In chapter one of How People Learn, the authors explained traditional misconceptions about how students learn best. New trends in education have taken the emphasis away from the student as an empty vessel, ready to be filled with knowledge by a lecturing authority, or teacher. Instead, studies have shown that students learn and retain more knowledge by experiencing learning at a deeper level- through learning concepts and then putting these concepts in practice.
This is one thing in a classroom where a teacher has time to get to know the students and plan group inquiry learning experiences that last beyond a single class period, but implementing these ideas in single library programming sessions seems close to impossible. The basis of the idea in How People Learn is that instructors need to base their plans on their knowledge of students' prior knowledge. It will be more challenging for librarians who either (1) work in a public library and can't be quite certain which students will come, and for how many consecutive weeks they will be participating or (2) work in a school library where they likely have very limited time with students and have the task of working with all of the students in the school. I am very interested to see how librarians incorporate these new education concepts with the restrictions described above.
The second chapter of How People Learn focused on comparing 'experts' in fields with 'novices,' and the types of tasks the two groups perform and are best situated for success in.
The last technology class that I participated in focused on promoting us more to the 'expert level.' The instructor accomplished this by explaining tools instead of merely following repetitive tasks. On all of our assignments we were supported by encouraging us to work together and to use tools to figure out problems on our own.
This will take a great role in the reference interview; in using the reference interview as an opportunity to show users tools to help them become experts at the search tools we use. Of course, we still share the same challenges I described earlier, however with this new knowledge we can better focus on the goals we have for instructing patrons to make them experts.
i really resonated with your concerns regarding a librarian's ability to incorporate best practices for classroom teachers due to the reasons you cited. this is one of the ways that i believe we can make use of the developing informational infrastructure (you know how i love me those badges) to track student progress in more meaningful ways which accurately represent what students are able to bring to the material at hand. i look forward to the day when learning can become even more individualized and learner-focused, and i believe that librarians can and will play a large role in shifting these educational paradigms. thanks for your thoughts!
ReplyDelete