In the Library with the Lead Pipe is pleased to welcome guest authors Iris Jastram, Danya Leebaw, and Heather Tompkins.  They are reference and instruction librarians at Carleton College, a small liberal arts college in Minnesota.

Becoming forensic librarians

Image by smwright

“Wait, this is information literacy?” a rhetorician at our workshop exclaimed in excited surprise. “But this is so cool!” And we wanted to respond “YES!” not only from joyful pride but also out of recognition. After all, we too had had very similar reactions to our own work with information literacy, and not that long ago. We too had realized that information literacy could be different than we had originally thought (or that the ACRL information literacy standards had led us to believe). Information literacy could be more alive and integrated within the discourse of academic work. It could be more applicable across disciplines and genres and rhetorical goals. And these revelations remapped our practice.

Just two summers earlier we had pored over some sample papers pulled from Carleton College’s Sophomore Writing Portfolio submissions, debating whether we could see information literacy at work in those papers and if so, exactly what we could see. We couldn’t see the processes by which the students arrived at their final work or the assignments that prompted and guided them. All we had were the completed papers and a nagging sense of unease about what we could meaningfully say about information literacy in student writing based solely on samples of student writing.

As the hours ticked by, though, realization began to dawn. We had always said that information literacy was more than a discrete set of research skills, but when it came right down to it we had nearly always taught a set of research skills (cf Jacobs 2008, Simmons 2005, or Swanson 2004). We worked with students to help them develop researchable questions, formulate search strategies, evaluate what they find, and cite sources. We collaborated with faculty to help them design assignments that would lead students through these complex and iterative steps. These practices were good and valuable, but we now recognized them as only the beginning. Reading the finished papers themselves, we realized not only that research skills were hard to observe with any consistency, but also that we could trace the far richer information literacy habits of mind. We could be forensic librarians reconstructing our students’ understanding of the ways sources function in academic work based on the often subtle patterns left woven through the finished writing. These patterns coalesced around three dimensions, Attribution, Evaluation, and Communication, that we codified into a rubric and used to help us investigate our students’ habits of mind.

Attribution

We were surprised to find that we couldn’t really assess how well students followed citation style guidelines (one of the things we originally thought would be especially easy to see) because there are just too many citation styles and because many professors tell their students that “it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re consistent.” However, we found that we could see how well students guided their readers through the distinctions between their own thoughts and the thoughts of others and how well they helped their readers understand the nature of their sources. It became clear that teaching attribution as a habit of mind rather than citation as a rote skill would not only improve our students’ writing, but would also help them understand how sources function in academic writing in the first place.

So now when we teach, we help students understand citation as context. We emphasize that students can build contexts for themselves by paying attention to the contexts other scholars have built for them in the literature. Then we talk about how it is the students’ job to build similar contexts for their readers, and that this can help them decide what sources and citations belong in their papers. They can decide whether something counts as “common knowledge” by putting themselves in their readers’ shoes and wondering whether their readers would like to have the option of knowing more about that topic, and if so, leave them a citation to use as a starting place. Thinking of their own classmates as their “community of inquiry” we have them develop citation styles that would be instant context-building tools for their community, privileging information that matters to their classmates and leaving out extraneous identifiers. Then we explain how the citation style for their discipline performs that same function. This shift toward concentrating on the uses and functions of attribution breathes life into an otherwise stultifying topic, but more importantly it places students in the role of helpful knowledge creators rather than information compilers and potential plagiarists.

Evaluation

When we turned to the question of how students evaluate sources, the pattern emerged again. It turned out that we could tell very little about whether students had managed to uncover core resources or spread their wings beyond JSTOR. Instead, what we could see was whether or not students made compelling cases for their sources being the right sources for their papers. What’s more, once we knew what we were seeing, we could trace these same intellectual habits through papers that only included primary sources since selecting those sources is also an intellectual choice that involves matching evidence and claim. This insight helped us shift our instruction yet again.

