Next week, we are going to do a different kind of activity. Since our instruction is winding down and spring break is approaching, I want you to try to recreate your favorite moment of the semester to share with us as a group. Sharing your experiences with your colleagues is an important element of reflection, and it learning what worked in your classroom helps to inspire and motivate your colleagues!

Here are your instructions:

1. Choose a moment during the semester when you feel things worked really well.
2. Write a short description of why you feel that was a successful teaching moment. Include how you prepped for this moment, and what your thought process was– did you attempt to use a specific pedagogy or teaching method?
3. Try to recreate the teaching moment for us during our 3/21 meeting. Pay attention to the details, and verbally annotate each step for us as you guide us through the process.
4. Directly after our meeting, post your information here on the blog, complete with the reactions that you received in our meeting.

Have fun!

Well, I did it again. Wrote a blog post, hit save draft, and then there was not even a puff of smoke left. Gone. Just vanished. No tracks, no nuttin.
What I said was some nice things about the folks I work with, including the Boss, who visited a class I was teaching. She said she had fun, which is a good thing, I hope. I also said something about the dedicated librarians I have observed (and learned from) as well as the engaged and involved English instructors. And I remember something about English being a relatively new language back when I was first a student, and Chaucer being all the rage at the time.
And then I moved on to the ACRL standards for library instruction (and management), saying that I was falling far short of that daunting list. Main thing is to keep trying to hit those marks, teach to your objectives (and to the best of your ability), and then there was something about a roomful of freshmen looking to you to assist them with their big gnarly mean scary paper as being a great grip on reality.
Oh, there was something about seeing new opportunities for collaboration and course integration being sought on a daily basis, as well as good communication up and down the library chain of command, both of which were emphasized in the ACRL framework. I wish I had listened to Sara Whitver, and always put up a draft in Word, as this piecemeal reassembly just does not cut it. Doggone.
Just trying to get it back, but it is not necessarily coming back.
Bottom line is, again, it is great to be working in a well-resourced environment with dedicated people who give a durn about their jobs. No slackers here. Something about dragging students into the deep rich waters of UA resources, and making sure they can swim before the class ends. Also something about customer service not being dead (alive and well, no doubt, with lesson plans being modified at the last minute when instructors modify their assignments at that same last minute). Just saying that it feels good to be learning in this environment, and that overall at GIS, the ACRL standards are in good hands. I will hope to feel better about my performance the next time I go over the standards (did I mention daunting list?), and I know some folks I can trust to guide me as I go. Thanks, all.

First, this article made me thankful to be working in a resource-rich environment, whereby every student has a computer.  Some folks say that working as a team with the work being broken up aids better learning for all, but I would prefer to learn the whole process in one piece, mainly by doing the whole process by myself.  Not that I do not like to share, but pizza is different from learning.  Just sayin.

California State at San Bernardino had some retention and graduation problems, and did something about it.  Good job.  Library skills were taught as a for-credit freshman seminar (in conjunction with other school and life skills), and outcomes were good.  Involving the students in talking, listening, reading, writing, reflecting activities is called active learning, and sounds like a good collaborative classroom to me.

Again and again, I come upon the ideas that one must begin from the beginning, and the effort at CSUSB did just that, ranging from library skills to computer us, time management, and attitude adjustments.  Right on!!  There is no reason to expect that students would come from a (relatively) highly-monitored high school environment to the freedom of a college campus and have all of the requisite skills in place.  Also, learning life skills (and library use) is not anything that one forgets upon graduation.  Win-win, i say.

Even though this article is 15 years old, i rather doubt that students would rate anything more valuable than computer skills today—so that is where my emphasis will remain.  Yes, get them involved via active learning, but the real work will continue to be building a student’s relationship with the information universe via their computer.  From this article, i can see the value of the worksheets that are being used with EN 102 students, and i will continue to work via this format.

It all boils down to the day and the student(s).  Some days will be better than others.  Some students will be better than others.  Every day, there is every reason to get the best from every student that they can give, that day, date, time.  Give me the perception, the energy, and the skill, please.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to gain an interesting new experience–teaching back to back to back.  The instruction session were all for evaluating sources, but they were aimed at assignments for two separate teachers. I spent the morning alternating back and forth between SEC football and Mardi Gras, and wondering why in the world I’d forgotten to bring a bottle of water. The first session most the most talkative of the three, and it made me agree with Sara that students who choose to take their class Monday mornings at 8 AM must be overachievers. The students seemed to understand to what I was trying to teach them, but I forgot to introduce myself in the little bit of nervousness I came into the session with. The second two session were still interacting well, but it was a few students speaking, instead of the larger group as a whole. I feel like the “grocery store magazine” meta cognitive activity went over well, and the students seemed to enjoy the  topics and resources. Overall, I feel like I accomplished my teaching goals for the session.

