Year 4.

My Year 4 journey

This year, I have felt more connected to Skyline and more confident in how I can contribute. I understand our students and the college community better, and that understanding is shaping my teaching and lesson planning. I am also getting better at navigating the college’s processes. I still have plenty to learn, but I have a clearer sense of where to start, whom to ask, and how to move an idea forward.

This year, I have become more deliberate about giving students opportunities to experience the research process while I am there to support them. Working closely with instructors helps me connect each lesson to what students are reading, discussing, and preparing to do. I create worksheets for the class so students can work alongside me, try the steps themselves, and keep a reference they can use later.

In ENGL C1001, I demonstrated SIFT to evaluate a website, then recognised that I needed to make more room for students to participate. In the second lesson, students searched a database using ideas drawn from their readings, and I checked their progress and invited them to share their findings. I want them to experience the satisfaction of finding something useful and understanding how they got there. Those manageable successes are part of how I aim to build their confidence to continue independently. The same intention guides my business instruction: connect the activity to the assignment, make the process approachable, and give students time to practise.

Experiential learning also connects my classroom teaching with my exhibition and VR work. I believe in edutainment because curiosity and play can help people enter a conversation they might otherwise find unfamiliar. An interactive activity gives them something to try, question, and discuss. My responsibility is to make sure that experience has a clear learning purpose.

These experiences bring my teaching and librarianship together. I help people gain access to information and technology, then support them in exploring what they can do with it and how to judge it thoughtfully. Asking useful questions, searching carefully, and tracing information to its source feel increasingly relevant in an infodemic. I still move between being an AI “warrior” and a “worrier,” interested in what these tools make possible and thoughtful about what we may overlook.

Two accomplishments stand out this year. The VR program has created opportunities to explore immersive, experiential learning, and a second year of President’s Innovation Fund support will allow us to obtain more headsets and continue developing that work. I also completed the SUSHI implementation in Alma in May 2026, following work that began in fall 2025. SUSHI, the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative, automates the collection of library usage data. I took the lead in establishing the district-level configuration, creating a foundation that Cañada College and College of San Mateo have since been able to use. It is work that happens behind the scenes, but it makes usage data more readily available and reduces manual collection.

My connections beyond the library have grown as well, through collaboration with the Chancellor’s Office AI Fellows, involvement in district teaching and learning activities, and service on the library platform program workgroup. These relationships give me opportunities to contribute, learn from colleagues, and bring different perspectives back to Skyline.

Year 4 has helped me bring my teaching, digital services, and professional learning closer together. I am becoming more intentional about creating opportunities for people to participate, reflect, and take their next step with greater independence. The following sections share the work and evidence behind that developing practice.