shows students how to document information that they have gathered.  She said that even as the students have been in school for years, they still do not totally “get” paraphrasing and quoting sources and that she has to talk a lot about plagiarism.  She also said that she teaches students about peer reviewed sources and that students need to be reminded about choosing sources that are valid and relevant.

         The resources that Mrs. Broadway said she uses to teach her students to use information ethically were mostly from Discus and from sources that were suggested by the English teachers that she works with.  One example Mrs. Broadway gave where she got to collaborate with an English teacher occurred when English 2 students were asked to write papers about The Crucible.   She said she actually showed them a bibliography that she created with the exact MLA citations and then went through each step of how she created it.  The English teacher also added information to the lesson on using the citation machine BibMe, and showed students how a plagiarism scan can be done with research papers. 

         Mrs. Broadway stated a number of times throughout our interview that she really does not get to do a great deal of teaching and collaborating with teachers about writing and research, or about sharing new information because she has so many other duties.  She also said that she was new to being a high school librarian and that her background was with much younger students.

         When I asked if there were any other comments that she would like to make concerning the AASL Competencies and in particular the Shared Foundation Engage, she said that she was still learning.  She further explained that her library and the school in general was a bit out of sorts because of the construction and remodeling that was going on. Mrs. Broadway was very humble in her comments and said that the physical obstacles of the school and her administrative duties mostly overwhelmed her.  I believe she is considerably more adept at her job than she thinks.  I saw her interact with students and faculty members in a very professional manner and I believe that even though she feels like she is unable to focus on the AASL standards, per se, she does a fine job helping students engage ethically with information.