Wyant SLIS Blog

           After spending so much time working with Tabitha Hattabaugh at Gregg Middle School, I knew I needed to discuss "Engage" with her. Tabitha has been a school librarian for 19 years in both elementary and middle schools.           Tabitha works on making sure students and teachers have digital literacy. She collaborates with teachers to insure students know how to take notes and uses citations in her presentations to model this for students.      While Tabitha has many ideas to share with her students and teachers it's often hard to get teachers in to the library and teach these skills with fidelity.           We also discussed how important digital literacy skills are for students, but that they aren't typically taught them before arriving in middle school. I witness how little students know and have begun introducing bits and pieces of her lessons with my students to prepar...

         Melissa (Missy) Young graduated from the program at USC last fall and is in her third year as the librarian at Sand Hill Elementary. She has been so helpful and encouraging throughout the beginning of my school library career.           Missy makes a point to share fiction and nonfiction texts in her lessons with students. She provides many opportunities for students to connect and demonstrate their learning including written responses, STEAM-related activities, collaborative, and hands-on activities. Students can also earn additional time to create in her Makerspace sessions. She shares many of these lessons and activities with the elementary librarians in our district. I am working to incorporate them in my own library as I work to build up my materials.           She also believes in the importance of showing students kid-friendly sites to access for information and uses these for various le...

         After observing Amber Stein at Windsor Hill Arts Infused Elementary, I knew discussing "Curate" would be her strong point. Amber has been a school librarian for 9 years, but was a public librarian for many years prior.                     One of the lessons she taught when I was with her was showing fifth grade students how to gather authoritative information for their research projects. It is one of her main focuses this year. The students have access to many databases through our district including Britanica School Elementary, CultureGrams, Explora for Elementary School, and Gale in Context. She provides instruction on how to access and use these databases. She is passionate about students knowing where to look for information and determining the validity of the information.           One of the challenges with this lesson is that she never sees the final product...

          Malinda Schurlknight is the librarian at William Reeves Elementary. When I first accepted the position at my school, many people suggested I reach out to her to get insight into the program at USC. Malinda's been a school librarian for 4 years. I've discussed lessons she's done for the self-contained special education classrooms, so Include seemed like a perfect competency to discuss with her.           Malinda strives to provide books featuring characters with different gender identities, family structures, disabilities, and perspectives. She uses reports from Titlewave to assess her collection periodically. She showcases different family traditions, customs, cultures, and languages on the school's morning show throughout the year. This provides students opportunities to learn about each other and also connect with each other.           One of the things I found interesting from our disc...