The Common Core raises the bar for states struggling to decide what should be taught or tested. As low-performing schools strive to improve instruction, the blueprint has been defined. The Common Core defines the curriculum in enough detail and specifies ways to teach that content creatively and innovatively, to produce graduates who are problem…

Which potato chip is healthiest: (1) regular; (2) baked; or (3) sour cream and onion? This problem requires critical and numerical skills in order to read and compare nutrition labels. The question has applications in mathematics and science classrooms but also in teachers' lounges and school cafeterias. It is a problem that addresses the five…

"AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner." New standards for library media programs! What does it mean to practicing library media specialists? Does this mean they must abandon all the strategies, activities, and lessons they have developed based upon "Information Power's Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning" and create all new…

School librarians occupy a space rich in resources and numeracy. They are thus positioned to offer resources and standards that promote inquiry, drawing conclusions, real world connections, and aesthetic enjoyment. Part of their task with teachers is to create those connections with curriculum and students. School librarians' collections are aswim…

Some of the author's most valuable experiences as a library media specialist (LMS) were not in a school library. Rather, they were on the streets of Chicago, in community gardens, and on the rooftops of buildings in Humboldt Park, where she was hired by the University of Illinois Community Informatics Initiative as a graduate assistant and LMS in…