Suddenly we realized that we could work with professors who often prefer not to include a research paper but still want to include an information literacy component in their courses, and with this realization, whole expanses of the curriculum opened up to us in ways that had seemed impossible just months earlier. We could work more closely with our language and literature departments, which place great emphasis on reading and writing about literature and far less emphasis on research. In these “non-research” classes students can analyze secondary literature that makes claims using similar types of sources to see what aspects of those sources are important to skilled scholars. We teach students to explore sources that will help them understand their primary sources well enough to see what might constitute an interesting question to ask of the source.

Even with more traditional research-based assignments, we shifted our teaching after realizing that students had been understanding the research process as one of gathering “everything” related to their topics and reporting on what they had gathered. Now we discuss bibliographies as representations of intellectual choice designed to present the most convincing claims possible, guiding the reader toward agreement with the claim by presenting the most convincing evidence possible. Bibliographies are rhetorical tools, too, not simply lists.

Communication

While all of the dimensions we identified have to do with communication, this dimension is distinct in that it focuses on how well students use the evidence that they’ve found instrumentally in the service of their own goals rather than ceding the main thrust of the paper to outside voices. In strong papers, students marshaled their evidence while maintaining their own voice and their own sense of purpose. In weaker papers, on the other hand, patch writing¹ and excessive citation signaled fundamental confusion about the sources themselves and the purposes for drawing on the works of others in the first place. Oddly, one of our most transformative findings felt the most obvious: students have to actually read and understand their source material, really integrate it into their thinking, before they can synthesize those sources into their own arguments effectively.

Of course, we aren’t content specialists. Yet, this insight helps us continuously improve how we teach familiar topics, like literature reviews. We recognized that students don’t actually know what a “literature review” means and what it is, really, that they are being asked to do in their papers. Backing up and deconstructing these as much as possible, we connect the notion of literature reviews with creativity, intellectual choice, and disciplinary conventions by showing an in-class video about originality, teaching students mindmapping, or having a class create research journals using Google Docs. Students also get a laugh out of demonstrations of bad literature reviews as conversations in which one person simply mimics or paraphrases another person. Acknowledging and summarizing previous points in a conversation is important but simply listing those points is socially and academically weak.

Looking toward the future

Reading papers and working with faculty and students in these new ways have opened up opportunities for more integrated and enlivened collaborations both with departments having deeply entrenched information literacy curricula and with departments that have not typically seen information literacy as highly relevant for their students. Emphasizing a “habits of mind” approach rather than a skill set approach, we are remapping our practice in ways that resonate more strongly with faculty and students across disciplines and courses on our campus. Information literacy is truly a “critical literacy” now, encompassing “the ability to read, interpret, and produce information valued in academia” (Elmborg 2006).

So yes, this is information literacy. And yes, information literacy is so cool.

Many thanks to our colleagues in the Carleton College Gould Library Reference & Instruction Department who together created this rubric, the design of the Information Literacy in Student Writing study, and with whom we shaped the thoughts and practices discussed here. Thanks also to Lead Pipers Ellie Collier and Eric Frierson and to Steve Lawson for helpful comments and edits.

Works Cited:

Elmborg, James. 2006. “Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 32 (2): 192-199.

Howard, Rebecca Moore. 1999. Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators. Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishers.

——, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. 2010. “Writing from sources, writing from sentences.” Writing & Pedagogy 2 (2): 177-192.

Jacobs, H. L. M. 2008. “Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 (3) (May): 256-262.

Simmons, Michelle Holschuh. 2005. “Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators: Using Genre Theory to Move Toward Critical Information Literacy.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5 (3): 297-311.

Swanson, Troy A. 2004. “A Radical Step: Implementing A Critical Information Literacy Model.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 4 (2): 259-273.

1. Patch writing refers to the practice of gathering verbatim passages from various sources and then piecing them together, much like a patchwork quilt, with connecting words and sentences. The term was coined by Rebecca Moore Howard in her 1999 work Standing in the Shadow of Giants.

Librarians are always struggling to convince someone of something: convincing voters to say ‘yes’ to a library bond; persuading a library director to invest in a text-messaging reference tool; trying to get students to use library resources instead of Google. One of the most effective ways to be successful is to learn the art of “making it their idea.”

