Dr. L. Russell Interview # 2

 Dr. Russell and I discussed inquiry and its competencies. Dr. Russell is the librarian for Academic Magnet high school. Academic Magnet is one of the top school in the nation. It is imperative that she has the ability to help students ask questions and continue researching. My first question was what her thoughts were on competencies of the inquire standards and how does she incorporate them. Here is the dialogue from our conversation. 

I incorporate AASL’s inquire standards regularly throughout the school year to support the AP research standards for the different grade levels and to support of our school’s AP Capstone program. The Capstone project is a two-year course of study that begins in students’ junior year and ends with AP Research in their senior year. Every year I've been at this school, I’ve taught and co-taught lessons with our 9th grade teachers in Honors English and AP Human Geography to introduce students to the Inquiry Framework and present them with an overview of the databases.  I teach them how to use search strategies like Boolean operators for advanced searches, and the basics for the databases.

Multiple examples provided by Dr. L. Russell:

• In 9th grade English classes, the classroom teacher, and I planned a lesson that introduced students to the databases that would be most useful in helping students explore the colonial underpinnings of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. 
• With 9th grade AP Human Geography classes, I assisted students in discerning which databases they could use to conduct research on a topic of interest related to Ancient Rome and how they can find and access primary documents from the Library of Congress. 
• Assisted the students in understanding how to utilize the databases most effectively and efficiently using advanced keyword searches. 
• Introduced students to graphic organizers they can and should use to track their work throughout the inquiry process. 
• Helping them ask worthy questions for inquiry is an embedded process skill throughout all those lessons as students use their questions
• Work with 12th grade students one on one in support of their AP research thesis topics and assist them in using the databases to find relevant, credible sources. 
• In the week before spring break, I assisted three students in finding research related to their topics. 

She tries to really hone in on teaching them how to ask research questions to gather more information in the AP seminar classes and presents them with a more in-depth exploration of the databases, specifically JSTOR, Ebsco’s Academic Search Premier, and Gale’s Academic Onefile - to answer research questions they’ve created, which are of interest to them. AP Seminar is the class in which they formally learn AP’s inquiry model and the variety of lenses one can use to explore a topic or questions of interest. Though she teaches the classes about databases, she has learned this is always a focus because students tend to struggle with know which database to use. 

Final Thoughts

The inquiry foundations can be challenging and requires preplanning, but all in all, I think it really pays off specifically because the bulk of our students receive 3s,  4s, and 5s on their AP research exams and their theses and oral defenses are quite strong.;