Mrs.

Andrea Young is the media specialist for Honea Path Middle School in
Honea Path, South Carolina. I visited with Mrs. Young and discussed the Collaborate
Shared Foundation of the American Association of School Library (AASL) standards.
The table below provides a brief overview of the competencies found under each
domain for the “Collaborate” Shared Foundation.
Domain School Librarian Domains and
Competencies
A. Think 1. Challenging learners to work with
others to broaden and deepen
understandings.
2. Scaffolding enactment of learning-
group roles to enable the
development of new
understandings within a group.
3. Organizing learner groups for
decision making and problem
solving.
B. Create 1. Modeling the use of a variety of
communication tools and
resources.
2. Cultivating networks that allow
learners to build on their own prior
knowledge and create new
knowledge.
C. Share 1. Demonstrating how to solicit and
respond to feedback from others.
2. Advocating and modeling respect
for diverse perspectives to guide
the inquiry process.
D. Grow 1. Stimulating learners to actively
contribute to group discussions.
2. Creating a learning environment in
which learners understand that
learning is a social responsibility.
(AASL 2018)

While interviewing Mrs. Young, I found that she has been a media specialist for
thirteen years. Before becoming a media specialist, she was a classroom teacher. Mrs.
Young is implementing these competencies in Honea Path Middle’s library program.
She demonstrates how to solicit and respond to feedback from others by allowing
students to use Google forms and Google surveys in a variety of projects. She also
creates a learning environment in which learners understand that learning is a social
responsibility. For this competency, she teaches a digital citizenship lesson. This year,
while teaching the lesson, she had an educator from the State Attorney General’s Office
come to the library as a guest speaker. His speaking topic was Internet safety. Mrs.
Young also models the use of a variety of communication tools and resources by
allowing students to use Chromebooks, iPads, and a variety of digital tools for projects
and presentations. Mrs. Young’s school, Honea Path Middle is currently 1:1 with their
Chromebooks. In the library, Mrs. Young uses a variety of resources in her program in
order to implement these competencies. She uses Google, an interactive Promethean
Board, DISCUS, and books added to the collection based upon the requests of teachers
and students.
The competencies that Mrs. Young is implementing include constant
collaboration with classroom teachers. One collaborative lesson in particular Mrs.
Young discussed was a lesson on DISCUS. While collaborating with teachers, she uses
DISCUS to show students how to properly find research materials. One of the school’s
honor classes is currently writing a paper on a controversial social topic. The teacher
brought the class into the library for a collaborative lesson on DISCUS research. Mrs.
Young also helps with digital projects using the green screen.
Throughout implementing these competencies, Mrs. Young mentioned many
challenges that she must face. One of the biggest challenges was teachers giving up
their classroom instruction time to collaborate and bring their classes to the library.
Often times, Mrs. Young runs into issues because teachers would rather her come to
their classroom, however this cannot happen because the library must still remain open
for students to check out books. Overall, Mrs. Young is doing a wonderful job
collaborating with classroom teachers. In one of my visits, I was actually able to observe
her collaborate with an English teacher to teach a research lesson on DISCUS. It was a
great experience!