Session Title: Everything We Do is Pedagogy: Critical Pedagogy, the Framework, and Library Practice
Presenter: McGinniss
The presenter, Jeremy McGinniss, was so excited about what he was talking about in this session that it was palpable. He also had to be nervous because this was the biggest breakout space and the room was full. I had a number of take-aways from this session. He asked the question, “How does the library as a whole engage in pedagogy?” I loved this, because this led him into talking that pedagogy is present wherever knowledge is being produced. So often, I feel that we see things like Book-a-Librarian as a service and not as a teaching moment. This helped me get excited and think that even the little things are teaching. The next sound bite from this session that I gleaned was this: Students are “whole human beings in search of meaning.” The thing I like about this is that it takes into account that we are not talking to robots, we are dealing with people who are messy and each at their own level of understanding. It reinvigorated me to think about this and I vowed to myself that I would try to listen more at the reference desk. Something related that he said was that it was “difficult to engage in a culture of questions without people and relationships.” This is so true. We have to be positive and open and allow room for a culture of questions. McGinniss pointed out that all forms of learning are positive, iterative, and relational. He said that our student workers are seen as an authority when they are behind the desk. So often, McGinniss said, we think of them as assets to be managed and not people in a place of learning. This made me think a lot about our graduate student workers and the training and support that they receive--we train them to work at the desk, but we do not train them in teaching and pedagogy. McGinniss brought this point around to the Community of Practice idea from the McMichaels & Dimmit presentation, which was a great tie-in. He said that teaching is hard work, and if we forget that, we are in trouble. One of the funniest parts about this session was how the topic was related to the plenary speaker and how he glowingly talked about her presentation, whereas I found it difficult to keep up with. My feeling was that despite any nerves he might have been feeling, the content of this presentation would have been much more digestible as the plenary. I certainly found it uplifting and helpful in considering my own practice!
Monday, May 23, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
LOEX 2016: Rhetorical Theory matched with ACRL Framework
Title of Session: Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy
Presenters: Witek, Snyder Brossard, and Burkholder
This presentation was comparison of rhetorical theory and information literacy. The main point of the presentation was to compare the framework used by Writing Centers and English departments (Framework for Success in PostsecondaryWriting) and drawing comparisons between that and the ACRL Framework forInformation Literacy. The presenters did this by talking about three main areas where these frameworks intersect: scholarship as a conversation, research as inquiry, and searching as strategic exploration. They posit that moving away from a mastery of tools and focus on building on the students’ prior knowledge by situating our instruction in context. One of the things I really picked up on during the session was that “mystery is a source of inquiry” and the fact that we should focus on “less efficiency and more mystery” in academics. They suggest finding a way to invite students to approach research tools with an air of mystery or curiosity. Of course, when we only get them for 50 minutes, we have to be focused on efficiency, so this was perhaps just rosy thinking and not exactly correct thinking for most librarians. But I, for one, loved the idea of it. Lastly, they talked about making learning explicit to students, which I felt was something I could do more in my instruction. They talked about the flexible structures in the brain called schema and talked about how new information gets attached to what we already know. The presenter had a tinker toy structure that she had built and she compared the tinker toys to schemas. In the same vein of explicit instruction, they referred to a concept called BEAM, which stands for background, evidence, argument, or method. This concept challenges students to think about how information is being used. The same piece of information may be used as background information in one article, but may be used as an argument in an essay. Some instructors in the crowd said during the comment period that they teach BEAM with the information timeline.
A book recommended during this session was The Craft of Research by Booth et al (2009).
Another nice connection for this topic happened shortly after LOEX. At the NC-BIG Camp unconference at UNC-G, we ended up talking about this again during the breakout session on the ACRL Framework. Notes from that session can be found here.
Presenters: Witek, Snyder Brossard, and Burkholder
This presentation was comparison of rhetorical theory and information literacy. The main point of the presentation was to compare the framework used by Writing Centers and English departments (Framework for Success in PostsecondaryWriting) and drawing comparisons between that and the ACRL Framework forInformation Literacy. The presenters did this by talking about three main areas where these frameworks intersect: scholarship as a conversation, research as inquiry, and searching as strategic exploration. They posit that moving away from a mastery of tools and focus on building on the students’ prior knowledge by situating our instruction in context. One of the things I really picked up on during the session was that “mystery is a source of inquiry” and the fact that we should focus on “less efficiency and more mystery” in academics. They suggest finding a way to invite students to approach research tools with an air of mystery or curiosity. Of course, when we only get them for 50 minutes, we have to be focused on efficiency, so this was perhaps just rosy thinking and not exactly correct thinking for most librarians. But I, for one, loved the idea of it. Lastly, they talked about making learning explicit to students, which I felt was something I could do more in my instruction. They talked about the flexible structures in the brain called schema and talked about how new information gets attached to what we already know. The presenter had a tinker toy structure that she had built and she compared the tinker toys to schemas. In the same vein of explicit instruction, they referred to a concept called BEAM, which stands for background, evidence, argument, or method. This concept challenges students to think about how information is being used. The same piece of information may be used as background information in one article, but may be used as an argument in an essay. Some instructors in the crowd said during the comment period that they teach BEAM with the information timeline.