In his book, The Education of an Accidental CEO, David Novak (2009) illustrates a crucial idea in advertising a product:

You can tell people to go out and buy something, but that doesn’t make them do it. But if you appeal to both the head and the heart in a compelling and relevant way, then people will come up with the idea to buy of their own accord (p. 44).

Novak goes on to describe how Nike uses minimal language in its commercials, never telling viewers to buy their shoes. Instead, they fill the screen with images of professional athletes performing amazing feats in their products. The idea is to let the customer come to the conclusion that Nike shoes will help them accomplish their athletic goals.

In fact, very few advertisements tell people explicitly to do anything. They present information that leads customers to come up with the idea of buying their product on their own.

Convincing people by “making it their idea” isn’t unique to marketing. In Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up (Bing, 2003), there’s a chapter devoted to “convincing the elephant that it was the elephant’s idea” (followed by “Getting Drunk with the Elephant” and “Frightening the Elephant with Mice”). Though done with a little more tongue-in-cheek panache, this book highlights the usefulness of the concept in leadership and management.

Why does this approach work so well? Business people might argue that “making it their idea” is an ego boost managers need in order to act on something. However, educators have long understood the value in letting people come to their own conclusions, and it has less to do with ego than it does with the way the brain learns. People feel a rush of pride when they come up with ideas, solutions and concepts for themselves and see the value in what they have just learned much more clearly than if they had simply been told a good idea. When it comes to seeing the value in libraries and their resources, we need to leverage a mode of teaching that allows students to experience information literacy concepts in this way.

The Learning Cycle

In The Learning Cycle, Ann Cavallo and Edmond Marek (1997) describe a teaching technique used in science education that presents students with deliberately confusing or confounding situations. With minimal instruction, students try to make sense of these situations based on prior knowledge, observation, and experimentation. At its core, the learning cycle method embodies the nature of science and helps students develop critical thinking skills.

Cavallo (2008) describes an example of the learning cycle, illustrating how it works. In an activity called “The New Society,” a small subset of a class is sent outside while the instructor tells the remaining students that they are a new society with three simple rules:

1. They can only say the words ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
2. They only respond to people of the same gender and ignore those of opposite gender.
3. Regardless of the question, they always respond ‘yes’ if the questioner is smiling and always respond ‘no’ if the questioner is not smiling.

The students sent outside (called ‘the anthropologists’) are asked to find out as much information as they can about this new society that has recently been discovered on a remote island.

As the anthropologists move about the classroom, they are confronted with confounding answers. They quickly discover the first rule through their initial observations. The second rule takes more time – often students will develop hypotheses and test them on students leading to the discovery of the second rule.

The third rule is much more difficult to figure out. Students feel frustration, anxiety and impatience. Proclamations of “They’re lying!” and “They answer randomly!” are flung about until they finally figure out the third rule.

Throughout this process, the teacher simply provides guiding questions when people get stuck, on occasion reminding them how scientists find things out by making hypotheses and testing them out.

Two results of this lesson for students: utter joy or relief from solving a frustrating problem and experience working in a confusing environment but inventing a solution to a problem themselves (without the instructor providing the answer).  The joy or relief is what builds a love of learning into the experience, and the act of inventing a solution is critical thinking in action.

How People Learn

While many of us have been told that active learning and critical thinking are vital for our information literacy programs, very few of us understand the ‘how’ and even fewer the ‘why.’

Active learning is important because it more closely models the way that humans learn. Experiments carried out by Piaget (1973) and other noted educational psychologists (Renner & Marek, 1988; Inhelder & Piaget, 1969) indicate that all learning begins with data collection (called assimilation in Renner & Marek, 1990).

This assimilation can be the observation of a phenomenon or reading of new materials. In many cases, the new data is incongruous with the learner’s current view of the world, and they can’t make sense of it.

The next step in learning is trying to make sense of the new information (called accommodation in Renner & Marek, 1990). Critical thinking skills are developed during this phase as learners make sense of the new information by inventing rules, testing hypotheses, and changing their world view in light of this new data.

