How School Librarians Use Academic Standards to Connect with Teachers

The Common Core and other academic standards, while not universally loved, do provide an opportunity for media specialists to promote their expertise to teachers, as Belle Nelson of Bloomington Jefferson High School and Sara Swenson of Edina High School explained. Their session, called “Just the Spark You Needed: A Standards Showcase,” highlighted activities at a number of metro-area schools that help students to achieve aspects of the common core academic standards. The session focused on English Language Arts common core standards, a number of which relate to research and information literacy. Here are some standards that metro-area media specialists have built successful learning experiences around, accompanied by “sparks” to help others start thinking about how they might do the same. 9.4.2.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text…

• Students create video “book trailers”
• Students use iPad app called “Subtext” for online book discussions, which encourages more robust interactions than in-class discussion
• Librarians curate articles from around the web with “Flipboard,” and have students read those stories and submit responses to questions about them via Google Forms.

9.4.10.10 a. Self-select texts for personal enjoyment, interest, and academic tasks.

• Individual reader’s advisory
• Highlight new titles in the media center
• Promote the library book request form for potential purchase
• Provide book talks comparing and contrasting titles
• Share video book trailers

11.5.7.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats … to address a question or solve a problem.

• Use Libguides to help organize multiple sources around a specific assignment
• Create subject pages relevant to student projects using Google Sites

9.7.6.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products…

• Assemble content for an ethnography project on student-created Google Sites

9.9.8.8 As an individual or in collaboration, create a multimedia work, a remix of original work and the work of others, or a piece of digital communication for a specific purpose …

• Students create video parodies of books
• Students create personal comic book memoirs that speak to a social issue using software Comic Life

  Wonderful sparks indeed. Nelson and Swenson ended with a round-up of their top five sites to support student learning:

• Vlogbrothers YouTube Channel
• PicMonkey photo editor
• Socrative student response system
• GoodReads book discovery site
• Quizlet online flash cards