ISCI 794 Interview with Caroline Danysh Regarding Inquiry

            Caroline Danysh is the Media Specialist at Waccamaw Elementary School which is only 4k-third grades. She started her career as a first grade teacher and after 10 years of teaching stayed home to raise her children. Once her children got older, she decided to go back to work in the school library, getting her MLIS through USC while working her current job.

Having such young students in her school, I asked her which competency would be best to discuss. At first, we talked about EXPLORE but she did not feel that fits her exact goals. Her number one priority with this age group is teaching them to read and therefore, she states that her lessons all involve literacy. She stated that in the spring she does venture into more inquiry-based learning, so we decided to focus on INQUIRY.

            I asked her to describe some of the lessons that really exemplify the inquiry standard and she gave the following examples for her library. She collaborates with the third-grade teachers when they start their unit on biographies. She teaches information literacy and then supports the students as they research and write about their chosen famous person. She shows them both print and digital resources and teaches them different presentation tools they can use to share their work.

            She also does a graphic novel unit with second grade where they create their own comic strips using a website called Pixton. She then has a robotics lesson that she teaches to first-third grades, and it really emphasizes problem solving but having them learn to program a robot to do specific tasks while working with a partner. And finally at the end of the year, she shares makerspace stations with the students, and she states that they love it! She uses this opportunity to let them be creative and build and solve problems while working as a team.

            When asked about challenges she faces in her library program regarding these standards, she states time is the biggest hurdle. She is on a fixed schedule and is part of the specials rotation each day. She also has a lunch duty each day too. So, to find time to do all she wants to do with the students is her biggest challenge, but she states that she loves her job in every way!