Professional Development

Before I begin my discussion of this weeks readings, I must disclose that I hold a somewhat jaded association with professional development based on my years as a classroom teacher.  Professional development was time intensive, and regularly did not address topics I cared about.  Though always an over-achiever as a student, during professional development I felt like an apathetic student sitting in the back of the classroom leaning my chair against the wall.  It was not always this way.  When I first started teaching, I sat at the front of the room, pen and notebook open and eager to be filled.  Let this serve as a precautionary tale.

This week, one of our readings was Semandeni's artile about teacher-driven professional development (2010).  In this model, teachers were able to select and help lead professional development topics to target their own personal areas for growth.  This is an excellent idea in practice; with the rising emphasis on differentiation in the classroom, it only makes sense that professionals should be offered the same specialized opportunities for growth.  But there are a few caveats that should be minded:

1. Professional development should be a tool for growing, not assessment.
At my school, we were empowered to pick strands to work on (I hope you sense the scarcasm...), but with the administration it sometimes felt that we were filing our own warrants.  With at-will contracts and frequently patronistic leaders, if I admitted weakness, I felt that it could be used agaist me, and I saw more than one teacher chased out mid-year for what frankly seemed like administrative bullying.

This is why I loved the atmosphere described in Kristin's article about professional development in new technologies.  Because Kristin was not an administrator, she was able to create a relaxed environment that allowed for play in addition to growth.  She understood what teachers needed to excell, and provided it to them in a way that was non-threatening.

It should be kept in mind, however that not all teacher-led instruction was without pressure.  At one point, my team teacher and I were identified as meeting the standards of the administration in terms of assessment and lesson planning.  We were then asked to lead professional development in a thinly veiled attempt to pressure other teachers to work the way we were.  Not only did teachers still feel the "big brother" behind our professional development, it created discomfort in our professional community.  The difference is clear; my colleague and I were not allowed to lead professional development that we were passionate about, but rather on what the administration wanted to see others doing. 

2. Choice should be balanced with observation and guided growth.
Selecting and independent plan also felt less personal.  We had full time "master teachers" who observed us and led professional development.  As a new teacher, I wanted someone with more experience to observe my teaching and tell me the things that I didn't notice I was messing up on.  I was a teacher who would pick at myself and make constant adjustments improvements and needed feedback ouside of monthly professional development meeting.

3. In giving options, allow for depth, as well as breadth. 
My training program optioned 'menu items,' at our monthly professional development days, but we were rarely offered materials "at level" because they worked to develop bredth, not depth.  I often found myself going to sessions I was interested in, but being disappointed because it didn't add anything to my knowledge base, but just patted me on the back for what I was already doing.  Development cannot be fulfilled in a single session.  Items should not only be differentiatied, but also scaffolded to meet teachers where they are.

Whew.  I didn't mean to be so negative in my final post for SI 643.  Let me leave you with one story of professional development gone-right.  At a friend's school, teachers were allowed to guide their own professional development without administration.  At the beginning of the year, they selected cohorts based on similar goals.  They met monthly and had their own bookclubs for professional development materials where they shared readings, ideas, and best practices.  Not only did my friend feel she had improved, she also felt like she was part of a learning community and had a lot of on-site support on campus when she had questions.

Chatter

This week we planned and began to engage in webinars.  So far, I have attended one Webinar (archived) and participated in our webinar on Creative Commons & Fair Use.  (To check out the archived webinar, go here).  Both were definite learning experiences for me!  As someone who has participated in a lot of professional development sessions in the past, it was great to see an alternative for online development.  I like the idea that I can opt-in to the sessions I find most interesting, and it's a great forum for individuals to share their expertise. 

Today I listened to Sherry, Chris, and Janeane's session on providing services for patrons recently released from prison, and I learned so much.  This is definitely an area that I have no experience in, and I walked away feeling a lot more confident about my ability to serve the community. 

One feature I am not so sure about is chat.  On the one hand, the chat box is a great way to check for understanding, to take questions, and to engage audience members.  On the other hand, it can be a major distraction.  In our in-person one shot workshops we had very different norms for sharing the floor, but on chat, participants can talk the whole time.  Having a chat monitor assigned in our team was really helpful in minimizing the distraction, but it still got off topic at times.  Even as a participant I was sometimes distracted by other people's chatter and couldn't focus on the presentation.

What do you guys think about the chat feature?  Love it?  Hate it?  A necessary evil?

Twitter

I really want to like Twitter.  I tend to be annoyed by people who complain about technology for the sake of having that funny I'm-young-and-crotchety-like-Janeane-Garofalo-get-it? thing.  But I feel crotchety when I look at Twitter.  Maybe I'm doing it wrong?  It's just a little overwhelming to me.  There is a lot of "inspeak" with hashtags, RTs, and personal dialogs made public. 