In this stage, they are no longer just memorizing information or learning a series of clicks; rather, they are actively inventing new ways of understanding the world and taking ownership of the knowledge they’re creating.

The final step is called organization (Renner & Marek, 1990), and this is when they use their newly created knowledge and skills to solve other problems, and figuring out where else their new knowledge can be applied.

The learning cycle instructional method – giving students a new situation, asking them to make sense of it, and serving merely as a guide in their process – models the way people learn, and as a result, generates authentic, meaningful learning experiences for students. Compared to lectures or demonstrations where students are told what the answers are and then perform exercises that verify that what they are told is correct, they are making the new knowledge out of their own ideas.

Library Instruction as Science?

Modeling instructional activities after the way people learn is vital for making learning experiences that ‘stick.’ Typical library instruction involves copious amounts of “click here, then click here, and once you’re there, click here.” There’s little discovery or invention of core information literacy concepts. Students are told how to use information resources, told how to use citation styles, and told the consequences of unethical use of information. How can we make discovery of information literacy concepts more… scientific? Can students invent information literacy concepts on their own, given a scenario and a librarian as a guide?

Let’s take peer reviewed journals as an example. At its worst, library instruction on this topic is equivalent to “Check this box for peer reviewed articles in your results. It’s what your professors want.” This kind of instruction not only goes against the way people learn new ideas, but also undermines the importance of the peer review process by reducing it to “because your professor wants it.”

Active learning can be used to get students to explore issues of peer reviewed journals and have them compare them to magazine or popular literature. While this introduces the element of discovery and active learning, it’s only discovering the difference between the two types of publications, not the importance of the peer review process. If a librarian in this class room tells them why peer review is important, even after this activity, it’s still telling, not students discovering.

Instead, I develop learning cycles that reflect how people learn. In this instance, I give students a situation where they don’t have an answer but must work together to solve a problem. I tell students they have decided to start a magazine and they want to publish the best, newest research done in educational psychology (or whatever field they’re majoring in). Unlike TIME or Newsweek, their articles should be useful for researchers who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge in their field. They plan on sending out a call across the Internet asking for people to send in their best papers for the magazine.

I then ask the students to come up with a method for judging how good a paper they receive is and let them go to it. As they come up with criteria (e.g., “It has to be undiscovered knowledge” and “It must be based on sound evidence”), I ask how they, as college students, will be able to tell what’s good and what’s not. Who is qualified to answer those questions? How will they, as the editors, use these people?

As they work to create this new publication, they will be inventing peer review. Peer review will be an idea that they came up with themselves. They may call it something else, but the core purposes of peer review will be in their responses. As a library instructor, my goal is to guide them with questions that challenge their thoughts, and finally, give it the label of ‘peer reviewed’ once they’ve established the concept.

This lesson models how the mind actually works.

There Isn’t Time!

Learning cycles, like the one described above, take lots more time. It would have taken at most two or three minutes to explain peer review and have students tell you why it is an important feature of scholarly research. However, if students don’t invent it, it’s much less likely to stick.

The learning cycle on the other hand would take twenty or thirty minutes. Librarians don’t have the luxury of time!

There are some solutions. In an article for the Texas Library Journal, Jeremy Donald suggests a model of library instruction that offloads most of the technical details to online tutorials and learning modules (see “Step 6” in Donald, 2010). This enables library instruction to devote needed time to the learning cycle.

Donald’s model requires librarians to think about the instructional needs of student in a different way. Rather than think linearly about what skills and knowledge students need to have, think about the tasks they need to do in order of difficulty or complexity. What parts of the lesson will be most confusing and most important? Identify one or two concepts, and plan on spending at least half of your time on those topics, including time students explore new tools and ideas independently and running learning cycle-style lessons.

The rest of the time is devoted to brief introductions and answering questions. This type of model not only creates the time needed to run meaningful, engaging lessons on key topics, it forces library instructors to identify what those core topics are, the first step in developing good learning cycle lesson plans.

