AASL offers online learning opportunities to meet the needs of busy school library professional. This collection contains archives of AASL webinars, recorded concurrent sessions from AASL national conferences, and national institute presentations. Online professional development available through eCOLLAB is designed to make school librarians leaders in their school community.
Using the Standards to Foster a Culture of Deep Learning
Preview Available
School librarians guide learners as they develop the habits of lifelong learning. In this webinar, Kate Lechtenberg and Jeanie Phillips, members of the AASL Standards implementation task force, consider opportunities for deep learning through the AASL Standards Framework for Learners. Kate and Jeanie explore the possibilities for engaging learners of all ages in authentic, meaningful work that sparks curiosity and builds real world skills.
Learning Goals
Making Global Connections at Your School Library
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Ready to make global connections at your library? Not sure how to get started? In our ready for the future libraries, it has never been easier to allow students to escape our traditional four walls and experience a new level of learning. Join Michelle Cooper as she shares how to implement a library program that incorporates global collaboration with educators and students around the world.
Learning Outcomes
Making Community Connections
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Moderated by Shannon McClintock Miller, this webinar examines how teacher librarians can cultivate partnerships within the school and local community to promote engagement and a lifelong learning process.
Sue Kowalski shares her approach on maximizing awareness and impact of the school library program through empowering student leadership, aligning library outreach with school and district goals, and focusing consistently on everyday advocacy both through and in the library.
Gina Seymour explains how she espouses a platform of empowering students to become compassionate leaders at school, within their community, and beyond through the implementation of makerspace activities and instructional collaborations.
Speaker(s):
Author Ideas on Integrating Fiction into the Middle-Grade and Middle-School Curriculum
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Three authors of novels for middle-grade/middle school students discuss the value of including fiction in teaching various curriculum areas – and not just designating novels as “extra-credit!” The authors will reveal the depth of their research for historical fiction (Rebecca Behrens, "The Last Grand Adventure"); for science/nature study (Jo Hackl, "Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe"); and about political and social change (Sara Holbrook, "Enemy").
Eileen Makoff, a school librarian with a New York City Public School: The Magnet School for Environmental Studies and Community Wellness, will lead the discussion and present solid reasoning for the role of the school librarian to foster inclusion of fiction in curriculum teaching and learning. Librarians, bringing their broad expertise with children’s literature, their understanding of children’s reading preferences, and their knowledge of curriculum demands can partner with teachers to enrich and enliven study of history, science, social studies and more by integrating fiction into the center of learning, not keeping it on the sidelines The program will include a list of recommended novels that tie to curriculum.
Learning Goals
Making & Amplifying Educator Connections through the AASL Standards
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Why are connections with educators so essential to school librarians? Participants delve into the National School Library Standards and available resources to make authentic and purposeful connections with educators. Participants create action plans to help them plan, record, and amplify the results of their connections.
Learning Outcomes
Making & Assessing Learner Connections through the AASL Standards
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Elizabeth Burns, member of the AASL Standards editorial board, leads a guided tour into the AASL Standards Framework for Learners. This highly informative session investigates the application of the framework in library lessons. She discusses designing and enhancing learner experiences using the Shared Foundations and learner Competencies in the National School Library Standards. Participants are also introduced to student assessment opportunities provided through the AASL Standards.
Learning Outcomes
Your State Association Supporting AASL Standards for Your Local Context
Preview Available
How are AASL’s Affiliate state organizations supporting school librarians as they implement the National School Library Standards? The standards require school librarians to reflect on local conditions, practice, and student learning. While the document requires a great deal of self-reflection and a growth mindset, no one has to do this alone. What are state affiliates already doing or planning to do to help their state’s school librarians make a difference for learners using the new AASL Standards? Presenters feature several affiliates’ plans and on-going activities.
Learning Outcomes
AASL Standards and Advocacy Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Jelly
Preview Available
Presenters Megan Cusick and Judy Deichman highlight the National School Library Standards as a platform for strategic advocacy in your learning communities. This webinar provides concrete steps and actions to advocate for your learners and school library utilizing resources from ALA’s Office for Library Advocacy, the AASL Standards Portal, and the National School Library Standards publication.
Speaker(s):
Connecting Competencies: Learner, School Librarian and School Library
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Participants will be introduced to the language of competencies as part of the structure of the National School Library Standards (NSLS). The intentional shift from outcomes to competencies in the standards is designed to better align the AASL framework with other education standards and provide increased opportunities for learners, school librarians, and school libraries to thrive in a more personalized learning environment.
Learning Outcomes
Learning Objective: Learner Competencies
Participants will examine the role of competencies within the six Shared Foundations as a continuum on which school librarians and school libraries empower learners to master competencies in the domains of Think, Create, Share, and Grow.
Learning Objective: School Librarian Competencies
Participants will explore how the school librarian competencies parallel those of the learner, and emphasize the integrated nature of a comprehensive learning environment.
Learning Objective: School Library Competencies
Participants will recognize the school library as an environment for learners and school librarians to develop competence and achieve mastery relating to educational content and tools.
Learning Objective: Assessment/Evaluation of Competencies
Participants will recognize the importance of the assessment and evaluations processes as described in the NSLS that measure progress toward competency for learners, school librarians, and the school library.
This webinar will empower participants add diverse titles to their collection through awards, lists, websites and social media. Additionally, participants will explore programming ideas and instructional activities for engaging diverse students and parents and ways of incorporating instructional technology. Participants will begin by reviewing a definition of diversity and the American Library Association’s Bill of rights. They will then delve into using keyword searches as a method of analyzing their collection for diversity. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their circulation and fines policies, hours of operation as a means of promoting diversity. They will be encouraged to consider how the Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress Subject Headings may or may not support diverse collections. Various web based applications such as Biblionasium, Bookopolis and Goodreads, to name a few, will be presented.
