The section that jumped out at me the most was the section on “Teaching As Design.” I liked the idea presented, which is that teachers should become designers of learning experiences. To quote the article, “Teaching-as-design” is focused on the design of tasks, situated activities, and learning outcomes.” Learning is more than just lectures and in class discussion. Thinking of design as a learning experience rather than just preparing a lesson plan opens up a whole new world of creativity and opportunity in the classroom. Just thinking about different classes I’ve taken I appreciated when teachers  broke up material into different sections where part of class was a hands on assignment, then there might be lecture, later there could be group discussion, or maybe some kind of interactive learning tool. Sitting in a classroom designed to help me engage not only with the material but with the people around me in more than just formal discussion, is much more stimulating and interesting.

Going off of this, one theme of the article that I liked was the idea of what teachers can do to support learning. What can teachers do not only to help students learn but also to drive and motivate them? Every student has their own learning process. Not everyone thrives in a classroom that’s completely lecture while others struggle in classes aimed solely at in class discussion. The article points out the idea of looking at students as individual learners rather than just an entire class. This can help teachers identify students level of understanding as well as encounter their limitations. Tying this back to my first point, if teachers focus on individual students by giving them multiple ways to learn and grow in the classroom, students are more likely to feel comfortable and engaged with the material they’re learning.

 

My experience with teaching is limited. During my final year of undergrad, I worked as a consultant (tutor) at my university’s writing center. This was not a job I applied for. The professor of one of my required literature classes approached me one day, after class, and asked if I was interested in teaching at the writing center. We had done some peer editing in class. I enjoyed helping my classmates with their papers, from brainstorming to finalizing drafts, so I enthusiastically agreed. Most of the other tutors at the were English majors with at least a semester or two’s experience under their belt. I was a history major, and new. I felt misplaced, like the professor made a mistake in choosing me for the job.

Chapter one of Palmer’s the Heart of a Teacher talks about anxieties like this. Palmer discusses the danger these fears pose in causing us, as teachers, to detach from the student, and from the subject matter. This is exactly how I first reacted. Intimidated by my fellow tutors who were trying to show me the ropes, I lost the original enjoyment I felt in helping another student. The first semester was difficult as I attempted imitate the other tutors’ methods rather than rely on my own competencies to develop my style. Palmer’s solution to our fears and fear-biased reactions is to self-reflect, to find the things that energize us, and to connect to our subject and our students.

This is something I have so far struggled with as a teacher, but it is a process. I experienced a similar process in writing. Finding a voice in your writing, especially in academic writing, is something that many of us find challenging. It means discovering yourself, and learning how to be true to that self, even as you explore subject matter and ideas that come from outside of you. Palmer describes this in teaching as merging the exterior and the interior. It is like bringing “I” into your writing. It’s allowing yourself to be part of your teaching and not just a vehicle for an objective subject and practiced pedagogy. Discovering yourself and your voice in writing is also a process, and it is ongoing. These are aspects I see in Palmer’s discussion of teaching. His idea that integrity in teaching comes from this understanding of yourself, and your ability to connect that self to the subject and the students, runs parallel to my understanding of a writer’s voice. I hope my experience in these next two semesters help me come closer to finding myself as a teacher. Gaining integrity in teaching will be just as much of a process and finding a voice in writing was and is.

I found the section “Mentors Who Evoked Us” to be particularly thought provoking. I decided to reflect on my own experience with a mentor that I had during my undergraduate degree. Palmer describes how “in this encounter, not only are the qualities of the mentor revealed, but the qualities of the student are drawn out in a way that is equally revealing.” Like Palmer, I was also the first in my family attend college. I met my mentor during my fourth semester in college. He ran his undergraduate classrooms much like graduate seminars. Instead of lecturing, we were all in a conversation. When someone said something important, he would write it on the board. He would try to provoke students into coming into answers themselves. At the beginning of every class, he would read a children’s book aloud (the class was western civilization literature part one). He liked to relax the class before we started. My mentor always said what he thought, with seemingly no holds barred. In a word, he seemed authentic. At the time, I was shy. I had trouble speaking in front of crowds (I still do, but it’s markedly better than before). I wanted to emulate his confidence.

