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Interview with Karen Williamson

 

Interview with Karen Williamson

Interview date: April 8, 2024

Mrs. Karen Williamson is the librarian at Pickens High School. I focused our conversation on Shared Foundation III: Collaborate. She often works with classroom teachers to plan activities that allow students to collaborate with each other to complete a task or project. She works closely with teachers to monitor and interact with cooperative groups to facilitate respectful and effective discussion within those groups. She often guides discussion by asking a question that refocuses groups that are lost or off task. She creates opportunities for diverse perspectives within the assignment.

Mrs. Williamson works well with the teachers at Pickens High, and she has worked with teachers on a wide variety of projects, and as a result, she can tell anyone some of the projects particular teachers use. This allows her to build upon previous years’ experience and think of ways to build in collaboration. She communicates with teachers, and this shows in her preparation. She understands how to scaffold instruction to meet the needs of students.

She does admit it is still a struggle to get students to communicate within groups because of the tendency of students to form clicks or groups. Some students simply refuse to work with some students, and sometimes she struggles to keep students from Googling information and working on their own.

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