The whole time I was reading about the examples of the different instruction types in chapter five I kept thinking, "I wish there were some examples of professors who demonstrate each of these methods," and tried to visualize in my head what each of the different styles looked like. So to answer the learning question, I guess that means I'm a visual learner, right?
I feel like the text inadvertently created a sort of hierarchy between the instruction styles. Behaviorist seemed the most "old school," while Constructivist reminded me of the professors who like to move the desks into circles at the beginning of class.
Personally, I feel like I fall into the Cognitivist camp--building knowledge off of experiences the students had, organizing the knowledge in manageable ways, while still maintaining control of the classroom.
While they all have their benefits, Constructivist felt like the "ideal" in a lot of ways. The terminology describing it is all very positive--authentic interactions, active communication...It sounds nice, right? A learner-focused environment stimulated by a group of people who love to actively learn.
BUT!
I have rarely had a good Constructivist learning experience as an undergraduate. And I think the reason has to do with one of my previous sentences--active learners. Critical dialogue.
I think in order for Constructivist learning to work, your students have to be engaged. The book states that the instructor "should provide the conditions that stimulate thinking" (52). But when I was an undergraduate student, the minute the professor started to move those desks around I internally groaned and thought, "Why am I paying $768,000 a year to listen to the one girl who likes to suck up to the professor talk, and everyone else shift uncomfortably?"
However!
Constructivist can work really well if you do have a group of super passionate people who are actively engaged in the material. I've experienced this in a handful of grad school courses. (I mean, if you're going to give up 2 nights a week while you're working full time to just sit quietly in the back of the room, go home.)
Do you think Constructivist can work for undergraduate, one-shot library courses? I would be interested to hear some thoughts. Most of the time, it feels like librarians are struggling to try and fit every database discovery tool into their 30 minute window. Does that scenario allow for Constructivist learning?
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Where are the Scholars?
As I began the readings for this week I was reminded of my first "real" job out of college--the Instructional Design Assistant for Northwestern College's Graduate & Continuing Education Department (try typing that title over and over again!) One of the first assignments the Dean of Graduate Studies gave me was to research critical thinking.
"This is something we really need to teach our students; they're struggling with it," he said. He wanted me to figure out how to effectively weave critical thinking into the program.
What I thought at that point in my life I find myself thinking again this week: Can you really teach critical thinking?
I don't want to sound snobbish about this. I believe there genuinely are people in this world who struggle to grasp deep thinking, or who are, perhaps, not old enough to go beyond the surface level.
But honestly, I think what half of what these chapters are talking about come down to is not being a lazy person.
Before you begin thinking that this is going to be some sort of post about our "modern tech age" where nobody can look up from their iPhone to even give the librarian the time of day, let me state: It goes both ways.
I'm talking about lazy instructors as well as lazy students.
Some of the best instructors I had as an undergraduate were those that kept learning. I was a teaching assistant for one of my favorite professors for two years. I loved being his student and employee not only because of his wit and charming bow ties, but because every time he taught King Lear, the PowerPoint looked a little different. He brought artifacts to class that he picked up in London or Turkey. He taped articles to his office door. He was a learner.
That is an element of reflective practice that I resonate with--constantly learning, growing, and changing as you discover new knowledge in your field.
And, yes, the same goes for the hat-backwards-on head, sweatpants-wearing, smirk-faced, laughs-at-the-librarian freshman that I had the pleasure to observe during my first librarian observation for this class.
What that sort of student is doing in college to begin with is a rant for another day.
Students are asked to think critically--dig deep. The students who are just attending college for the degree and a good time are not going to do this and do not want to do this. To many, critical thinking means nothing, since they just want to turn the paper in on time with some sort of regurgitated version of a professor's lecture poorly written in their own words.
To others, it is their passion.
Can I take the reluctant ones by the hand and lead them to the stacks, throw my arms open wide and exclaim, "The knowledge of the greats is here! Accessible! Run, students! Read! Go discover information that is free to use in this institution that you are privileged to attend!"
Well, no.