I’ve been teaching in some shape or form for two years now. I am still growing in my style and in my classroom approach. I tended very much towards a Socratic seminar style in the literature classes that I was a TA for, and I attribute that choice to my mentor’s style of teaching. I am working on connecting with my inner teacher.

Overall, I enjoyed the article and many of the points raised by the author. It made me think not only about the teaching profession differently, but I also started looking at teachers in a different light. One illustration given by the author, let readers see things from a teacher’s perspective in a classroom. He talked about how in class he sometimes feels awkward or that he is not doing things right. Many times, I have sat in class as the student and felt the same thing, so it was interesting to see that teachers might not have it as together as students might think.

This is what I focused on most when reading the article and what I plan to talk about here. For me, the part of the article which hit me the most was the beginning section called “Teach Beyond Technique.” One thing I found interesting about this section was when it talked about being vulnerable in the service of learning. As I mentioned above, the author’s illustration of himself in the classroom showed a vulnerability I have never seen in teachers before. This thought that there can be vulnerability in teaching was something I have never thought seriously about. Over my years in school, I have had teachers I have loved, teachers I thought were okay, and ones I never really liked. For the ones I never really liked, I could never figure out exactly why that was. I enjoyed the classes and the material we covered, but I always felt this disconnect with the professor as well as with the material.

The idea of vulnerability and what that means in school made me realize that if students cannot connect with their teachers then they will probably never connect with the subject material they are learning. If teachers want their students to be passionate about a subject, they need to show that same passion by being vulnerable with their students. Along this same line, the author mentions one time when he heard some professors arguing if sharing personal experiences in class that relate to the subject material being taught was a good idea. The author said he heard the professors say that sharing experiences was “more suited to a therapy session than to a college classroom.”

Again, this idea of vulnerability can be applied not only to teachers but also to students. Being able to take real life experiences and apply them to themes from texts or in class discussions helps so much when it comes to understanding material. Whenever I would apply material I learned back to my own life, it helped me understand what I was learning. By putting it in terms I was familiar with, I not only got a stronger grasp of the material, but it also had a deeper appreciation for what I was learning. I enjoyed this article because it showed how teaching is more than just following certain techniques, rather, teaching is about being vulnerable enough to connect with students to help them develop a passion for learning.

Hello there! My name is Emily and I am a new Graduate Teaching Assistant at Gorgas Information Services. I have to admit,  as I begin this “adventure” I have a lot of anxieties about delving into the unknown. While I have experience in instruction, it was one that was very “teach by numbers.” The classroom was governed by very strict guidelines that indicated not only what needed to be taught, but also the methods to reach those goals. On the other hand, this program seems to be focused on developing us as instructors in a way that allows us freedom in the classroom, which is new to me. This aspect of the program seems to be extremely beneficial as I look towards a career that is focused, in part, on instruction. Saying that I am eager to begin this process and to start getting my hands dirty is an understatement, but it is not untainted by a twinge of hesitancy at the unknown.

How does the Instructional librarian determine what to teach in a lesson?  My answer is to look at the standards in the field. The primary motivation behind education standards is to ensure equivalent library skills and information analysis to all college and university students, however they a consistently growing and evolving to meet the needs of the current generation of students. The original Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education  were originally approved in January 2000  by the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL) however, these standards were rescinded by the ACRL Board of Directors on June 25, 2016.  This means the original standards are no longer in force however they are a useful tool to look at to help deliver quality content and lessons.  The original Information Literacy Standards were replaced by the current Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and adopted by the ACRL Board January 11, 2016 available at the following website:  http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.  The new frameworks still have the same underlying  motivation of ensuring equivalent library services and information resources to all college and university students irrespective of their actual school.  The new frameworks have six frames: (1) Authority Is Constructed and Contextual, (2) Information Creation as a Process, (3) Information Has Value (4) Research as Inquiry (5) Scholarship as Conversation and (6) Searching as Strategic Exploration

