CURATE
After completing my internship at Wando High School with Cindy Philbeck, I felt that she was the perfect librarian to interview about the AASL Framework competency, CURATE. I was able to witness how she and the rest of the library staff works to collect, organize, and share resources for academic reasons, but also for personal discovery and interest. Through this interview and my personal experiences within the Wando Library, I was able to see how important collaboration and having the time to collaborate is essential to reach and engage students.
In the Wando Library, Ms. Philbeck and staff work directly with teachers and students to curate resources for research papers and presentations, whether for individual or group work. In reflecting on my own internship experiences, we were able to work together to curate resources within MackinVia to teach a lesson on how to begin to locate resources. Ms. Philbeck shared that she also works with students to teach them how to curate their own resources, which is a great way to demonstrate differentiation for students. As I reflect on this, it makes me realize that while curating resources, we must also engage students in the legal and ethical use of the items they curate. It is hard to think of one competency in isolation, there is always going to be overlap.
Curating resources and teaching digital citizenship was an area we focused on during my internship, but was also an area I had addressed in my own library. In reviewing my notes from the interview, Ms. Philbeck stated that she most often directs students to begin their searches through Gale and SC Discus that are found within our district's portal in MackinVia. She has found that students seem to prefer to being with Gale Academic OneFile, where students can access millions of periodicals and scholarly articles. This knowledge shows that students have already been EXPLORING resources and cultivated their own knowledge of where and how to locate sources. Ms. Philbeck has made this ability for students to independently explore sources through the curated resources on the Wando website and Canvas course. She stated that MackinVia has so much to offer that it can be overwhelming for students, so this allows for sources to be grouped with four to five "best" resources and makes locating the sources easily accessible. On reflecting on her statements, it is clear that creating collections within our print and digital collections is essential for student success, as well as being able to provide teachers with needed resources to support student success.
Not only does Ms. Philbeck focus on curating resources, but curating the library print collection. Having hands-on curation collection experiences during my internship, including adding and weeding, I saw first hand how she used circulation and age impact her curation decisions, as well as student interests. These experiences guided me to go back to my own library and print out a TitleWise Analysis to assess my collection by age and circulation. Also, in the future, I hope to add surveys for teachers and students to be able to give input into what they would like to see within the library.
While speaking with Ms. Philbeck, I was able to relate to her challenges, even being in an elementary setting. She express that students seem to want to take the easy way when curating and locating sources. They want to skim to gather information rather than taking the time to seek diverse perspectives or evaluating their sources. This has had me rethink how to wean students into curating their own resource sources. Is it ever too early? It is important for students to have exposure and experience with locating their own sources, so instructing students on how to cite their sources will be easier. Curation practices require thinking ahead for teachers and students. As a teacher how will be help them curate, in a Pearltree, within MackinVia, or on a Google Doc? Building skills will have its benefits as students learn their own way to organize sources for easier retrieval because it becomes more important as they move through the grades and beyond.
Curation has moved from print to a digital tool practice that students must acquire in before they move into careers and college. As librarians, we must support students (and teachers) along the road to developing curation skills. One of our key goals, as teacher librarians, is to curate inclusive collections that facilitate information sharing while also preparing students to be middle school, high school, college and career ready in alignment with SC Education and AASL Standards.
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