Implementing AASL Foundation of Curate

Interview Date 11/8/21: Focus Curate

To explore AASL Shared Foundation Curate, I interviewed  Caitlin Cregan, Media Specialist at Andrew Jackson High School over Google Meet. Some examples of the ways in which she is using curate through her role as a librarian is how she creates collections in Destiny Discover for student use. Cregan enjoys seeking out resources for students and finds that creating themed collections of resources for students saves them time in the research process. Collections mostly include books but also contain articles, drive items, SC Discus links, and videos.  Most recently added topics expand across a  variety of subjects including  genres, sports, culinary, olympics, and athletes.  She also creates collections that align with specific topics being taught in a classroom such as scientific elements and civil rights. 

Cregan collaborates with teachers as far as talking with them about what is being taught in class and how she can support instruction with supplemental materials. She is open to curating collections of resources based upon content topics and student interests. Cregan prefers to collaborate with teachers ahead of time, find out what their needs are, and then curate digital collections of resources for student use. Often she will go into classrooms and share with students how to access collections within Destiny and the resources she has provided to align with particular classes/course content.  If she is not able to be in the classroom, she will push out her information via her website, Destiny, and ConnectEd. 

Beyond classroom assistance Cregan creates collections within Destiny to assist students with test prep for SAT testing. Some of the challenges she faces with students is that they do not have an interest in her collections.  She works with students and teachers to educate them on how she has curated items ahead of time for their projects to save them time and energy in searching sources as she has already located and vetted them.  Cregan also takes her collections created in Destiny and creates private documents with links and source information as a backup.