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!

Book clubs

This week we talked about book clubs, which might be one of the most exciting library prospects. My favorite teaching days for me were when all of my students pulled their desks into circles for Socratic seminars. Students who weren't able or willing to put reading responses on paper regularly shone when discussing characters out loud. I would prepare some questions, but students were responsible for preparing "high quality" questions the night before, and I rarely had to say anything for the full hour.  The greatest challenge was ensuring students shared the floor.

Book clubs in the library setting will certainly be different, a lot of the lessons I learned as a teacher will certainly be helpful.  The most important thing is to make participants feel safe in order for then to risk participating.  Its good to keep in mind that having a college background we have more experience discussing and sharing these kinds of ideas than others. I could see it being a challenge for a fresh librarian to release a little control of discussion to let the participants guide the experience- I know it was a challenge for me at first.

I have thought a lot on our discussion of male focused book blurbs as well.  I think the Socratic style would be more appealing to typical male audiences. It seems that the Socratic seminar is more "goal oriented." By that I mean that there is a mission beyond sitting around and sharing. It seems more like the online forum posts we talked about in class. I know my dad looks to his online car buddies to expand and share his knowledge and interests. I think libraries could work to foster that same idea.

After reading our bookclub texts I look forward to discussing the mix of fiction and nonfiction. I think any of then would serve as good model texts for the first book club meetings we hold.

Games and Seminars

Last week we debated the merits of applying gaming mentalities and practices to the learning environment.  I really enjoyed McGonigal's Ted Talk on gaming and transfer.  A lot of the skills she attributed to gamers are skills that I desperately tried to build in my classroom, to varying amounts of success.  A lot of the skills are things I didn't know how to develop, but are the most essential life skills a person can acquire; collaboration and perseverance come to mind.  I like that in games you can fail but feel free to try again.  There is no shame, and each time you play you work on honing your skills.  This is definitely not something that happens in the classroom very often.

One of the most appealing things to gamers as discussed by McGonigal, is the immediate feedback and leveling up.  In thinking about the barriers, the only worry I have is the ability for teachers to give feedback on higher-order, critical thinking.  The feedback I receive on papers definitely improve my writing and presentation, but professors obviously take time providing feed back for me and my fellow students.  If we become too dependent on "gaming" feedback, we will continue to emphasize lower skills.  It's standardized testing using a hip, flashy mask.

The readings this week focused on reading groups and socratic seminars.  This is one of my favorite opportunities in education, and something libraries can definitely work with.

Thinking about libraries separately from classrooms, reading groups are a great application of outreach.  Dempsey and Hoffert both show how book clubs can engage patrons to see the library as a central place for community. When I first moved to Chicago, I didn't know anyone and I really wanted to join a library sponsored book club.  I found book club listings online but going to a random book club seemed a little sketchy-- having the location and presence of the library mediates those discomforts.  Dempsey raises some interesting ideas with online book clubs.  It's nice to have both pieces and flexibility.  I have participated in one online book club, and it was fun but with a small group it was sometimes frustrating to get conversation started.  With one or two librarians there to stir the pot, engagement and involvement will be a lot more dynamic.

In looking at socratic seminars in the classroom, I think I saw the most engagement, and growth by using this frequently in my practice.  After we finished a novel we would dedicate a full day to class discussion.  Students who struggled expressing themselves on tests and through writing regularly shone in class discussions.  It was also a great tool for social studies.  I saw a lot of higher order thinking skills.  My grade level partner, who taught math and science, also said he saw significant changes in our classes after we had discussions-- even though he didn't plan discussions, students would initiate them by asking excellent questions and critically analyzing science and math concepts.  It just shows you that talking about a book will go a long way!

Learning for Understanding and Transfer

Our readings this week focused on the idea of transfer, that is, students/patrons being able to apply information in new context.Wiggins & McTighe offered us a simple educational framework to see the progress of "education:"

1. Acquire information
2. Make meaning
3. Transfer understanding to new contexts

The problematic they set forth is that schools seem to be focusing only on the first part.  Students are seen as empty vessels that can be filled with information.  Teachers are held accountable using tests that only assess the first part.  So how can we expect students to transfer these ideas to new contexts?

In How People Learn, Bransford emphasizes how these higher learning modalities take time, a resource library teachers can't seem to get enough of.   Students need to see information in a variety of contexts, see how it shifts and changes to adapt to different scenarios, to be able to take that information beyond to apply to new situations.

I feel like a broken record, but this again seems like a great time to bring up collaboration.  Teachers can still introduce students to new information, much in the traditional way they are used to, and then work with information professionals to design a variety of tasks in the classroom, the library, and beyond, so that students see the application taking place.  They will then be more able to transfer their learning beyond these two areas.  So how can we better facilitate this collaboration?  If teaching schools promote this (and they do), and library schools promote this (at least in this class), what else can we do to see this happen?