To me, Twitter does seem like a good forum to share interesting news articles or to promote personal projects, and I'm all for following interesting people to share ideas with me!  This week is the first time I have actively used a #hashtag to follow a group conversation, and I definitely got more out of being part of a group in sharing ideas.  It was great to see classmates sharing articles over the course of last week.  For the first time I felt like an "insider!"  I guess what I really need to work on is honing in on the right people to follow and the right things to share.

The Twitter-er(?) I was most impressed with this week was Archives Info.  Her tweets were really interesting and relevant to the field; she shared articles about digital humanities and new interesting heritage sites.  I plan on continuing to follow her feed.  The Tweeter (?) I was least impressed with was the Librarian in Black.  This was disappointing because I really liked the content on her blog; it was engaging and I learned a lot.  I learned from her Twitter account all sorts of useless information about her personal life.  Definitely not someone I plan to follow after this week.

I think my feelings towards the Librarian in Black connected to the discussion we had in class last week.  I think librarians can be clique-y.  Reading the LIBs posts made me feel like I just didn't get it.  Archives Info, on the other hand, made me feel like I was being brought into the discussion.  I think this has something to do with why we as library students feel uncomfortable asking questions.  It pushes us out of the clique and into the group of users.  This is important to keep in mind in terms of how we treat non-info professionals.  Respect and humility, my friends, respect and humility. 

Revenge of the Teacher-Librarians

Maybe revenge is a strong word, but I have been waiting to talk more about librarian-academic integration all semester.  Matos and his team brought forward the idea of the "embedded librarian in their article, "The Embedded Librarian Online or Face-to Face."  In this article, two librarians shared their first-hand experience as librarians embedded within academic departments, to varying degrees of success and using various methods to reach the communities.  The article also referenced an embedded history librarian who ultimately did not succeed in becoming effectively embedded in the community.  The article emphasized the need for good relationships in the department; the music librarian had an excellent rapport with faculty and staff, and was able to build collaborative relationships and host successful office hours and presentations.  The history librarian's failure was attributed to an inability to effectively build collaborative relationships or reach out to the student community.

While this article nicely illustrated anecdotal evidence that embedded librarians can be effective, I was disappointed that it didn't push back more on the story of the history librarian.  What could they have done differently?  How can librarians facing a "tough crowd" overcome the obstacles and build a place for themselves in the community?  Certainly history students need embedded librarians as much as music students do, even if they don't realize the full advantages one will bring to them. 

This reminds me of the struggle many school librarians have faced building collaborative relationships with teachers.  I see a parallel in a lot of non "classroom teachers"-- one of my best friends is an absolutely fantastic special education teacher who struggles to lure her colleagues to collaborate with her to help students.  It's why many school librarians have worked relentlessly to emphasize the fact that they are credentialed teachers.

What can "classroom-less" teacher/academic-librarians do to represent their collaborative relationship as a foundational need?

Online representation can help, especially when there isn't enough space in the department (or the teaching schedule).  But I think it's essential to use that online space effectively.  Professors might feel more comfortable assigning interactive webinars as supplemental course material rather than having a library session during class time, or planning a full class themselves.  And when librarians have that opportunity, I think they have an obligation to sell their services as much as possible.

Many librarians may feel uncomfortable as salespeople, but if we are really serious about fighting for relevancy, making our services as comfortable as possible for users is important.  It is a huge obstacle for many users, teachers and professors included, to ask for help.  To open themselves up to not being in control.  To trust another person to do a good job helping them represent themselves.  Academia in general makes everyone feel vulnerable.  Librarians have great opportunities to truly serve and invite people into a world of information.

This is why I want to become a librarian, and why I had such a fun time last week co-leading our one-shot workshop.  I really enjoyed being able to bring new information to participants, to hopefully build on their professional skills to help them represent themselves with a wide set of skills.

I was a little disappointed with the webinar I viewed; the librarians weren't selling it.  They used the technology ineffectively, grew uncomfortable with the interactive elements, and ultimately didn't tell me much. 

I know this is a little preachy and one-sided, and that people are bringing a lot of different skill sets to libraries, and certainly we shouldn't make the library seem like a used car lot.   But I do think that public engagement is one of the things that is going to cement librarian's role in the future.  We could do well to learn from people who are able to catch people's attention.  In a non comb-over, sleazy way.  Unless you're into that kind of thing. 

Ethics

At the School of Information, most of my classes have flirted with the idea of talking about ethics, though none have really taken it head on.  It is such an important consideration in our profession, and one that is essential to confront, but also quite challenging.

