The AASL National Conference is the only national conference devoted solely to the needs of school librarians. In 2019, concurrent sessions focused on AASL's National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries, giving school librarians and other educator attendees an opportunity to dig deep into the guiding document of the profession. Click the icons below to discover sessions related to the corresponding Shared Foundation.
Primary Sources as a Foundation for Inquiry-Based Learning
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Credits: None available.
Learn and apply strategies to place historic maps, cartoons, letters, photographs, and more from the Library of Congress at the center of inquiry-based learning. Use these free primary sources to stimulate observations, inferences, and questions, deepening critical thinking skills and content knowledge across disciplines. Access free tools and primary sources from the Library of Congress website and explore strategies for using primary sources to collaborate with classroom teachers.
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Teaching Media Literacy in a Post-Truth World
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Credits: None available.
Studies show that once a person believes an untruth, it can be very hard to persuade that person otherwise. Meanwhile, social media algorithms and some methods of delivering fake news (e.g. memes, "deepfakes") pose special challenges. In such a climate where news literacy is declining, and news consumers are reluctant to consider information contrary to their held beliefs, how is a librarian to counter the rise of media illiteracy? This session attempts to tackle these questions and more.
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Truth, Justice, and the School Library Way: Integrating the AASL & Social Justice Standards for the Win!
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Credits: None available.
This session will focus on integrating the AASL School Library Standards and the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards in the school library. Participants will interact with activities designed to integrate in K-12 libraries and share best practices for working with both sets of standards. Participants will walk away with full lesson plans to utilize in the school library.
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Unique Approaches to Library Makerspaces: A Group of Author-Librarians Share their Insights
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Credits: None available.
Makerspaces are known as locations for experimentation, collaboration, and innovation. They can also be known as learning centers for service, accessibility, and equality. Visit with a makerspace author panel including Diana Rendina, Gina Seymour, and Heather Moorefield-Lang. We’ll discuss challenge-based learning, maker service projects and other exciting developments in the field of school library makerspaces and how they can engage your learners.
Learning Objectives:Credits: None available.
Teaching reading doesn’t just happen with in the classroom or through a reading coach. Librarians are more than the keeper of books, they are a literacy leader. This session will provide examples of building collaborative relationships with teachers and literacy coaches to support direct instruction in the classroom, how to incorporate independent reading in both print and digital resources, and being essential in building a literacy culture in your school.
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Adapted Library: Ideas and Strategies for Students on the Autism Spectrum and Non-Categorical Disabilities
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Credits: None available.
One in every 68 children in the United States has been diagnosed with autism. From non-verbal or low functioning to higher functioning or extreme sensory needs, every one of these children still has the need for literacy and the library. Adapted Library serves as a place for children to come and work on social skills, literacy skills, and sensory participation as well. Adapted library takes the best things are already doing and makes sure to include everyone in our school buildings.
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All The Things
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Credits: None available.
Are you inspired by all the awesome things you see other school librarians doing? So are we. This past year, we decided to try them. All of them: a library services menu, our first custom breakout, digital curation, a 40-Book Challenge, Currently Reading signs, a makerspace-stocked vending machine, augmented reality knowledge products, the list goes on…. Discuss our takeaways from a year of trying all the things, and leave equipped with your own services menu.
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Collaborate to Invigorate Your Library Program
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Credits: None available.
Thinking you’d like to invigorate your library program with a collaborative, project-based learning initiative that is grounded in the new AASL Standards, but you’re not sure where to begin? Wondering where you will find the time and resources to make it all happen? This session will provide details of how the teachers at Henry Barnard Laboratory School collaborate to create project-based learning initiatives that incorporate the AASL standards. Get inspired, make a plan, start collaborating!
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Fight the Fake! Teaching Information Literacy through Media Analysis
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Credits: None available.
From InfoWars to OccupyDemocrats, biased media bombard us with fake news. Learn how to fight the fake, and leave with resources for your students.
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If You Build It, They Will Come: Constructing a 21st-Century School Library Program from the Ground Up
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Credits: None available.
What do you get when you add 1 new high school, 1 new school librarian, 6 library spaces, 4 Career Academies, 1 middle school program, and a 1:1 device initiative? The answer to many might be chaos and burn-out. But not for Frederick Douglass High School. Join me to discuss the challenges & celebrations of building and "visioning" a library from scratch, with invaluable support from the new National School Library Standards and Fayette County Public Schools Instructional leadership.
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