Teaching a student to dig deep is teaching them to care. Critical thinking is caring. And some students could care less.
But perhaps.
Perhaps deep within some library information session you will present a student with a nugget of truth that causes them to open their eyes wide and want to know more. Behind glazed-over eyes a brain will begin to activate, question, yearn. Can this transformation happen?
Sadly, not all who attend college today are scholars, in the romantic sense of the word.
But can we create them?
Can we make them care?
"This is something we really need to teach our students; they're struggling with it," he said. He wanted me to figure out how to effectively weave critical thinking into the program.
What I thought at that point in my life I find myself thinking again this week: Can you really teach critical thinking?
I don't want to sound snobbish about this. I believe there genuinely are people in this world who struggle to grasp deep thinking, or who are, perhaps, not old enough to go beyond the surface level.
But honestly, I think what half of what these chapters are talking about come down to is not being a lazy person.
Before you begin thinking that this is going to be some sort of post about our "modern tech age" where nobody can look up from their iPhone to even give the librarian the time of day, let me state: It goes both ways.
I'm talking about lazy instructors as well as lazy students.
Some of the best instructors I had as an undergraduate were those that kept learning. I was a teaching assistant for one of my favorite professors for two years. I loved being his student and employee not only because of his wit and charming bow ties, but because every time he taught King Lear, the PowerPoint looked a little different. He brought artifacts to class that he picked up in London or Turkey. He taped articles to his office door. He was a learner.
That is an element of reflective practice that I resonate with--constantly learning, growing, and changing as you discover new knowledge in your field.
And, yes, the same goes for the hat-backwards-on head, sweatpants-wearing, smirk-faced, laughs-at-the-librarian freshman that I had the pleasure to observe during my first librarian observation for this class.
What that sort of student is doing in college to begin with is a rant for another day.
Students are asked to think critically--dig deep. The students who are just attending college for the degree and a good time are not going to do this and do not want to do this. To many, critical thinking means nothing, since they just want to turn the paper in on time with some sort of regurgitated version of a professor's lecture poorly written in their own words.
To others, it is their passion.
Can I take the reluctant ones by the hand and lead them to the stacks, throw my arms open wide and exclaim, "The knowledge of the greats is here! Accessible! Run, students! Read! Go discover information that is free to use in this institution that you are privileged to attend!"
Well, no.
Teaching a student to dig deep is teaching them to care. Critical thinking is caring. And some students could care less.
But perhaps.
Perhaps deep within some library information session you will present a student with a nugget of truth that causes them to open their eyes wide and want to know more. Behind glazed-over eyes a brain will begin to activate, question, yearn. Can this transformation happen?
Sadly, not all who attend college today are scholars, in the romantic sense of the word.
But can we create them?
Can we make them care?
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Changing Libraries, Changing Technologies
The advances in technology are changing the way we as information specialists view literacy. As Mackey & Jacobson argue in one of our assigned articles, one particular advance in technology, social media, has impacted information literacy so much as to revolutionize the thoughts behind--and even the name of--the field.
Basically, information literacy is no longer the development of a set of skills, but being able to take that information and produce it and share it online properly. I think it is this authorship that really sets metaliteracy (the new term for the new information literacy) apart. Metaliteracy recognizes social media as an area for online development and collaboration--which are skills that Mackey & Jacobson argue are not covered in other literacies.
I had an "aha" moment during our last class period with regards to how libraries should be responding to these new technologies. As we experience in our last class period, when the topic of social media comes up, people can have some very heated opinions.
I know that it is super trendy to be "anti-social media" or "anti-Facebook" and talk about how you've never had an iPhone or tablet because your life is perfectly fine without these things. Believe me, I understand! I don't own a TV and turn off my phone pretty much as soon as I get home from work. I'm not a big Facebook fan and only recently got a Twitter.
BUT.
You cannot use your personal technological preferences as an excuse to be uninformed about current technology trends in the field you work in--and that includes social media! If you want to be a librarian, you are accepting the responsibility of being knowledgable about all kinds of literacy, and, as our readings for this week communicate, information literacy (or metaliteracy) includes "active knowledge production and distribution in collaborative online communities" (Mackey & Jacobson 64).