 

The American Association of Law Librarians (AALL) has developed a set of principles and standards for legal research and competency.  The principles advanced by the American Association of Law Libraries are:

1. A successful legal researcher possesses foundational knowledge of the legal system and legal information sources.
2. A successful legal researcher gathers information through effective and efficient research strategies.
3. A successful legal researcher critically evaluates information.
4. A successful legal researcher applies information effectively to resolve a specific issue or need.
5. A successful legal researcher distinguishes between ethical and unethical uses of information, and understands the legal issues associated with the discovery, use, or application of information.

This information is available online at https://www.aallnet.org/mm/Advocacy/legalresearchcompetency/principlesstds

This brings us the to issue on bias.  Under the competency “An information-literate legal professional knows that information quality varies”  This leads to the question of bias. There is no standard in legal textbooks of what cases to include and what is considered important.  Three different textbooks all on constitutional law can vary as to what is deemed important all based upon the experiences of the writer.  So it is important to teach students to consistently evaluate the reliability of information, based upon (1) authority, (2) credibility, (3) currency and (4) authenticity.  This is important for both print and online sources, legal and non-legal sources.  For example, many students and legal practitioners obtain cases online the notes are written by an author, depending upon who wrote the notes viewpoints can vary.  This is important when writing a brief and arguing a case.  It is important to see both sides to effectively argue your position.  This awareness of bias needs to be addressed by information literacy professionals early to expand the student’s growth.

 

As I near the end of my requirements of my Masters in Library and Information Science, I have the great opportunity to work on an remote instructional librarian internship. As part of the University of Alabama national cohort distance education, the majority of my classes have been online. Although, one of my most treasured experiences with the distance education cohort was our first class was actually in person on campus which helped me become connected to the University and assisted in creating class collaborations and group work.  Completing my degree online his has been great experience since I had to learn cutting edge technology, troubleshooting and could experience online educational outreach so I can become a great information literacy teacher.

 

So this leads me to reason for this post, what makes a great online teacher? Today’s college students are very diverse, some come to college right out of high school,  some work, save money and then go back.  Current college students do not all fit the same mold, some have families, hold full time jobs so learning does not always occur in the classroom or even the same geographic location.  Flexibility is key to reach these students.

 

Since the majority of my program has been online,  I have found that certain techniques are beneficial.  I personally prefer synchronous over asynchronous classes.  I.like the real time accountability and discussions of synchronous classes so having the class at a set time was really helpful to me to complete this degree.  If this program was filled with asynchronous classes where you watch a video at your own time I would not have succeeded.  There is a time and place for asynchronous classes but I personally found asynchronous classes or classes not in real time to be confusing and lonely.  This led to dissatisfaction in the asynchronous class, I kept thinking am paying tuition I should be able to have a learning environment and discussions  with my classmates and professor, if not why pay to go to school to learn in a vacuum?  

 

So this is a problem for the online classroom how do you create a class culture?  When taking an asynchronous class, I felt like I was  being cast adrift in a canoe in the middle of an ocean with no map.  Whereas in a class that meets regularly everyone is starting out in their own canoe out in the ocean but there is communication between classmates and professors that can help you figure out how to find the paddle and read the navigation maps. It is important to have frequent in person check ins maybe with polls, games or questions,  for accountability and to see if students are struggling.  So how does this apply if make an asynchronous class more accountable – I suggest set online office times, email and contact information, so students can have discussions and brainstorming sessions and not learn in a vacuum.  To show accountability when not face to face – questions that need to be typed in or polls help show who is still paying attention.

 

It is a good practice for online and classroom instructors to regularly review lessons to make sure links work, articles are up to date and information is applicable.  This is particularly important in asynchronous classes where learning depends on watching videos or completing reading on your own time and completing assignments for credit.  Technology  and computer software is constantly changing so when a video created even a few months ago on an old platform such as Microsoft 8 is not going to be relevant and will lead to massive student confusion if a new platform such as Microsoft 10 is now being used.  So regularly reviewing articles, links, and videos for current content is important.  Frequent checking in of students using the content will help the instructor keep the information current.