A book recommended during this session was The Craft of Research by Booth et al (2009).
Another nice connection for this topic happened shortly after LOEX. At the NC-BIG Camp unconference at UNC-G, we ended up talking about this again during the breakout session on the ACRL Framework. Notes from that session can be found here.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
LOEX 2016: Living Learning Communities
Session Title: Breaking Good: Becoming Integrated into Student Learning Communities
Presenters: Santamaria and Pashkova-Balkenhol
If I had to rate these sessions, this one was the second most important one that I attended. The librarians from Millersville University were engaging and their ideas for outreach to living and learning communities were sound. Michele Santamaria was a trained Anthropologist before becoming a librarian. She actually did research on Quechua speakers in the Andes. She talked about 4 considerations outsiders need to break into a group: timing, local context, endorsement, and relationship building. The joke here was that despite her training, she did not think to apply these considerations to groups of freshmen living in these student learning communities on their campus. She definitely got some laughs. Her co-presenter was Tatiana Pashkova-Balkenhol. They mainly talked about breaking in with their Millersville Scholars group (first generation college students) and the international students. One great tip was to get in with the students when the group is just forming their bonds, because you will be seen as an insider if you are part of the group early on. They tried a number of events related to research. One was called “Treat Yourself” and was around Halloween. This event was not very well-attended, but they tried having snacks and doing research consultations. Around the same time, they also met the person coordinating the Millersville Scholars because they were in the library setting up for an event. This was their way of getting in with the group--they helped the director move furniture. The next thing they planned was an “exclusive” event where they had golden tickets and made themselves available 3 nights in a row from 6-9 PM. They had peer mentors come from the writing center and they also planned the event around a big deadline for a common assignment. This was also lightly attended, but the idea was still sound and they planned it at the right time. They also did a chat version of the event. They chalked the lower attendance up to the fact that the students felt uncomfortable with them as outsiders and that as first generation college students, they may be nervous about asking for help. When talking about the international students, they said that it helped that both of them are considered to be international in some way--Michele is Latina and Tatiana is from Russia. During the session talking about international students, they mainly talked about a few of the students that they had connected with more deeply. One of the good ideas from this session is that during their library tour, they send students around with a video camera and have them make a “library story”. Although I like our iPad scavenger hunt for our institution, this was a neat idea. The presenters said that even though their events were not always a success, it was great to get the exposure and that they feel that students may have felt more comfortable coming later, even if they did not come to the event. A big takeaway here was that it is one thing to be introduced, and another thing completely to be endorsed. They now have a seat at the table when it comes to the Millersville Scholars because of the events that they put on, and they encouraged people to become ‘part of the system’ when it comes to certain university groups. I got a lot of ideas from this session and I plan to include outreach to Living Learning Communities at ECU in our RIS department goals.
They recommended a book called For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood by Emdin.
Presenters: Santamaria and Pashkova-Balkenhol
If I had to rate these sessions, this one was the second most important one that I attended. The librarians from Millersville University were engaging and their ideas for outreach to living and learning communities were sound. Michele Santamaria was a trained Anthropologist before becoming a librarian. She actually did research on Quechua speakers in the Andes. She talked about 4 considerations outsiders need to break into a group: timing, local context, endorsement, and relationship building. The joke here was that despite her training, she did not think to apply these considerations to groups of freshmen living in these student learning communities on their campus. She definitely got some laughs. Her co-presenter was Tatiana Pashkova-Balkenhol. They mainly talked about breaking in with their Millersville Scholars group (first generation college students) and the international students. One great tip was to get in with the students when the group is just forming their bonds, because you will be seen as an insider if you are part of the group early on. They tried a number of events related to research. One was called “Treat Yourself” and was around Halloween. This event was not very well-attended, but they tried having snacks and doing research consultations. Around the same time, they also met the person coordinating the Millersville Scholars because they were in the library setting up for an event. This was their way of getting in with the group--they helped the director move furniture. The next thing they planned was an “exclusive” event where they had golden tickets and made themselves available 3 nights in a row from 6-9 PM. They had peer mentors come from the writing center and they also planned the event around a big deadline for a common assignment. This was also lightly attended, but the idea was still sound and they planned it at the right time. They also did a chat version of the event. They chalked the lower attendance up to the fact that the students felt uncomfortable with them as outsiders and that as first generation college students, they may be nervous about asking for help. When talking about the international students, they said that it helped that both of them are considered to be international in some way--Michele is Latina and Tatiana is from Russia. During the session talking about international students, they mainly talked about a few of the students that they had connected with more deeply. One of the good ideas from this session is that during their library tour, they send students around with a video camera and have them make a “library story”. Although I like our iPad scavenger hunt for our institution, this was a neat idea. The presenters said that even though their events were not always a success, it was great to get the exposure and that they feel that students may have felt more comfortable coming later, even if they did not come to the event. A big takeaway here was that it is one thing to be introduced, and another thing completely to be endorsed. They now have a seat at the table when it comes to the Millersville Scholars because of the events that they put on, and they encouraged people to become ‘part of the system’ when it comes to certain university groups. I got a lot of ideas from this session and I plan to include outreach to Living Learning Communities at ECU in our RIS department goals.