One of my friends recently shared a story about working at the reference desk at an academic library. A patron approached her and another coworker and said that she needed help with Facebook.
"Oh," her coworker said. "I don't do Facebook. I don't know anything about it."
We cannot have these smugly superior attitudes if we are going to choose to work in an informational field! We may not care what our 500 friends ate of dinner on Instagram, but my goodness, as an informational professional we should have a thing or two to say about it to a patron.
*gets off soap box*
Basically, information literacy is no longer the development of a set of skills, but being able to take that information and produce it and share it online properly. I think it is this authorship that really sets metaliteracy (the new term for the new information literacy) apart. Metaliteracy recognizes social media as an area for online development and collaboration--which are skills that Mackey & Jacobson argue are not covered in other literacies.
I had an "aha" moment during our last class period with regards to how libraries should be responding to these new technologies. As we experience in our last class period, when the topic of social media comes up, people can have some very heated opinions.
I know that it is super trendy to be "anti-social media" or "anti-Facebook" and talk about how you've never had an iPhone or tablet because your life is perfectly fine without these things. Believe me, I understand! I don't own a TV and turn off my phone pretty much as soon as I get home from work. I'm not a big Facebook fan and only recently got a Twitter.
BUT.
You cannot use your personal technological preferences as an excuse to be uninformed about current technology trends in the field you work in--and that includes social media! If you want to be a librarian, you are accepting the responsibility of being knowledgable about all kinds of literacy, and, as our readings for this week communicate, information literacy (or metaliteracy) includes "active knowledge production and distribution in collaborative online communities" (Mackey & Jacobson 64).
One of my friends recently shared a story about working at the reference desk at an academic library. A patron approached her and another coworker and said that she needed help with Facebook.
"Oh," her coworker said. "I don't do Facebook. I don't know anything about it."
We cannot have these smugly superior attitudes if we are going to choose to work in an informational field! We may not care what our 500 friends ate of dinner on Instagram, but my goodness, as an informational professional we should have a thing or two to say about it to a patron.
*gets off soap box*
Monday, September 8, 2014
Information Literacy: Post 1
What is information literacy?
When I was an undergraduate student, one of my professors often commented on what he considered to be the difference between "knowledge" and "information." There is plenty of information in our lives. We live in an information-heavy society; the internet is the "information superhighway," --we are bombarded with information--ads, blogs, walls, likes, comments, .gov,.org,.com, newspapers, billboards, church signs, airplane banners, chocolate wrappers. Some studies indicate that the number of ad messages we are exposed to per day is around 5,000. There are over 152 million blogs online (as of last year), and over 644 million active websites.
So how did my professor define knowledge?
That's a great question.
Knowledge, to him, was what was true (which can loosely be defined as credible, useful information, because in all honesty, what is "true?"). As budding scholars, my undergraduate class was presented with the responsibility of being able to distinguish between information and knowledge. It was our duty to weed out the opinion blogs and make sure every website ended in practically anything but .com. When presented with a piece of information, we needed to know what to do with it.
That is what information literacy is, to me.
Being presented with some piece of information and knowing what to do with it.
For example, if I presented you with this piece of information:
13 people are killed each year by vending machines falling on them.
What would you do with it? Hopefully, you would begin to formulate some thoughts.
Is this true? Who is April Youngblood, and is she a vending machine scholar? Did she get this statistic from a vending machine scholar? What is her source? If her source is credible, does that mean I should stop shaking the vending machine when it doesn't deposit my Bugels promptly enough?
Then, you might take some action.
I am going to look up this statistic and see if I can verify its accuracy.
(and, if it is accurate)
I am never going to stand under another vending machine again.
Information literacy involves thinking critically and applying what you've learned to your situation. It is sifting through all the information our society presents us with and figuring out what to do with it.
Shifting Gears: Instructional Literacy
There are four components of instructional literacy, or, what I understand to be "learning how to teach." These four components and my experience with each of them are below.
