Standards in the School Library World (Post #1)

 The dreaded declaration sends a murmur of discontent through the staff meeting. The standards are changing… again. Having worked in multiple states as an educator, this is a common reaction to changing standards. Don’t get me wrong, a change of standards can be a good thing especially if they’re outdated and the change benefits students. However, the school library world reacted favorably when the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) National School Library Standards were created. School libraries have both the AASL Standards and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards to consider for educating our students.

Something that I found interesting was that the ISTE has standards for students, educators, education leaders and coaches. The full list of standards for each group is available for download if you sign up for free here for an ISTE Standards Guide. In the ISTE Standards Guide, all of the standards for each group are listed. To make matters less confusing, all of the sections are related across the groups. For instance, if the coaches and education leaders are meeting the standards, then it will help the educators and students meet theirs. I’ve included an example each role’s first standard section for better understanding.

Role	Students	Educators	Education Leaders	Coaches
Standard	1.1. Empowered Learner  Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences (p. 3)	2.1 Empowered Professional Learner Teachers continually improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning.  (p. 5)	3.1. Equity and Citizenship Advocate Leaders use technology to increase equity, inclusion, and digital citizenship practices. (p.7)	4.1. Change Agent Coaches inspire educators and leaders to use technology to create equitable and ongoing access to high-quality learning. (p. 9)

(ISTE, 2018)

Now, the AASL standards focus more on the learner and the processes behind the skills to master. The standards are streamlined with six Shared Foundations which include the same domains:

Shared Foundations:	Inquire	Include	Collaborate	Curate	Explore	Engage
Domains	Think
	Create
	Share
	Grow

School librarians and the school library are also included in the AASL standards, but there are no standards for education leaders or coaches to help support the school librarian. There is an evaluation checklist that can be used to evaluate how school libraries are addressing each domain for both building-level and district-level support which may help. Although AASL doesn’t have standards for all of the same levels as found in ISTE, the Shared Foundations and Domains target similar skills for students/learners and educators.

If you’re trying to compare the standards and see how they can work together, your best friend will be the AASL and ISTE Standards Crosswalk which shows how the AASL standards align with the ISTE standards for students and educators. The standards actually are easier to incorporate together than some may realize. Taking a look at the Shared Foundation of Explore and the Think Domain, it is easy to see how the learner competencies related to developing and satisfying personal curiosity would relate to the two ISTE standards. If students are exploring different materials to answer their own personal curiosity and communicate with others in different ways using technology then both the ISTE and the AASL standards are being addressed.

National School Library Standards	ISTE Standards
Learners develop and satisfy personal curiosity by: 1. Reading widely and deeply in multiple formats and write and create for a variety of purposes. 2. Reflecting and questioning assumptions and possible misconceptions. 3. Engaging in inquiry-based processes for personal growth.	3. ISTE for Students: Knowledge Constructor 3d. Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.  6. ISTE for Students: Creative Communicator 6c. Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.

 One challenge facing school librarians is that other educators, administration or district personal may not fully realize the breadth of the standards that we are responsible for. Kathryn Roots Lewis (2019) shares how her school district “brought the standards alive for our administrators and related the standards to what educators do day in and day out” (p. 58). Their school district’s interactive workshop allowed the administration and school librarians to work together through skills related to each of the Shared Foundations.

Not everyone has time or the manpower to pull off a workshop, so there are other things that you can try.  One strategy is relating the work in the library to the school’s mission statement to help build connections (Lewis, p. 59). Lewis (2019) also recommends sharing the learner pamphlet with administrators (p. 59). The pamphlet and a plethora of resources are available on the AASL website: https://standards.aasl.org/materials/. Although Lewis’ article is geared toward reaching administration, it might help build relationships with other educators if you share some of the standards that the students are working on. By doing so, teachers may see that you’re also working to help support the classroom standards.

References:

American Association of School Librarians. (2022). Standards Crosswalks. Retrieved on June 21, 2022 from http://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180828-aasl-standards-crosswalk-iste.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education. (2018). ISTE Standards. Retrieved June 20, 2022 from https://www.iste.org/iste-standards

Lewis, K. R. (2019, May/June). Making it matter: National school library standards for school administrators!. Knowledge Quest, 47(5), 56-63.