Developing Learning Cycles

With that said, the first step in developing a learning cycle lesson plan is to identify those core concepts students should learn. For example, for a lesson on plagiarism, some of the topics that may come up are:

• What is plagiarism?
• What are the penalties for academic dishonesty?
• How do you effectively use quotes or paraphrasing?
• How do you cite articles using a specific citation style?

Of these, I see the second (academic dishonesty policies) and the fourth (mechanics of citation) as topics that could easily be off-loaded to online tutorials or even printed brochures. There’s no need to spend time in class covering these topics, short of connecting students with resources to learn more about them and their importance.

The other two are great topics for learning cycles. I usually approach these topics from a personal perspective: how did I come to understand these concepts myself? What’s important about them? How can I create situations or activities that will lead students to invent the concepts on their own?

At its core, avoiding plagiarism means giving credit for someone else’s work. How can I get students to come to understand this concept without simply telling it to them?

Before I tell students what the class is about, I ask them to take out a sheet of paper and be prepared to write down the first word or phrase that comes to mind after I say a secret word. When students are ready, I shout, “Plagiarism!” They scribble words and phrases down then I ask them to hold up their papers. Words associated with malicious cheating usually crop up: stealing, dishonest, and sometimes lazy.

I then ask them to take on the role of summer school teacher with an imaginary group of low-performing students in an English class. They are told they’ve received a paper from a student written fairly poorly, but right in the middle, a sentence or two of pure academic gold. What happened? When they say “Plagiarism!” I ask them to describe the actual events and student actions that led up to this. I ask them to think about student motivation and behavior, and I prompt them with questions like, “What was going through the student’s mind when they pulled in these sentences into this document?”

What results is astounding. Students describe quite innocent situations: perhaps the student didn’t know that copy-and-pasting information without quotes was wrong; maybe they couldn’t find an author on the website and assumed you didn’t need to cite anonymous sources; or perhaps it was malicious cheating.

Usually students don’t view this situation as the latter. Instead, they’re forced to revise their own definitions of plagiarism based on the critical examination of the scenario they were presented with. Plagiarism is no longer cheating or stealing… so what is it?

Again, these discussions take time, but they’re valuable experiences that students will be able to apply in more situations.  In these scenarios, students are employing critical thinking skills – they are working through problems by discussing them with peers, proposing potential solutions, and evaluating their own and others’ responses. There’s more to a learning cycle than rote memorization of the concepts the instructor intends to teach; instead, it’s problem solving.

Conclusion

Library instructors should develop a “less is more” philosophy. There is real value in spending time on learning cycles because it does more than just pay lip service to active learning and critical thinking – it helps students develop them.

Faculty members and students alike may be anxious if they don’t get the step-by-step instructions they’re used to from the library session. Combating this expectation is our challenge. Donald (2010) also addresses buy-in and collaboration as a way of preparing faculty members for these kinds of drastic changes to the typical library session.

Appropriately, Donald says, “They are likely to wait to hear your ideas before introducing their own, and they may re-state an idea of yours as one of their own. This is to be encouraged, as it signals their investment in the collaboration and its outcome” (2010, 129). How’s that for “making it their idea?”

For a visual representation of Jeremy Donald’s instructional design model, see his slides from a recent Texas Library Association webinar, titled “Technology & Information Literacy Instruction: A Model for Active Learning Environments” at http://bit.ly/cpt6ON.

Thanks to Michelle Millet, Ellie Collier, and Kim Leeder for their feedback on this post.

References

Bing, S. (2002). Throwing the elephant: Zen and the art of managing up. New York: HarperBusiness.

Cavallo, A. M. L. (2008). Experiencing the nature of science: An interactive, beginning-of-semester activity. Journal of College Science Teaching, 37(5), 12-15.

Donald, J. (2010). Using technology to support faculty and enhance coursework at academic institutions. Texas Library Journal, 85(4), 129-131. Retrieved from http://www.txla.org/ce/Collaboration/Donald.pdf.

Inhelder, B. & Piaget, J. (1969). The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Marek, E. A. & Cavallo, A. M. L. (1997). The learning cycle: Elementary school science and beyond. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Novak, D. (2009). The education of an accidental CEO: Lessons learned from the trailer park to the corner office. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Piaget, J. (1973). Psychology of intelligence. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams and Co.

