Monday, June 1, 2015

Final Project: Library Learnin'


While I have accurately outlined my thought process and application of #IDE15ALA in my four weeks of blogging for this course, we are charged with synthesizing all of our learning into one conclusive post. What follows is full outline of my course in

My teaching environment is an online module, or course, designed to introduce students to the specific, basic workings of the library and it's supporting resources. The course is aimed at all of the students in the Adult Studies and Graduate Studies programs, which means there will be a varying degree of comfortability with technology among those taking the course. However, even students very comfortable with their computers and an online environment need to know how our catalog and databases work, what resources they can access as students, and how to get research help if necessary. The learners will be at the associates, bachelors and masters level. The environmental questions I do not have answered is the timeline. After I complete the course creation, there will need to be some testing with students to estimate how much time it takes to move through the material. Then the curriculum coordinator for the AGS division will need to take a look and decided if it is a standalone course or will be added to the "seat time" of an already existing course.

The outcome goals for my students are very straightforward (which doesn't mean "simple") and are primarily skills-oriented. What I like about the freedom of creating a course module is that the learning goals are very specific and task oriented. Each lesson is designed around one learning goals, instead of trying to fit all 14 into one library session.

My foundational goals that I outlined in Week 2 still apply:
  1. That there are a lot of library services available to them that they can access, but that access comes in a variety of ways. This is just a reality of all the systems libraries have to manage, and though we do our best to limit "friction," some resources use their school ID number, some use their NET-ID login information, and for some resources they create their own account, but with their school contact information. 
  2. There is an understanding that they should be able to navigate their way through many online systems. 
  3. Always Ask-A-Librarian! 
The additional goals are in the blog post and are also very important, but  if every student can at least recognize and understand those three concepts, then I consider the course a success. 

Assessment for any learning goals takes intentional thinking. I plan on using a combination of assessments throughout the course. There is the basic "yes/no" assessment of skills: "have you successfully created a library account and placed a hold on an item?" Either they have done it, or they haven't and it's pretty easy to figure that out. But I also plan to incorporate more formative assessments throughout the course, where they have a hypothetical problem to solve and have to actually write down the procedure themselves for finding a scholarly article, for example. This gives the students and opportunity to rephrase the steps in their own language and hopefully they will do the steps as they formulate their answers, which reinforces the skills. Their reflection writing will also give the instructors- librarians or content professors- to see where students may have missed a step or are struggling with a concept. This in turn allows the librarian to address that when they come in for face-to-face instruction. 

 
As I mentioned in my Week 3 blog post, I enjoyed reading about learning theories, and I did back when I was an education major too.  It is essential to understand how the brain works if you want to teach anything; and not just how the brain works in general, but how complex the brain is, processing different kinds of information in different cortex's and how all of those parts work together to create knowledge. I focused on behaviorism, because so much of my outcomes are skills based. I ultimately want students to master the basic areas of creating accounts for different systems, which I believe will help them take control of their own learning. Once that foundation is laid, constructivism can happen (creating their own knowledge) and can be applied in any context.  This is why I plan on using different forms of assessment. The sense of accomplishment at working through library systems will provoke extrinsic motivation and incorporate behaviorism, while the formative assessments allow students to construct meaning with regard to what they are learning. 

Content delivery is never easy, whether in a face-to-face setting or online. But there are a number of educational tools that I'm excited about using for this class. 

  1. The class will be delivered online. This means students have to get comfortable with the campus LMS and will begin the habit of using it with regularity. 
  2. The students will be accessing library resources online from the beginning. This is how they will use the library throughout their program, so the introduction should be online as well. 
  3. I have created, and will continue to do so video tutorials on YouTube for reminders on how to navigate and access library resources. For the module, I will combine these resources with EdPuzzle to create some immediate recall opportunities. 
  4. For encouraging feedback, badges will be awarded as students move through the lessons. 
I feel like these are good tools that are also flexible in nature. If something else come along that can do a better job, none of these are so involved that I can't quickly adjust my delivery method or enforcement. 

The most useful aspect of the course has been taking the time to map out my thoughts on information literacy. As I'm sure many of my classmates will agree, it is so hard to change our approaches to teaching "library stuff." The reason I signed up for this course was to have the accountability in place to just do it.  I am still struggling with the actual course creation- I have created the shell in Moodle but need to continue to carve out time to add the tutorials and the assessments in there. But I am more confident to do so because I have my handy Instructional Design Worksheet to guide the specific aspects of the module. The obvious lessons is to schedule time to work on this so it doesn't drag on and turn into "an idea I had once."  I hope to now have a more thoughtful approach to instruction and the ideas and conversation has made me more courageous in trying new methods and tools in all my instruction, not just the module I'm designing now. 

I also really enjoyed the readings on critical pedagogy and while I didn't specifically apply it in this course, it gave me some approaches and concepts to pursue with specific faculty  in the future.  It was an area of research I have wanted to know more about so the readings and discussions opened the door into that academic conversation. What I find challenging about critical library pedagogy is the tension between building up a students' skill level and mastery of information systems and breaking down the understanding of those systems. It doesn't me we should can't engage in this kind of thought and teaching, but I do think it needs a framework and reasoning behind it's use.

And now, I dance. 



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