Each student is unique and adds a different perspective.  To catch the student’s attention a good hook is needed, otherwise the temptation to check facebook, twitter or online shopping becomes too great, both online and in a classroom. The problem with online learning is the instructor can;t tell when the student is distracted.  I tend to like learning for the sake of learning but even I tend to pay greater attention and retain more when I can see a reason why learning the material.  So having an objective and a hook is really important.  Another useful technique for engaging students is project based learning.  How can you do hands on project based learning when online? It is assignments based on real world projects such as web usability studies, that determine if a company’s website is user friendly, homework based on actual questions patrons asked a librarian, creating actual research guides, and making an online poster with powerpoint while collaborating with a classmate in another state.  Non traditional students balancing work, family, school do not need busy work, the more practical the project the more time resources were spent on in and more information was retained.

 

As a high school teacher I learned that there are many different types of learners:  visual, auditory, kinesthetic, to read and writing learners, so each lesson needs to take that in account.  The best online courses I have taken have a reading or a textbook to address read writing learners, concurrent visuals such as slides, along with auditory so if the internet connection gets interrupted you could still hear what was going on or if the audio cut out, could still see what was going on, and if all else fails there is a reading or transcript.  I personally found the recording feature of blackboard a great feature since when there are too many connection interruptions,or life distractions it was helpful to go back and watch the recording to fill in the gaps. I find it annoying taking an online class and the instructor is talking and the slides are blank or not relevant.  Being able to see the key words spelled out when being discussed is significantly helpful when people of various dialects or accents are presenting so everyone is included.

 

In summary, learning can occur either together in classroom or online with students in various geographies maybe even different time zones, it can be face to face or on one’s own time.  In general the lesson plan or content the teacher needs to convey is the same however the method of delivery must be tailored to the class, instructors who acknowledge that tend to be great teachers both in person and online.

As I end my time with the GIS Department, it is important to look back on my experience. I began my internship with many expectations and assumptions concerning the profession, the university, myself, and students. These expectations were either met or discredited throughout my internship–either through observation, teaching, or self-assessment. I grew in many ways that both surprised and excited me. I absolutely feel I grew both personally and professionally. In very general ways, I grew in my willingness to collaborate with colleagues in producing lesson plans and generating ideas. I also learned to accept the general failings of my teaching and work to improve them rather than to immediately discredit myself as a teacher. Stephen Brookfield explores this idea in his chapter “A Process of Learning and Change” in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher and attributes these failings as a result of social, economic, and political processes. In this way, the theoretical literature I read throughout he semester helped me better differentiate general failings and personal failings. As someone new to teaching in this type of environment, it was important for me to identify the ways I was struggling because of my assumptions and perspectives and the challenges I was facing that many other teachers face. I am always reminded of Parker Palmer’s chapter “The Heart of a Teacher” in her text The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life when thinking about personal and professional growth. Palmer’s chapter explores the more virtuous side of teaching and how the virtuous identity of a teacher shapes a classroom. For example, Palmer stresses the necessity of being present when teaching because it brings a sense of connectivity that cannot be found anywhere else. Remaining passionate and enthusiastic about the subject one is teaching is necessary and fundamental to good teaching. I learned this through teaching. Creating a welcoming and moving classroom is the product of a connected teacher. When I first began planning my lesson plans, I was obsessed with the idea of the “perfect worksheet” and the “perfect lesson plan.” I quickly learned that the teacher is the person who will make a class engaging and insightful—not the worksheet or lesson plan. These can certainly be necessary tools for facilitating a great class, but great teaching is a product of the teacher’s ability to navigate the learning environment and situation.

