AASL Chapter of the Year Application: Professional Development Offerings

Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion subcommittee of the MASL Professional Development committee hosted a 3 week book study on Stamped: From the Beginning in early October.  We had a huge turn out for this event, with live Google Meet discussions happening 3 times throughout the book study.

Instagram Post for our book study.

Over the past two years, April Wathen, past president has run a book study for Maryland continuing education credit on the  National School Library Standards book.  Librarians from across the state have taken the course for recertification credits. 

This organic professional learning community developed from the need to share, talk to others, and crowd source best practices at the start of the pandemic.  With Maryland in lock down in late March and early April, MASL leaders recognized the need to reach out to members.  Started by April Wathen, Talk About it Tuesday went from a weekly event in the spring to a monthly event over the summer and through the fall.  Member generated conversation about topics that affect all of us took place online and in a safe environment. Topics included: hybrid learning, online librarianship, teaching virtually, ebooks, collection development, curbside checkout and much more.  Talk About it Tuesday is still taking place and is being hosted by different MASL members each month. 

Supervisor of Diversity and Equity, Sandy Walker, social studies teacher Devin Page, and school librarian Lauren Lynn hosted an hour long webinar on talking about race for MASL members in early August.  Over 35 MASL members attended this professional development offering. 

image: screen shot of participants at the end of the hour!

Joquetta Johnson hosted a hour long webinar on diversity and inclusion in September for our MASL members.  We had a great turn out for her presentation on thinking about how we can include everyone in the school library. 

We hosted our annual conference in October.  The conference co-chairs Lindsey Weaver and Kim Cowles transitioned to a virtual platform seamlessly. We had over 300 attendees and over 30 live and recorded sessions.  Sessions included a Lilead Leadership panel, sessions on diverse books, the Rainbow Library, collection development, doing a diversity audit and more.  Sessions are archived for a year. 

MASL hosted an Applied Digital Skills PD in December.

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