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.

ADDIE & Information Literacy

Last week in class we went more in depth with the ADDIE framework of lesson planning and we also talked about formative assessment.  It let me to wonder how instructional librarians are assessed.  What are the specific outcomes they are looking for?  A friend of mine, also a former classroom teacher, described an encounter he had with a group of instructional librarians at the college level who were complaining about the students they were working with; no matter what library tools they were introduced to, they went back to Google.  The librarians were quick to blame their high school teachers and librarians, but ultimately, where does the buck stop?  I've heard high school teachers blame middle school teachers, and middle school teachers blame elementary teachers.  Ultimately it can all come back to parents and we give ourselves permission to not take responsibility for students' learning NOW.

The value of formative assessments goes beyond understanding where students are in moving forward with assessment an giving constructive feedback; it also does a great deal in informing a teacher's mindset.      With formative assessment, the teacher becomes responsible for the continuing growth of the student.  Not just did they reach mark "x" but how far did they come to get there.  I would be interested in seeing more outcome-based instruction from librarians, in the ADDIE model.

To that end, I was interested in seeking out materials on collaboration with librarians and instructors when determining my readings for this week.  I am interested in becoming an outreach librarian in an archive or special collection, specifically working with teachers to bring students in contact with special materials.

The first article I read, "Information Literacy: A Collaborative Endeavor," discussed a program at SUNY Albany that offered undergraduate students a one or two unit course taught in collaboration between a professor and a librarian.  Although collaborative relationships are welcomed in most universities, it is understandable that both professors and librarians become so overwhelmed with their separate arenas that they don't seek each other out unless it is absolutely necessary.  Unfortunately, this is a great disservice to students.  I love the idea of collaborative classes planned and implemented by teachers and librarians.

The next article I read, "Information Literacy: The Changing Library," explored the necessity of Information Literacy in the next generation.  The author described how the tools of the "Information Age" are already breaking down walls between teaching and librarianship, and encourages both groups to work together to make sure students are prepared for the world that awaits them.

Finally, I read "Information Literacy for Primary Sources."  Yakel explores how new methods for primary source research instruction need to be explored.  Where traditionally researchers using primary source material interacted with a reference librarian at an archive, now they are without that mediation using digital archives.  The exciting part of this for me is to ability to adapt these new introductory materials, whether they be videos or podcasts, for younger users; to differentiate and make archive materials open to a wide variety of audiences without that much extra work.


Works Cited

Kapitzke, Cushla (2001): Information Literacy: The Changing Library, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59-69.

Mackey, Thomas P. & Trudi E. Jacobson (2005): Information Literacy: A Collaborative   Endeavor, College Teaching, 53:4, 140-144, http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/CTCH.53.4.140-144

Yakel, Elizabeth (2004): Archives and Manuscripts: Information Literacy for Primary Resources: Creating a New Paradigm for Archival Researcher Education, International Digital Library Perspectives, 20:3, 61-64

Reading, Week 2: One Shot Workshops and Online Teaching Tools

This week we read Jerilyn Veldof's introduction to one-shot workshop development, as well as three papers describing efforts to develop on-line teaching tools for self-directed information literacy skill building.  Veldof addressed something that I have been thinking a lot about in my developing understanding of what instruction means in the library setting.  In most settings, librarians are very restricted in the sense that they may only have one 50-minute block to impart all of their information to patrons.  There is little opportunity for that dynamic of assessment and feedback, or targeting specific holes in patron knowledge.  The ADDIE method (which I learned in Ed School as "backwards design") will definitely serve librarians in using that time the best they can, thinking thoughtfully about where they want patrons to be at the end of their lesson.  This level of planning will allow for librarians to have a concrete idea of what they need to accomplish so that they can plan to meet those goals.

In thinking about the variety of online tools developers are creating for independent learning, I see a great potential cor synthesizing the two methods.  My fear with relying on online tutorials, like the ones described in Yilenek (2008), Johnston (2010), and Griffis (2009) is that they are successful only in lower-level thinking skills.  They can encourage users to remember processes, but not to analyze, evaluate, or create.  I love the image I found, linking the different layers of Blooms Taxonomy to online skills.  It's apt that Wikipedia is on the upper level-- sure, you could have an online tutorial teaching users about Wikipedia, and even mention evaluating skills, but unless they are able to do that first hand, with feedback, I don't feel safe as an information professional "releasing them into the wild."

What if we were able to combine these skills- all basic skills were taught on online tutorials as described by the authors- where users could go at their own pace and target skills that they want to work with, and librarians focus on the higher order thinking skills that need in person feedback?  I have a great fear that in the age of No Child Left Behind we are only focusing on these lower level skills, leaving little ability to evaluate or create.  Let's use librarians for those purposes! 

Lecture 1 Reflection

In our first lecture we discussed the growing importance of instruction in the field of librarianship. As ready reference questions become less frequent in the age of Google, and research becomes more i dependent, it is ever more important that patrons learn how to find and evaluate sources for their information needs.

This discussion made me think of the instruction provided to me during my undergraduate and graduate studies. Though I completed an independent honors thesis in history, I never consulted a librarian at my undergraduate institution. Why? Looking back I know I only brushed the surface of true, authentic research. I clearly respect librarians, as I am following their path in my own professional choices. I knew where librarians were posted in all of the libraries I worked in.  And still, I had little interaction with them.

I see this as a great disappointment.  Several of my research classes had information sessions with librarians, but they were repetitive, and only barely brushed the surface of materials.  I can't remember anything remarkable that I learned beyond how to put an asterisk after a search term to broaden it.  I worked only with general librarians, none that specialized in history.  They only showed me collections Berkeley had; they didn't show me how to access the world of libraries they were connected with.

I feel really fortunate that I have a background in education and so can work to improve the field of librarian instruction.  I am eager to see more effective practices that librarians put in place this semester.