Personally, I grew into the identity of a teacher. Formerly at my undergraduate university I assisted the instructional librarians with their classes; however, I never thought of it as teaching. In a sense, I thought of the class as the librarians “showing” the students general library-based instruction. I quickly learned that instructional librarianship is teaching and deserves to be recognized and associated with that word. Stephen Brookfield’s chapter in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher “A Process of Learning and Change” discusses the idea of self-assessment and doing so through several reflective lenses. I think what really allowed me to grow into the identity of a teacher is the constant self-assessment I was doing throughout the semester through these various lenses. Brookfield identifies the four lenses as the teacher’s autobiographical perspective, the student’s perspective, the colleague’s perspective, and the discipline’s theoretical literature perspective and insight. Constantly assessing myself through these lenses allowed me to see the assumptions I was making of students and, in the context of my identity as a teacher, the assumptions I was making of myself. For instance, I first approached my lesson plans by negotiating myself out of ideas that I did not believe were “the librarian’s job” to teach about. Instead, I presented lesson plans and worksheets that fit the comfort level of my assumption about myself and the profession. I was quickly urged by Sara and others around me to explore deeper ideas and not let the constraints of what I was feeling to dictate what I was teaching. This put me into the mindset to question myself: Why am I teaching like this? Eventually through constant self-assessment—whether through the act of teaching, blogging, journaling, or discussing—I grew to accept the title of a teacher. I want to continue to challenge myself in this title by pushing myself to question what is expected of a library instructor in terms of information literacy. For instance, questioning what teaching information literacy demands from the library instructor. I also want to challenge myself to teach more responsively through constant analysis by myself, colleagues, students, and pedagogical literature. Remaining active in self-assessment is an area I want to continue to prioritize. Furthermore, I want to deliberately find books, perspectives, conversations, and practices that challenge my comfort towards teaching and allow me to identify my assumptions and question my expectations.

After organizing and completing my lesson plans, it was time to take my lesson to the classroom! The lesson covered how to evaluate and interpret online content with rhetorical analysis. Students would be assessing blogs for their next assignment and considering how these rhetorical elements influenced the purpose of the blog. However, at the last minute I had to quickly alter my approach, structure, and timing as the class instructor wanted to give students time to find an appropriate blog post. Originally I was going to break each row into six groups and have them individually assess blogs; however, when we actually started reviewing blogs to include, the professor pointed out important information regarding the selection of blogs. Together we decided that this information was crucial for students to understand and re-scheduled time to allow for the instructor to go over criteria for selecting an appropriate blog for the assignment. This did not call for much re-organization except limiting time on the worksheet. I also think this really allowed students time to ask the professor questions and better understand why certain blogs were appropriate for the assignment and others were not.

 

Overall, the classes went really well. I timed everything out to cover all the information I wanted to and felt the classes were treating the worksheet as a foundational piece for their assignment. The first class was much more responsive than the second class in terms of discussion. The questions I received were ones I expected and felt I could adequately explain. Afterwards, the class instructor encouraged me to explain the first question on the worksheet a little more and offer examples on how to find the information. The first question centered around the review and publishing process for the website. Most students were getting stumped at this first question and were either lingering on solving it during the allotted time or getting discouraged by how difficult it was. I did disclose that the first question was perhaps the hardest one, but I altered my approach during the second class by pulling up an example on Wired and showing the students the different tabs, links, contact info, and areas to find this specific publishing information. I also briefly talked about the type of language they would want to be looking for. I could not adequately judge how effective this altered approach was but felt going over locating the publishing information was beneficial to the class. When we went over the worksheet as a class I further explained the important difference between staff writers and freelance writers, blind review, double-blind review, and peer-review. Although I had briefly mentioned these aspects in the previous class, I felt discussing the aspects of the publishing process more in-depth to the second class would more adequately give students an idea of the types of things that define the publishing process.