Renner, J.W. & Marek, E.A. (1988). The learning cycle and elementary school science teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Renner, J.W. & Marek, E.A. (1990). An educational theory base for science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27(3), 241-246.

Photo by Flickr user Nathan deGargoyle

Recently I was lucky enough to come across the publication of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace in 2005 to a group of wide-eyed graduates from Kenyon College. While it’s difficult to sum up what one takes away from a four-year-degree, this particular rumination helps to qualify the value of a liberal arts education by hitting home a simple metaphor.

Wallace starts with a joke about fish. One looks to the other and says, “So, how’s the water?” The other fish replies, “What’s water?” The speech goes on to point out that a liberal arts education opens our eyes to the world around us by providing experiences that help us move beyond our assumptions. Situations and phenomena in our daily lives become more nuanced and complicated.

Helping students “see the water” is at the heart of the information literacy teaching that librarians-as-educators do. When I think globally about information literacy and what’s outlined by the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards, it seems we want students to open their eyes to the world of information. We want them to recognize that finding and using information isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Not so that they’ll shy away, but instead, graduate with the abilities and understandings they need to shed assumptions, ask questions, and navigate an ever-changing information landscape.

The individual goals and means of library instruction programs may vary, but some form of teaching happens at most academic libraries. Librarians’ teaching takes the form of hosting workshops, teaching courses, and being there for students when and where they need us, from reference desks to chat rooms. And our teaching efforts are driven by goals for student learning, with the hope that we can play an active role in graduating information literate students–eyes wide open in the fish bowl.

But this is a lot to accomplish in a never-ending stream of one-shot library workshops. At this collective realization a few years ago, the librarians at my library decided to face it head on. Not that we thought one-shots weren’t effective, just that we weren’t sure what they were accomplishing, exactly. Plus we were spending a lot of time teaching freshman how to find a book and an article and releasing them into the research paper abyss, and we wanted to consider other forms of teaching.

I know we’re not alone in grappling with this conundrum and I hope to hear how you and your library are working to address our shared challenge: how to design an instruction program that meets our learning goals for students.

A bit of background

To begin addressing the learning goals we had for students, we first looked to the first-year writing courses that streamed through the library, English 101 and English 102. As is most likely the case in academic libraries across the country, we had been actively trying to reach as many students with foundational information literacy know-how in their first years of academic work. No matter how tailored our instruction was to a given assignment, we still felt a bit like broken records; each workshop needed to cover the “basics” and we rarely got past the book-and-article routine. We were left unsure of the impact of our efforts. Like ducks in a pond, we appeared calm atop while our feet below paddled furiously to keep up.  So we began dreaming up our ideal instructional opportunity: a foundational information literacy course that gave students the time and space to meet the learning goals we set for them.

Though Boise State University’s library has been teaching a one-credit library research skills class for the past decade or so, it had yet to reach its potential. Titled University 106: Library research, it has historically been a self-paced course that has students complete a series of question-and-answer worksheets, for instance: “go to the Library of Congress Subject headings and find a narrower term for sports accidents.” More recently it has evolved into a project-based course where students continuously work towards several small or one more substantial culminating paper, bibliography or presentation.

In the past two years, we’ve thrown the course into perpetual beta, ever evolving the curriculum, and have been testing the waters by experimenting with how the course is taught: in-person, online, and as a themed course (for example, one semester we “themed” two courses by focusing on Business Resources and Diversity). We’ve also continuously expanded our offerings of Univ106 from one large section to 23 sections this spring semester, taught by 13 librarians.

The in-person sections of Univ106 typically meet once a week for an hour in one of the computer classrooms in the library. There is also variation in how the online sections are offered. We have one large stand-alone, self-paced course that is capped at 150 students and team-taught by two librarians. We host this online course through Blackboard, our campus course management system, in order to use the time-saving features such as automatic grading for quizzes. We also offer smaller sections online, capped at 25 students, that make use of a variety of tools, including wikis, blogs, Google Sites and Blackboard.