List of Things to Remember for Next Sessions:

• Water
• Introducing myself
• Wear a matching pair of comfortable shoes (…don’t ask)
• Write down the Section Number

Ah, the famous ACRL Standards.  I have heard so much about them, and there is a great deal packed into a fairly compact document.  Floating on the shifting tides of accreditation committee standards, ACRL has gone a great way in simplifying and explaining what we have to do to meet accreditation standards, and in (fairly) plain language, provided guidance to get there (at least in our documentation).  Outcomes assessment is necessary these days, whether you are in medicine or bicycle repair, so….

Outcomes for libraries being measured by “…the ways in which library users are changed as a result of their contact with the library’s resources and programs” is a challenging task.  We have to set up tasks and objectives that have measurable outcomes, then we have to measure the outcomes, and this may mean tracking outcomes (including graduation rates and employment history for academia) for years.  How many things can go wrong here?  Is simple better, or is it the only way?  Sticking to ratio data (number of library holdings per student enrolled) may be simple, but is it a metric that is meaningful?  Number of electronic holdings per student?  In the UA annual report (http://www.lib.ua.edu/sites/default/files/admin/AnnualReport2011-2012.pdf), I found metrics that made sense, including numbers of actual downloads per year—but outcomes…in search of outcomes.

Using the first year experience and EN 102 as an example, I see great potential in the collaborative process and cooperation with EN faculty.  To knit classroom objectives and facile use of library resources together is a win-win, clearly.  This is not outsourcing of faculty responsibility to library personnel, rather it is an opportunity to reach students who have not yet been reached in their earlier academic careers.  We can get to young scholars who have been satisfied up until now with the canned mushrooms of google and wikipedia, and bring them into the world of fresh mushrooms (if you can stand a kitchen analogy).  Next thing you know, these same young folks will be doing their own balsamic vinegar reductions, deglazing with apple juice, or making their own pizza sauce in the academic world, thoughtfully searching for opposing views in order to sort their own feelings, forming their own philosophies, and contributing effectively to their own education (and their classmates’).  Yay interdisciplinary work!  Yay librarian educators!  Yay thoughtful, skilled scholars who won’t take just anything for an answer!

Excited?  You betcha.  Challenged?  Even more than excited.  Time to dig.  Gotta go.

This reading was quite interesting. It reflected on research suggesting that active learning exercises are more effective than lecture-based, demonstrative sessions. This may seem intuitive to most of us, but I feel that we often forget these facts and instead do what is familiar and safe. For many of us, that means talking about what we know. However, as this article suggests, we must give up a bit of the control we hold over the classroom to the students in order for them to grow as researchers. We must allow them to actively participate in the process; otherwise the progress we seek for those students will be stunted. While this process can be scary and unnerving (change often is), it is also beneficial, not just for the students but also for us as instructors. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been finding it difficult to shift my focus from my own performance as an instructor to the experience my students are having. Perhaps, through an enhanced focus on active learning exercises, I can better deliver a successful instruction session.

What I really need to do is sit at the keyboard, read, and write as I am reading.  Things get assimilated so quickly, i forget what i knew before i read an article, and then it (new info) is inside my head, and i cannot unknow it for the purposes of writing a reflection.  How unanalytical is that, i wanna know?

Anyway, Ms. Manuel begins with an amusing litany of the supposed flaws of undergraduates’ intellectual, ethical, and scientific capabilities, and bearing in mind that it is every generation’s duty to drive older generations nuts, I say “so?”  In my limited time with GIS and riding the reference desk at Bruno, I have seen the breaking light in undergraduate faces when they see a search being constructed for the first time or they make a connection between a resource and the fact that it is at their fingertips.  Put me down as one who says that gaining “information literacy” is what undergraduates need, and if they have not caught on by the time they reach us, then they need that floatation device.  It is what feeding or gaining an inquiring mind is all about, and THAT is the beginning of any intellectual career.

One of the first things I learned via GIS is how important it is to begin at the beginning, and Manuel’s paper illustrates the many gaps that may exist among students.  Exploring exactly what a “source” is.  Giving students a good 360 tour of the Scout interface or the library homepage.  All good stuff.  Our boy, George Boole, and his scion, Professor Venn.  More good stuff than can be covered in an hour, but getting students interested and involved means that they can return to us with the next-level questions in their journeys.  Yay librarians.

Sobering thoughts: things like the Production Paradox and the Principle of Least Effort are always peeking over our shoulders, but each person’s education is that person’s responsibility.  If someone is determined to “C” their way through school and life, I cannot do much about that, even if they do wind up pushing my wheelchair (or hovercraft or whatever).  Education is a selective and a selection process—we can help pique interest, we can help construct searches, we can teach those who want to fish well how to fish well.

