Standard 3

Information and Knowledge

Candidates model and promote ethical, equitable access to and use of physical, digital, and virtual collections of resources. Candidates demonstrate knowledge of a variety of information sources and services that support the needs of the diverse learning community. Candidates demonstrate the use of a variety of research strategies to generate knowledge to improve practice.

Reflection:

At the beginning of each semester, I teach Media Center Orientation to all of the Freshman English Language Arts. During this time, I give them an overview of Destiny Quest, our online catalog, the databases, and a tour of the collaboration spaces. I also show them where fiction books are located and where the nonfiction books are located.

In addition, I link our databases to my webpage and I have a link for research. I also create a Research Guide for each class. These research guides contain links to databases, tutorials on citing sources, and more. I also provide opportunities for teachers to sign up for my databases class. In this class, I walk them through the steps of how to locate the databases, the features and tools of each database, and the reliability.

I open the media center at 6:45 am which gives them time to come in and use our resources before class. I also stay open until 3pm and 4:40 pm on Wednesdays to further assist them. Furthermore, students can come during class time if they have a pass from their teacher. Also, during lunch students can come without a pass. When we close, I always tell the students that our ebooks and audiobooks are 24/7. Students can access our ebooks and audiobooks on the cellphones or tablets. I have increased our ebook collection to reflect the needs of the students. We currently have 598 digital ebooks.