Everyone is a teacher at some time, with someone,
somewhere. The three-year-old shows off
her prowess by teaching the baby how a book’s pages should be turned: carefully
and one-at-a-time. The sixteen-year-old
shows the new hire how to pile up three scoops on a waffle cone. Looking at the National School Library
Standards, both the learners and the teachers feature prominently. In fact, both the learner and the teacher are
so important, they each have their own complete set of standards. Not to be content with only the players, when
the America Association of School Librarians published their standards in 2018,
they even included standards for the locale where all this teaching and
learning can take place: the library! They each even appear in the logo for the
standards!
If you are coming to the AASL standards as a content area teacher, it may be a daunting and confusing task to find… “the standards.” There are many links to downloads and pdfs and infographics you can use. There is a book you can buy. However, it was not until I found a pdf called “How Do I Read the Standards?” that I began to see the three-fold standards… unfold. And there is A LOT that unfolds.
Here is a single page that breaks it down cleanly. (<-- click to open)
Go ahead and click; I’ll be here when you return.
And here is how I had to map it out:
Now that you have digested that, here is a picture of how AASL puts all those concepts in one place.
By looking along the top edge, you can see the
Foundations, the biggest of the big picture.
The left edge narrows the focus to the Domains. There are different
competencies ALL relating to “Inquire” as the overarching Foundation. Seems like a lot. It gets bigger.
Maryland Public Schools has a pdf that shows all three SETS of standards. Remember there is one for learners, one for school librarians, and one for libraries!
Hmmm... the bottom of my computer screen couldn't hold the whole thing.
All this to say: Wow. This is a daunting amount of information
to digest and implement.
In contrast, the standards posted by the International
Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) are clean and clear. They also have multiple sets of
standards to include students, educators, leaders, coaches, and even computational
thinking. As a teacher librarian, I
focused on two sets: for learner and for educators.
The standards for educators outline roles: leader,
citizen, analyst, etc. Each role has
three or four “actions” which serve as the standards. One example is “model for colleagues the identification,
exploration, evaluation, curation, and adoption of new digital resources and
tools for learning” (ISTE, 2020)
The ISTE composed their standards for students to inspire children. The roles on this standards list have aspiration titles like “innovative designer” and “global collaborator.” I can see a student being excited about these roles, unlike the compact grid presented by the AASL standards for learners.
To place the cherry on top of this ISTE
sundae, each learner standard comes with a short video showing these “digital
citizens” and “knowledge constructors” excited about using technology in
classrooms and their daily lives.
AASL
Standards Framework for Learners.
(2018). Retrieved September 1, 2020,
from https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180206-AASL-framework-for-learners-2.pdf
How
Do I Read the Standards?
(2018). Retrieved September 1, 2020, from https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL_ReadingtheStandards_OnePager_2017.pdf
ISTE
Standard for educators. (2018). Retrieved August 31, 2020, from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators
ISTE
Standard for students.
(2020). Retrieved August 31, 2020 from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students
Thanks for all the helpful links.
ReplyDeleteYou offer such great insight on both sets of standards through your lens of looking at the different roles such as educator and students. I cannot agree with you more that I the information is in “fine print” in every sense of the word. I spent two days with a magnifying glass reading the printed version of both sets of standards side-by-side. I felt like Inspector Gadget! I had to get different color highlighters to differentiate to denote similarities and differences with the same standards and in comparing both sets. I thought it was an big ordeal, but the best stab at it was to look at a certain aspect as you have done. I felt too that the AASL Standards had a lot of information there, but don’t you think the standards should be comprehensive? The AASL Standards also include specific elements. How do you think this compares to the ISTE Standards, which has very limited elements? I agree that the ISTE Standards are easier to read (well there is not much there in some places and nothing in a lot of places). Plus, the ISTE Standards are repeated in some places. The descriptive words to describe the learners are invigorating. Will the students read these standards, or will the school librarian/teacher read and interpret them for implementation?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blog I had to revisit the ISTE website to view as you kindly stated it, "The cherry on top of this ISTE sundae". I looked under the student standards and clicked on many of the videos. Upon my initial view of the site I only read the standards. The videos are put together very well and are “the cherry on the top”, especially because students gravitate to visual learning with technology. The videos demonstrate to students and teachers the empowering effects implementing these standards can play in education. For example, Empowered Learner 1b: demonstrated how teachers can empower the learner by offering options of a path, project selection or group options. By allowing students to select which is the best fit for them it elevates a student’s intrinsic motivation and interest in the lesson. There are many valuable components to the ISTE standards benefiting both the learner and the instructor.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I appreciated your explanation of how to read the AASL standards. I admit I was initially confused about how the shared foundations and domains connected to one another. Your description was helpful along with the images your incorporated for the frameworks of the learner, librarian, and libraries. I think it is hard for any organization to have all the perfect answers and guidelines that meet the needs of all schools and all students, so I found your best practices concept of encouraging implementation of both AASL and ISTE standards to be refreshing and yet a little overwhelming to myself as an aspiring school librarian. I have so much learning to do!
Kelly Moran
I agree that the "best practices" is to incorporate both sets of standards in the lessons of the library. Both sets of standards emphasize cooperation with others to create innovative products that can be shared locally or globally. All jobs need people to work together on a common goal and to then communicate what they have developed with others in order to promote their product. These are skills that will be used in the work environment. I believe my job as a librarian is to prepare the students for their next place as a student and then eventually as part of the work force in our communities. The standards are preparing them for these different parts of their lives.
ReplyDelete