ISCI 794: Blog Assignment Interview - Explore with Emily Baccomo

 

This GIF was created by Carson McCallum using Canva with information from "The National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries."

The Explore Shared Foundation and Insight with Emily Baccomo from Lugoff-Elgin Middle School

Reflections on the Shared Foundation

Reading the Explore Shared Foundation and trying to reflect on how I would implement the domains and competencies made me realize the importance of having a diverse collection and toolbox of ideas for serving school students and staff. The Explore shared foundation guides librarian involvement in student learning in both interactions and provision of library resources. The Think domain specifically emphasized the ideas about having multiple formats of materials available and different methods for encouraging questioning and reasons to read, write, or make. Matthew Joesph (2019) wrote an article for Teach Better about strategies for building critical thinking skills with students that I think could apply to this shared foundation:

• Ask follow-up questions to encourage further thinking on solutions,
  
• Begin lessons with a probing question,
• Encourage student creativity and provide opportunities for both collaboration and independence,
• Use analogies,
  
• Ask open-ended questions,
  
• Allow reflection time,
  
• Use real-life problems, and
  
• Allow for thinking practice.

The Create domain made me reflect on potential learning processes, like research models, to display and share with students and staff. I think an important aspect of this idea with another competency from the Grow domain is to scaffold this process - introduce it in a way that students grow from a step each year. The Grow domain also supports the need for librarians to be involved in working with students - it is not just sharing resources with teachers who may or may not ask for them but supporting the use of those materials and strategies with students. The librarian can work one-on-one, in groups, or with whole classes to help students identify areas of growth, improve skills, and discover solutions to unanswered questions - or even to inspire students to come up with unasked questions. This means, as included in the Grow competency, that students need a positive, communicative space to make and create based on original or course ideas and to revisit construction of solutions.

The Interview

What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program?

One of the best or most common ways Mrs. Baccomo gets to work with this shared foundation is through reaching out to teachers and doing collaborative unit. She made the comment that this is harder to do at the middle and high school level because many teachers are in a fixed schedule and have lessons they have done for years. Her recommendation was to start small - make friends and then, by working with them, broaden your working circle. The library also has a rotation of maker spaces for students to come do within the library. Her experience with maker spaces and their selection comes from her background as a math and science teacher. Without that background experience, she says it is useful to know what teachers are doing in their classrooms and how to incorporate those topics into library activities.

What are some of the resources in your library program that you are using to implement these competencies?

The maker spaces are a good resource for this shared foundation. Mrs. Baccomo finds inspiration for them from the Future Ready Librarians Facebook page and, as an editor for the South Carolina Association of School Librarians (SCASL) message page, from SCASL. An example of a activity relevant to what student were studying in class was setting up a Battle Ship game. Students were studying coordinate grids and that related to the grid set up of Battle Ship - students were engaging with what they had learned through play. Mrs. Baccomo has also used money from Scholastic book fairs to purchase Rubik's cubes to use with the Art teacher to work on mosaics. She has also used conditional formatting with Google Sheets to create a virtual makerspace for students.

Do any of the competencies that you are implementing include collaboration with classroom teachers? If so, please provide examples.

Mrs. Baccomo frequently collaborates with teachers. She said building the relationship for collaboration can be slow going and to start small. An example is that there was an Algebra I teacher who was reluctant to work with her and only recently came around to bringing his class to the library for a collaborative lesson. Relationship building was essentially, according to Mrs. Baccomo, based on communicating what she could and wanted to do and then sharing that experience.

What are some of the challenges that you face when trying to implement these competencies?

Money - being mindful of a budget - and getting collaboration with staff started are two challenges Mrs. Baccomo identified. She stated that with new district leadership the stance on Donors Choose and Amazon wish lists may change. She also goes to Goodwill for games and maker space pieces. She says a helpful thing that you can do is communicate with your community and get donations.

Are there any other comments that you would like to make regarding the Shared Foundation / Competencies and Domains that we have discussed today?

An additional program that was discussed was the reading program. Mrs. Baccomo commented that middle school is where there starts to be a decline in reading for pleasure so getting students engaged is a major goal. She does this by emphasizing reading for fun and promoting books students will identify with. The school also uses Beanstack and she updates a leaderboard based on student reading minute. She incorporate small milestones with prizes along the course of the year and offers monthly, quarterly, and semester based prizes. Students are not limited to a specific type of reading material as long as they read approximately 15 minutes a day.

References

AASL. (2018). National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Librarians. ALA Editions.

Joseph, M. (2019). "Strategies to Increase Critical Thinking Skills in Students" Teach Better, https://teachbetter.com/blog/strategies-to-increase-critical-thinking-skills-in-students/.