They recommended a book called For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood by Emdin.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
LOEX 2016: Teaching How to Teach and Communities of Practice
I just got back from LOEX in Pittsburgh. The following blog posts are from my conference report that I write for my colleagues, but I feel like they sum up some of the best sessions that I attended at the conference. I will roll out a few in the coming days. Enjoy!
Session Title: Becoming Legit: Reimagining Instructor Support Through Communities of Practice
Presenters: McMichaels and Dimmit
If there was one session that made LOEX for me, I would say that this was it. This presentation was done by someone known to me from NC-LITe, Jonathan McMichaels (see my Design Thinking blog post). He works at UNC-Chapel Hill. The presentation was the culmination of a graduate student’s master’s thesis. They described a high-demand one-shot instructional model much like the one we have at ECU. Unlike at ECU, McMichaels is tasked to train a large cadre of graduate students (from SILS) how to do library instruction in a short amount of time and then get them instructing undergrads. His prior way of training them was a page directly out of my playbook: people are given a whole lot of information at once, then they do shadowing, then they plan their first class and co-teach it, and then they are on their own to conduct future instruction. They found that they were limiting the new teacher’s potential by sending them in an isolated pursuit of a “teaching voice.” Quantity was valued over quality and this stagnated instructor development. He wanted to make good instruction and building on instructional design concepts achievable for these novices. Instead of this model, with the help of Dimmit, they have created a Community of Practice, which asks many of the students to rely on each other. They created a rubric that shows the different stages of instructor development and then asks the students to work through the rubric at their own pace. This has resulted in the student teachers becoming more fully engaged in the process and informal collaboration between the initiates was incredibly helpful. It also took the onus off of him to be the sole contact for the new instructors. This idea of a Community of Practice was incredibly intriguing to me, having just trained two new librarians in instruction. I also felt that this was a way to improve instruction in the RIS department for instructors of all levels. I plan to include this in our departmental goals for this year.
They have an Omeka site that I hope to look at, as well. McMichaels recommended the book Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. He also mentioned books about apprenticeships by Lave and Wenger.
Session Title: Becoming Legit: Reimagining Instructor Support Through Communities of Practice
Presenters: McMichaels and Dimmit
If there was one session that made LOEX for me, I would say that this was it. This presentation was done by someone known to me from NC-LITe, Jonathan McMichaels (see my Design Thinking blog post). He works at UNC-Chapel Hill. The presentation was the culmination of a graduate student’s master’s thesis. They described a high-demand one-shot instructional model much like the one we have at ECU. Unlike at ECU, McMichaels is tasked to train a large cadre of graduate students (from SILS) how to do library instruction in a short amount of time and then get them instructing undergrads. His prior way of training them was a page directly out of my playbook: people are given a whole lot of information at once, then they do shadowing, then they plan their first class and co-teach it, and then they are on their own to conduct future instruction. They found that they were limiting the new teacher’s potential by sending them in an isolated pursuit of a “teaching voice.” Quantity was valued over quality and this stagnated instructor development. He wanted to make good instruction and building on instructional design concepts achievable for these novices. Instead of this model, with the help of Dimmit, they have created a Community of Practice, which asks many of the students to rely on each other. They created a rubric that shows the different stages of instructor development and then asks the students to work through the rubric at their own pace. This has resulted in the student teachers becoming more fully engaged in the process and informal collaboration between the initiates was incredibly helpful. It also took the onus off of him to be the sole contact for the new instructors. This idea of a Community of Practice was incredibly intriguing to me, having just trained two new librarians in instruction. I also felt that this was a way to improve instruction in the RIS department for instructors of all levels. I plan to include this in our departmental goals for this year.
They have an Omeka site that I hope to look at, as well. McMichaels recommended the book Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. He also mentioned books about apprenticeships by Lave and Wenger.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)