 

The second class was much less responsive and I felt I did most of the talking. Afterwards, the class instructor encouraged me not to be scared of silence when I asked a question and the class did not respond. During this class I would ask questions and get no responses, which caused me to immediately answer my own question. I thought this advice was extremely useful because I was measuring the success of the class by how much discussion was happening. Discussion is important but allowing space for students to think and feel semi-pressured into answering questions would have created a more engaging classroom. Although the class instructor found the second class to have gone better, I personally found the first class to have gone better. I believe this was in part to the students participating in discussion throughout the class. The second class took a much shorter time to locate appropriate blogs for their assignment, while the first class took a longer time. This appeared to influence the professor’s outlook on the success of the classes. There was also much more of a sports-focus on the blogs that students chose in the second class as many of them were involved in collegiate sports or were interested in sports. I helped a few students locate publishing information on sports websites and when we discussed the worksheet as a class I asked these students to explain the sports blogs’ publishing process to me as I was unfamiliar with that world. Afterwards, Sara and I discussed how this could have potentially had a negative effect on the class. While I saw this prompt as a chance to engage students in discussing information they found that I did not know about, she mentioned that me acknowledging I was not interested in sports could have had a negative effect. I found this really interesting as I had not considered looking at comments like this in any “critical” way in shaping students perception of the information I was teaching. This comment made me re-focus the type of audience I was speaking to and reminded me to be more critical when making comments towards the class.

 

I certainly enjoyed teaching my first set of classes and am going to take the elements previously discussed into consideration when constructing my lesson plans for the next class I teach. I have an idea of what to expect from the class in terms of participation, discussion, and audience now. When I see these classes next I am hoping that I can hear about how their assignments went and what they found out.

As the semester is coming to an end I wanted to take a minute to reflect on what I have learned during my time interning with the GIS. In a very broad overview I spent my semester doing classroom observations, teaching library instruction, learning about the philosophy of teaching and library instruction, and even assisting a little bit in a research project.

First of all, I spent a lot of my time this semester doing observations of library instructions. I went to at least one class taught by each of the librarians who have teaches in the first year writing program, but I did not always attend a first year writing program instruction session. In fact I was able to sit in on some upper division and even grad level instruction sessions as well as EN 101 and 102 instruction classes. I am extremely happy about my wide exposer to the variety of classes because it helped me understand how many different approaches library instruction can take depending on the level of the class subject. By watching a variety of instructors teach and having spent some time teaching as well, I have started to develop my own teaching philosophy about how I want to act in the classroom and what I expect from the students.  My philosophy is still a working process, but I am happy to have a foundation in which I can start building off of. (For more information on my teaching adventures and classroom observations please look as some of my past posts that are a reflection of my experiences.)

I have had the pleasure of being exposed to small portion of library instruction research. The research project I assisted on is a project that will take a few semesters to complete, but I have had the chance to help with some of the early stages. I helped organize with some of the pre-test survey data and have learned a bit about what they are planning on doing with the information gathered. Getting a small taste of doing research has got me wondering what I might possibly want to research. I don’t have a full understanding of what I want to research, but I think I would like to look into how library instruction can be used in the theory of “Decoding the Disciplines.” This theory is a teaching philosophy that in order to be an affective teacher one must break down every single step needed to preform a task as an expert in the field. Such as, how a geologist makes conclusions while field mapping or how an English professor breaks down literary text to symbolism and meaning. I loved the idea and Sara and I were able to rearrange the readings to allow me to look more deeply into this idea of decoding and then came up with a little side project where I took the syllabus from an Anatomy class and tried to create a series of instruction sessions, class assignments, and in-class exercises that would work with this idea of decoding the discipline of anatomy. I happily thank Sara for introducing me to the theory of Decoding the Disciplines, because it is a topic that I would really like to look into more.

In conclusion I would like to take a minute to express how much I enjoyed working with Sara over the past semester. She has taught me a great deal about what it means to be a library instructor all while allowing me to explore ideas that interested me personally, she let me side track the reading we would talk about in favor of the decoding the discipline papers so I can learn more about a theory I am interested in.  Sara really takes an interest in what her interns are interested in and wants them to explore areas they are excited about. I consider myself very luck to have had the chance to work with Sara as her intern.