Class Reflection - Assessment

In class last week we talked a lot about assessment.  How do librarians assess?  We talked about many informal methods, including reading the room, working with patrons one-on-one while they work (through reference interviews and walking the room through sessions and giving immediate feedback).  This form of assessment is mostly formative, there isn't a point where librarians give summative feedback.

As a classroom teacher, I could see that formative feedback was more useful for students, but summative feedback really serves the teacher.  I was taught to treat "final exams" as assessment of MY teaching as much as their learning.  So where can librarians go for that same feedback?

In class we talked about the development of surveys to assess learning and instruction, and it does seem that this is a librarian's best tool.  Of course, just like with any assessment, the results are only so good as the survey itself.  We need to be thoughtful of WHAT we are assessing for surveys to be effective at all.  Reading the room is a good sense in the moment of where people are, but as we discussed this takes highly developed social skills and awareness, and can't always be accurate.

On another note, I really enjoyed the Jane McGonigal Ted Talk.  There's some food for thought!

Collaboration and Reform

Last week, we expanded our shared understanding of Information literacy in the different fields we all hope to explore.  Despite the fact that so much has been written about the topic, it is hard to find concrete, broad ways that this is being carried out.

Our conversation only made me think more about the great need for collaboration to carry this out.  Andrew made a comment on my last post that really made me think.  He asked how recipients of advanced degrees teaching at highly distinguished universities could be convinced to collaborate with someone outside their field and outside their expertise.  It's sad, but it also seems true, that a big block to collaboration is personal ego.  How can this intellectual hierarchy be broken down to serve students?

In a school setting, I think it would greatly benefit teachers to be in school with librarians and to require them to collaborate through the training.  I don't know how this would work for professors.  I know that every time I see a distinguished research professor speak, or write a book, they always go on and on about how amazing librarians and archivists were in their research.  So how can we get them to collaborate for students?


This week in Bransford's How People Learn, we read about creating an effective learning environment.  I found many intriguing passages in this chapter that made me reflect on my past experience in the classroom and think about how I will apply these lessons moving forward.

The first note Bransford made was that the sense that "schools are getting worse" was actually inaccurate.  The truth is that schools are doing more or less the same, which is the problem.  The world has changed dramatically in the last century, but schools have not changed along with them.  Schools need to reevaluate what their goals are for where students will be and adjust their practices to the world as it exists today.  The movie Waiting For Superman echoed this sentiment- it illustrated the fact that public schools were largely developed in the world of the assembly line.  In this model, students are the product, and Bransford argued that teachers are the managers.  I would say that teachers are actually treated in society like factory workers- no one is winning in this equation.  Students are not prepared for the world they enter into, and teachers are often the scapegoats of these failures. 

Bransford advocated a system built on four centers; learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered.  Taking the best of these four models would provide students with experience and feedback to function in a world that demands critical thinking and ingenuity.  It will also motivate students by building on what they already know (learner centered), give them information to engage in specific fields (knowledge centered), provide them with feedback and ways to improve (assessment centered), and give them opportunities to learn from each other (community centered).

Sadler builds on Bransford's ideas with his discussion of formative assessment (including self-monitoring) in his article, "Formative Assessment and the Design of Instructional Systems."  He discusses how having only external feedback creates "achievement ceilings."  I thought that this was a very interesting concept, and have definitely seen it played out in my own life.  Because I always received A's in school, I had little incentive to push myself farther than I needed to.  It wasn't until I started teaching and reflecting on my own practice, knowing that I could always do better, that I realized how little I had been pushing myself.  Teaching students how to self monitor to build expertise is an incredibly difficult task.  Many teachers have tried to do it by offering opportunities for students to "grade themselves" without guiding them on how to do it.  I remember reading in one class that this practice lead to students scoring themselves lower than the teacher would have.

One way I built in self-assessment in my classroom was leaving the A+ column blank on the rubric.  I clearly defined my base line expectations, but after I explained the assignment to them, they would had time to plan and decide what an exceptional job to them would be.  This could be anything from creating a presentation, or doing extra research, or getting feedback from their peers or family.  On the assignments where I gave students this option, I always got the most amazing results.  I only really did this in social studies though, a class that wasn't held accountable by standardized tests.

This seems like such a perfect pitch- and it mirrors everything I read in my teaching program; so why isn't it being done?  Class size is the big reason that came to me.  It's not only schools that need to change their priorities, it is our larger society.  Amazing teachers can do a lot in the current circumstances, and there are some teachers out there kicking but with 32+ students in a classroom (and I've had the privilege of working with some of them!).  But if we really want to change the school system to provide more authentic learning and opportunities to grow, we simply need to focus on creating time for intimate communities of learners to work together with excellent teachers.  And librarians.