Years
of Experience: 17 years
Interview
Reflection:
Mrs. Jana Davis is now the librarian at Wright Elementary
School in Belton, South Carolina. She
was formerly the librarian at Ware Shoals Primary School, where I now serve as
the librarian. She has been helpful
during my journey beginning my MLIS at USC and transitioning into my position
as our school library media specialist.
I reached out to her to schedule an interview and she was again a
wonderful resource.
Mrs. Davis and I focused on the shared foundation,
Inquire, for our interview. I gave Mrs.
Davis time to explore the National School Library Standards and then we
discussed inquiry and how she implements this into her school library setting
with her students.
Ways Mrs. Davis implements inquiry in her library are through
research projects, inquiry stations, and mini lessons. She shared a recent research project with me
during our interview. Mrs. Davis’
students completed a mini research project on dinosaurs. She shared that elementary students have always
been fascinated by dinosaurs and she could tell through circulation statistics,
but she recently found a class who craved more information regarding
dinosaurs. She coupled the research with
Who Would Win Books, also popular in her library. Students chose two dinosaurs to research and
compare. Based on their research, they
predicted who would win and then they presented their findings to the
class. She shared that this research
sparked great discussions and was a hit with her students. She also shared that mini lessons are a great
way to implement inquiry in the library.
She stated that many elementary students struggle to formulate good
quality questions. She uses Google’s
Mystery Animal, a game, as an introduction to help students understand how to
formulate research questions that extend beyond simple yes/no questions and raved
of her students’ engagement with this technique.
Mrs. Davis uses books from her school’s library collection,
SC Discus, subscription databases, and websites like Wonderopolis and Epic to
foster inquiry in her library and she often collaborates with her colleagues to
help implement these competencies. She
mentioned that one of her goals this year is to build inquiry stations with her
second grade teachers. The stations are
related to the science and social studies topics the students will study this
year, as well as, personal interests the students have. They have created inquiry stations for
weather, U.S. symbols, bats, and spiders so far. She also provides books and digital collections
through Destiny and Epic. The students
visit the inquiry stations during science, social studies, or ELA blocks during
their schedule. Students are allowed
time to explore the overall topic and then narrow their focus to help form questions
for research. Some of the products
students have created from using the inquiry stations have been posters, Google
slide presentations, and green screen video projects.
I asked Mrs. Davis to identify and explain challenges
she faces when she tries to implement inquiry in her lessons and
collaborations, as well as, to explain the difficulties Covid-19 has
created. Mrs. Davis’ response was that
time is the biggest challenge, but always has been regarding inquiry. Effective inquiry requires time and there is
never enough of it, according to Mrs. Davis.
Due to Covid-19, her school has shortened its school day by 45 minutes
which has cut her library class times to 30 minutes each day. She also mentioned that management is
difficult when students have so many interests because it is hard for them to
focus on one topic or hone in on a topic.
Lastly, it is difficult to share as many resources this year because
sharing resources during Covid-19 is highly discouraged.
It was a pleasure to work with Mrs. Davis again to
conduct an interview. She was so helpful
as always and gave great ideas that I would like to implement into my school
library! Overall, Mrs. Davis mentioned
that implementing inquiry among elementary students works well because these
students are naturally curious and ask lots of questions. The shared foundation, Inquire, easily builds
upon their natural curiosity.
References:
American Association of School
Librarians. (2018). National School Library Standards for Learners, School
Librarians, and School Libraries. American Library Association.
Davis, J. (2020, November). [Personal interview].
No comments:
Post a Comment