Hi everyone,
My name is Kelly Grove and I am the new GIS intern for the fall 2016 semester. A few quick facts about me are that I am a Grad Student with UA in the Library and Information Science Department and this is my finial semester (Wohooo!). Over the course of the semester I have the chance to work with the GIS team to learn more about library instruction and I have the chance to work on some research projects to learn more about how librarians are doing different types of studies.
This last Friday I had the chance to do my first co-teaching instruction session for and EN 101 class searching for film reviews. Going into the classroom I was not nervous, because my part was a short demonstration on how the students can find reviews to use in their papers. However, during the first class when it came to be my turn nerves popped up. I started to talk too fast and made some mistakes in what I was typing into the search bars. The mistakes I made in typing then affected my the results I got back which threw off what I had planned on talking about with the students. I tried to hide the fact that I was a bit flustered. I am not sure if the students noticed but the instructor for the class and Sara both noticed. Before the second class came in Sara told me to make sure I breath while presenting. This will slow me down and give me time to make sure everything is okay before doing a search. It worked! My second demonstration went much better and the searches worked perfectly. I feel like the second set of students were better able to understand what I was trying to show them.
Remembering that nerves can hit at any moment and that mistakes are just part of live demonstrations are important. For my first experience of participating in a library instruction session I made the rookie mistakes and now feel better prepared for the next time I step into the classroom. I know that these won’t be my last mistakes, but at least I get to make new ones and get to learn some new lessons.