Reflective practice: Or, becoming a better teacher as you teach. The book humorously describes this as "moxie," or nerve (xvii). The less prepared I feel when I'm teaching, whether it's teaching the front stroke or King Lear, the more panicked I feel, and the less likely I am to learn anything while I'm going along. Note to self: be a prepared instructor.
Educational theory: Or, Teachers teaching teachers how to teach. In undergrad I took a tutoring course, but in all honesty I barely remember it. I feel as though the most I've learned in my teaching career I've learned from observing other teachers. But I suppose theory is valuable too!
Teaching technologies: Or, what physical tools do you use while you teach? This past spring I participated in 23 Mobile Things which was a great time to learn some handy apps for personal and professional use. If you are interested in which apps I learned about, you can browse the earlier posts in this blog!
Instructional Design: Or, the best way to integrate your knowledge and tools to effectively design a great course. I was an Instructional Design assistant at Northwestern College for a year and a half. At the time, I honestly had no idea that the tasks I performed would eventually help me with my library career! I helped design syllabi, research technology trends, choose course materials, and process course evaluations. You never know what life experiences will come in handy!
When I was an undergraduate student, one of my professors often commented on what he considered to be the difference between "knowledge" and "information." There is plenty of information in our lives. We live in an information-heavy society; the internet is the "information superhighway," --we are bombarded with information--ads, blogs, walls, likes, comments, .gov,.org,.com, newspapers, billboards, church signs, airplane banners, chocolate wrappers. Some studies indicate that the number of ad messages we are exposed to per day is around 5,000. There are over 152 million blogs online (as of last year), and over 644 million active websites.
So how did my professor define knowledge?
That's a great question.
Knowledge, to him, was what was true (which can loosely be defined as credible, useful information, because in all honesty, what is "true?"). As budding scholars, my undergraduate class was presented with the responsibility of being able to distinguish between information and knowledge. It was our duty to weed out the opinion blogs and make sure every website ended in practically anything but .com. When presented with a piece of information, we needed to know what to do with it.
That is what information literacy is, to me.
Being presented with some piece of information and knowing what to do with it.
For example, if I presented you with this piece of information:
13 people are killed each year by vending machines falling on them.
What would you do with it? Hopefully, you would begin to formulate some thoughts.
Is this true? Who is April Youngblood, and is she a vending machine scholar? Did she get this statistic from a vending machine scholar? What is her source? If her source is credible, does that mean I should stop shaking the vending machine when it doesn't deposit my Bugels promptly enough?
Then, you might take some action.
I am going to look up this statistic and see if I can verify its accuracy.
(and, if it is accurate)
I am never going to stand under another vending machine again.
Information literacy involves thinking critically and applying what you've learned to your situation. It is sifting through all the information our society presents us with and figuring out what to do with it.
Shifting Gears: Instructional Literacy
There are four components of instructional literacy, or, what I understand to be "learning how to teach." These four components and my experience with each of them are below.
Reflective practice: Or, becoming a better teacher as you teach. The book humorously describes this as "moxie," or nerve (xvii). The less prepared I feel when I'm teaching, whether it's teaching the front stroke or King Lear, the more panicked I feel, and the less likely I am to learn anything while I'm going along. Note to self: be a prepared instructor.
Educational theory: Or, Teachers teaching teachers how to teach. In undergrad I took a tutoring course, but in all honesty I barely remember it. I feel as though the most I've learned in my teaching career I've learned from observing other teachers. But I suppose theory is valuable too!
Teaching technologies: Or, what physical tools do you use while you teach? This past spring I participated in 23 Mobile Things which was a great time to learn some handy apps for personal and professional use. If you are interested in which apps I learned about, you can browse the earlier posts in this blog!
Instructional Design: Or, the best way to integrate your knowledge and tools to effectively design a great course. I was an Instructional Design assistant at Northwestern College for a year and a half. At the time, I honestly had no idea that the tasks I performed would eventually help me with my library career! I helped design syllabi, research technology trends, choose course materials, and process course evaluations. You never know what life experiences will come in handy!
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