I like being involved with the EN 102 crew, and have found that the instructor participation and assistance really makes a difference, and now I understand Sara Whitver’s willingness to modify lesson plans at the last minute because an EN instructor has done so.  Being the most effective and flexible instructor that I can be is where it is at.  Find a way to get the “C” people interested in doing at least “B” work, and you may have just helped create a solid B student who aspires to be an A student.  One never knows.  I have teachers I remember.  I can’t stop and wonder right now if anyone will ever remember me.   Too much to do.  Too many young folks out there who have not yet seen the information literacy sun come up.  Just heard the alarm clock.  Later.

First, if anyone ever sees me clinging too tightly to my “assumptive clusters”, I want you to tell me…immediately.  And then, you can tell me what assumptive clusters are.  All snarkiness aside, Brookfield has made a good effort to condense a cloud of feelings and knowledge about being a good teacher into several pages of text, for which I thank him.

Using our own self-knowledge (and histories or autobiographies) to inform our teaching philosophies makes sense, as does trying to gain insight into our styles and function via our students’ eyes and opinions.  These are the tools we have.  Our colleagues can inform us about the assumptive clusters that we exhibit, among other not-so-great characteristics that may affect our teaching abilities, and the theoretical literature can enlighten us, but only if we can clearly understand it and put theory into practice.

I am 100% behind Brookfield’s estimation of classroom teachers’ estimations of academic literature as being written to impress tenure committees rather than to assist teachers in their work and professional growth.  Even when topics or concepts are hard to pin down, simple is better, and Einstein seemed to think that the heart of genius is simplicity.  Me, not arguing with ole Albert, no way.

Dismissing personal teaching experience as “merely anecdotal” is not only demeaning (Brookfield), but mad.  We are, each of us, our own experimental universe, and this includes students.  Our personal experience is all we have, as we do not have interchangeable chips that can be inserted while we do this task or that.  We ride around with and within ourselves, 24/7/365, and I think being truly reflective (on the road to being effective) must acknowledge and use that experience, as well as invite criticism from those around us.  What we do well in one’s eyes may be a fault in another’s.  Finding the balance—where is it; does it exist?  Of course it does, but the balance point is different every day, in every class, and for every student.

Thus, the challenge of teaching.  We enter classrooms inhabited by universes of unknown experience and capacity, unknown wounds, unknown accomplishments (also, unknown lack of sleep).  No one can tread every line in this environment without flaw.  No one.  For those who enjoy the unattainable challenge, this is it.

Btw, calling brownie points deviance credits?  Please.  Bottom line, no institutional brownie points, no voice.  No service, no voice.  Be heard, and if you need a life preserver, count upon your colleagues to throw you one, as carrying one with you all the time impedes progress and ensures mediocrity.  Just sayin.  Bouncing ideas.

After reading this article on reflection, I started to think about my experiences in the classroom last week. Honestly, it is a little hard to think critically about my teaching methods–after all, I just (co)taught my first week of classes, and be the end I was just happy I was able to get through a class without sweating through my shirt! For the first couple of classes I was sort of focused on performing well. Looking back, I realize my best classes were those in which I was relaxed, and not concerned about delivering a great performance.

I would have to say my second class with Mark Robison and my second class with Josh Sahib were the classes I feel best about. In those classes, I was completely relaxed, delivered my material well, and I actually felt like I helped some people. I wasn’t concerned with ‘not messing up’; I was more concerned with connecting with the students and hoping they were picking up on some of what I was talking about. I believe that once my nerves were out of the way, I was able to do what I was there to do.

Teaching is really an interesting experience, when new. I was so nervous last week, and I just wanted to do well in the classroom for my own sake. But as teachers, we are really there for the students–it should be that I am nervous for their experience, not mine. So there is a very interesting intersection that happens here, an intersection where we as teachers are trying to deliver for others and for ourselves. I am not sure how to resolve this, but I think if I was more concerned with what my students were learning or not learning I would be less concerned about my own success or failure as a presenter of material.

On the whole, I am mostly pleased with how my week of teaching went. After reading this article, I realize that professors I have had that were particularly great at both lecturing and classroom interaction are those that I have been trying to emulate. Though I want to branch out and try new things, it will be hard for me because I personally do not feel passionately about games in the classroom. I personally feel that whatever I am doing in the classroom needs to be geared toward the students’ assignments, coursework or life in an academic setting. I want to make it matter for them; I want to make them understand why it is important. I am not sure if I could pull off a teaching session built around games that ‘trick’ them into learning the material. That said, I think it is very important for me to realize that I favor lecture-style settings, and I need to realize that so I will always remember to interact with my classes and not go off the deep-end of lecturing students to sleep.

Forgot to mention that i had also sat in on part of a session that Melissa Fortson Green conducted.  She tackled the new Facebook tool, Graph Chart, just one day after it had made news in that all sorts of unintended consequences were possible.  That is, privacy settings or no privacy settings, Graph Chart can apparently pull up some “interesting” results, and Ms. Green dove right in and got the class going and interested by using the newest and greatest buzz.  My bravery is not equal, I am just sayin.