I appreciated so much the opportunity to talk about ethics in class, but also to attend the "Is this App Racist" event sponsored by MIX.  In this discussion, professors at SI met with students to discuss the NPR coverage about the smartphone app that alerts users of "unsafe" neighborhoods, according to crime statistics, as well as the fervid discussion the app spawned on Si.All.Open

Here's what this rich discussion left me with:

• Technology/Information may be "neutral," but the data these things are based off may be collected in non-neutral ways.
• Even if the intent of the app is positive, it is unethical to ignore the biased foundations of data
• As information professionals, to claim true ethical behaviors, we must actively challenge and question our sources and our own hidden biases, as well as those who we work with

Professor King also made an interesting comment that reflected Kristin's discussion of the ALA Code of Ethics.  King supported the idea that the difference between professionals and employees is this ethical line.  Professionals identify problems, or gaps in ethics, an do something about it.  Therefore, professionalism cannot be neutral.

What do you guys think?

News-related

This is an aside from class postings, but I just came across this article about the Ridgefield Public Library in Ridgefield, Connecticut.  Apparently they're in the planning stages of a building a new library, and have some angry opposition. Some community members don't understand why new facilities are being built when the day of the book is over.

“Give everybody a tablet, and get rid of the stacks. You’re done,” he said. “...It’s ADA compliant.”

Virtual libraries are already being set up, and are the future, Mr. Miller said.

“The classics, anything that’s over 100 years old, you can get from Google for free,” he said. “Anything written in the last 25 years, people have digitized it and are selling digital copies.”

While it's an interesting perspective in what the role of a library is in a community, it's frustrating that people continue to make large political statements without understanding the dynamic day-to-day realities, here an understanding of the dynamic between e-book publishers and  libraries would be greatly beneficial to this discussion.  I know this level of selective awareness is not new in our world, but it gets me every time.

Ethics and Bookclub Reflections

When first reading the ALA Code of Ethics, I felt really confident and excited to uphold these standards.  I particularly perked at the following passage:

We significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information. In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.

It is essential for information professionals to work to become aware of the many ways that their own personal preferences, motivations, and biases subtly influence their decision-making and relationships in the field.  This is not a social awareness that comes naturally to everyone, and so I believe it will be a process to gain perspective on their own partiality.  I think this is important in a (generally) liberal-bent profession.  This is an over-generalization and an over-simplification, but in my observations of growing up in a pretty far left community, and then burying myself in the notoriously left-leaning institutions of Berkeley, Teach For America, and Michigan, I have seen many liberal-minded individuals presume themselves free of bigotry and biases.  For these individuals, it is sometimes harder to perceive their personal prejudices because they are often not looking for them.

For this reason, I really appreciated the complexity Mark Lenker brought to the Code of Ethics with his article on "dangerous questions."  Of course, there is no easy answer or quick fix when a patron approaches with a morally questionable topic - but Lenker does provide a good discussion and a possible framework to process troubling encounters.

I think one of the biggest struggles when these situations arise is the urgency and pace of the reference desk.  When I am providing reference services in Hatcher, by brain is always running a mile a minute because I am pooling through my brain for the best resources and search methods to help users; it's hard for me to process moral dilemmas at the same time.

That said, in an academic library I think determining intent with say, a book about marijuana cultivation or bomb how-tos, because I pretty much always ask what the purpose of the research is.  My partner worked for the Emma Goldman Papers in Berkeley and he had to conduct pretty extensive research on home-made bombs to determine the relevancy of testimony in the Tom Mooney trial.  Throughout his research on the chemistry of dynamite, etc, he was never questioned of his intentions.  Though if he had, he would have had an easy explanation.  It's an expected and comfortable question in a university library where everyone is conducting research towards similar purposes.  In public libraries this sort of questioning may feel to some an invasion of privacy.

I feel that if the library provides the material, there should be reference services.  But I can't say that I would be completely comfortable pointing a patron to material I thought they might use to hurt themselves or others.  So much of this information can be found online, or independently in the library, if a patron is coming to a person or chat service, I do feel that there is a level of wanting someone to know.  I know that some libraries are able to offer or host social services through the library, and those materials are good to have available.  I feel that asking more about requests in a respectful way, with a sense of humility, can't hurt.  The worst that can happen is that a patron can decline to engage in the conversation.

image from http://www.booksdistilled.com

Now to the book clubs we participated in last week.  Overall  I really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss literature and to lead a book club discussion with my peers.  I am currently in 3 book clubs, on and off, but in my opinion, there are never enough opportunities to talk about books.  The discussion leaders in our group led in very different ways, and it was great to learn from everyone.

I struggled with some of the things I expected to struggle with; some voices were louder than others, and in a "voluntary" setting I found it a lot more challenging to find a diplomatic way to support a shared floor.  This is easier in a classroom, where I had the authority to call on students or ask students who weren't sharing more pointed and specific questions.  In a casual book club setting I struggled with how to do this respectfully.  I'd love any feedback others had or experience with similar issues!