1.1 Learner Development

Candidates demonstrate the ways learners grow within and across cognitive, psychomotor, affective, and developmental domains. Candidates engage learners’ interests to think, create, share and grow as they design and implement instruction that integrates the National School Library Standards.

In my first semester of graduate school, I look LLT 500: Foundations of Information Science. The course was designed to explore historical approaches to knowledge gathering, look into the most commonly utilized organization systems in libraries, and investigate all of the places where an information professional may be employed. For the final of the course, I wrote a paper about a shared foundation of library science titled "Explore: How Libraries and Librarians Can Broaden Horizons and Change Lives". 

When I was looking through the shared values of libraries, explore immediately resonated with me as something that helped to inspire me to become a librarian. I have always been fascinated by reading and exploring the different worlds that await me in books. Reading has always been a hobby that I have loved because it has given me an outlet for my imagination. Libraries have helped me to explore my own interests as well as find any information my heart desires. Therefore, explore as a value had a giant impact on my love for reading as well as my love for the profession. As I have grown in my own love for books, I hope to help my future students also experience this growth of love for exploration. 

When completing the assignment, I remember thinking very deeply about how the different parts of the library fit into exploration along with the other standards of library science. The learner, the library, and the librarian all fit into exploration and look at exploration in different ways. The learner comes into the library wanting to explore, the library has the materials to facilitate exploration, and the librarian is a vehicle through which the learner can find the resources to explore. All parts of the library help to facilitate exploration and as a librarian, I want to make sure I help to cultivate that. I also spoke in the paper about the idea of curiosity as a vehicle for library use as well as how exploration in the library can lead to sharing and growth. The library is a conduit for imagination and exploration, and librarians are the stewards of them as well. 

While I have a love for exploring fiction, this paper has helped me to realize that libraries can help many people explore many different ideas. Students could explore worlds of fiction, facts of nonfiction, the wonders of technology, and whatever else they could find in between the shelves. In my journey to becoming a school librarian, I want to continue to explore, and help facilitate a love of exploration in those that I interact with.