AASL Standards Interview- Ayanna Mayes

On thursday November 12, 2020, I interviewed Ms. Ayanna Mayes, a school librarian at Columbia High School. She didn't find it robbery to accept this interview invitation at the last minute. The interview was very informative and I believe I found another library friend. I have listed Ms. Mayes shared foundation, domain, and competencies below: AASL Standards Shared Foundation III: Collaborate Domain- A. Think Competencies: School Librarians facilitate collaborative opportunities by: Challenging learners to work with others to broaden and deepen understanding Organizing learner groups for decision making and problem solving Some ways that Ms. Mayes provided a great example of how she is currently utilizing the comptencies in her library program. She explain that she was working closely with an English II teacher on a project-based lesson in which students will examine voter demographics from the past two presidential elections and identify groups with low voter turnout. Students will work independently to interview three people in the group they identify and develop a plan to increase voter participation amongst the demographic group. Although each individual student will produce a plan, the project will include opportunities for peer review and small group discussion. She is also looking for local organizations that include voter registration and participation as part of their mission to review the students’ plans. This was a wonderful example of student and teacher collaboration. Some of the resources that Ms. Mayes and the teachers are using includes readings from the pacing guide and resources they were found through SC Discus and other sources to deepen students’ understanding of the issue. In addition to English and AASL standards, Ms. Mayes planned to tackle social justice standards that were found through Teaching Tolerance. The teacher helped select the texts in the pacing guide for the “Seeking Justice Lessons” and they are using research to facilitate the discussion on how voting is connected to the issues that affect our daily lives, such as health care, immigration policy, student loan policy and more. Other resources that are being used is zoom for video chat to meet with students, parents, and teachers. She also used STREAM on microsoft outlook to upload lessons for students to refer to when writing research and collaborating with other students for projects. Ms. Mayes expressed that the above competencies are addressed through collaboration with teachers on research projects. All project-based learning that follows that Buck Institute for Education (BIE) standards involves collaboration for problem-solving, and she utilizes those specific standards when planning PBL with teachers. However, she also collaborates with other departments, such as school counseling. She is currently working on a grant-funded project with one of the school’s partners, Communities in Schools. Together, they have identified students to participate in a small group that will focus on the Overcoming Obstacles curriculum. Her responsibilty for this project will be assisting with journaling and further reading related to the curriculum. Some challenges that Ms. Mayes face pertaining to the competencies includes some times people are a little resistant to collaboration; working with another person is always more difficult than working alone. She explained further that high school teachers are often as individualistic as their students, so collaborating with teachers can be challenging. When working on projects with students, she suggested taking time them how to work together, however teachers often do not want to sacrifice the time to do that. Lastly, she explained that the greatest challenge is convincing everyone involved that it is worth the time. She is determined to make this process easier for herself, students and for the teachers. Other comments that were made from Ms. Mayes on the AASL standards were that this is probably the most challenging and most rewarding standard to address in the school library program. There is a clear connection between the AASL standards, BIE project-based learning standards and NYLC service-learning standards. This is the area where our work is the most relevant and the most critical.I certainly agree with Ms. Mayes. This has yet been another great interview with a wonderful librarian. I am especially happy that I was able to work with a librarian that was on a high school level. The experience was simply amazing.