The new AASL National Standards are here!

January 04, 2018 10:47 | Anonymous member (Administrator)


In November, I had the amazing opportunity to fly to Phoenix, Arizona to attend the American Association of School Libraries annual conference and Affiliate Assembly.  The Affiliate Assembly was a ”train the trainer” event that was held so that two representatives from each state could have an immersive experience in unpacking the newly released standards for School Librarians, Library Learners, and School Library Programs.  It was truly an experience of “drinking out of a firehose” for 1.5 days.  The group was very fortunate to have the expertise of the librarians who worked in all areas of the new standards, from the creation of the task force to the structure of the strategic plan, to the drafting and evaluation of the standards, to the creation of the implementation plan.  

We were broken into small groups and worked on different pieces of the Shared Foundations and analyzed how we currently apply them in our schools or classrooms as well as how we could advance and expand our implementation. There was a lot of moving around and members of the task force who were not leading the activity acted as participants in order to assist us “newbies” in making the connections between the abstract to the concrete.  I left with a very strong understanding of the Inquire foundation, since that was the one I worked on with my group.  The other foundations are Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage.  The acronym ICE, ICE Baby was used in order to assist us in remembering the six Shared Foundations.   

As board members of NHSLMA, Justine Thain and I will be working as a team in order to train our membership on these standards.  We are currently in year one of AASL’s three-year implementation plan, which will provide us with more resources to share with you.  I have included some links below for your reference.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. Watch for announcements about upcoming virtual and in person trainings.

/alewis@nottingham.k12.nh.us.

Implementation Plan

Learner Standards

Printable Resources







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