While all Univ106 courses share standard learning outcomes, librarians have free rein to design experiences, activities and assignments that map how students get there. This freedom has led to a lot of creativity and experimentation with teaching techniques–from active learning to building video tutorials. Here’s an example of a typical weekly assignment in the revamped University 106. A student is first asked to find a newspaper article that mentions research on their topic. As a next step, the student is asked to track down the original research article mentioned in the newspaper article. The student then answer a series of questions about the authorship, audience and kind of information they find in each article. This exercise would be supported with how-to instructional videos, step-by-step directions, and worksheets that scaffold the process. As an instructional team, Boise State librarians have shared with one another while developing their own course content. I’ve learned a great amount from my colleagues as we’ve rolled up our sleeves and mucked around in the messy art of teaching.

Student learning has been the focus throughout all of this experimentation. The first semester I taught Univ106 I had my 25 students work towards creating or editing a Wikipedia entry of their choice. They were to add significant content with the support of at least 10  information sources–their justified “top 10” resources on a topic. A lot of things went well that semester: students showed up for our hour of class each week, performed the research-related tasks I asked of them, and even seemed to get excited when it came time to edit Wikipedia live. But at the end of the semester I was left with a sinking hunch that students weren’t making connections between what they learned in Univ106 and the research they would need to do for future courses; a hunch I’ve yet to confirm, but about which I am still curious. We’ll get to more on assessment in a bit.

The problem was I spent much of that first semester fabricating a reason for my students to do academic research. By choosing Wikipedia as the genre for their final project, I’d tried to create a context that was meaningful for them (beyond, “because I said so”), but I still felt as if a majority of the students were a bit too complacent about the work. I was left wondering how to better tap into their innate curiosity; I wanted my students to have genuine questions, an authentic information need to satisfy. But was I asking too much? University 106 is a one-credit pass/fail class, after all. That’s a lot of enthusiasm and engagement to expect for one credit.

Pairing University 106 with English 102

Armed with a renewed enthusiasm for teaching, and with our eyes on the prize–laying a foundation of information literacy in the first years at Boise State –we looked to trends and best practices in the profession. Embedded librarianship has received a lot of interest in recent years, and seems to have had some success as a method of teaching information literacy skills to students at the point of need (Bowler & Street, 2008). The basic idea is to teach more than a one-time workshop in support of a project. Instead, the embedded librarian has an ongoing  instructional presence in a course or project-based situation, either online or in person through a series of tailored workshops. With embedded librarianship in mind, we embarked on a series of conversations with the First Year Writing Program to explore possibilities.

As in many academic libraries, our instruction program had for several years been targeting our teaching efforts towards English 102: Research Writing for a variety of reasons. As the course title indicates, the focus of course is to develop research-based writing abilities, and so is a good fit for library research instruction. Engl102 is also a course all students are required to take and usually take in their first year at Boise State, which opens to the door to the possibility of reaching most incoming students with meaningful information literacy instruction. So librarians set out to proactively explore how to partner with Engl102 faculty in the development of our instructional offerings so that we could identify and meet student needs.

Targeting collaborations with Engl102 also made sense because of existing partnerships with faculty in the First Year Writing Program. Thomas Peele, First Year Writing Program Assistant Director, had already been leading a curricular change to emphasize research (Peele & Phipps, 2007). Based on annual assessments of student work, the First Year Writing Program had identified students’ limited research skills as needing additional instruction. When I started at Boise State University I had assumed that building relationships with key campus partners would take years, but instead I was able to hit the ground running. Within a year of my arrival, we were already discussing possibilities for co-teaching courses or pairing English 102 with University 106 as co-requisites, and the more we talked, the more the doors kept opening wider. It’s been an instruction librarian’s dream come true; a collaboration and mutual goal to support student learning.

So, we’d found our match. The next step was to align the work librarians had been doing to redesign Univ106 with the instructional needs presented in Engl102.

PoWeR-up!

In spring 2009 Kim Leeder and I embarked on teaching four sections of linked Univ106/Engl102 courses, taking two each. Students co-enrolled in paired courses of Engl102 and Univ106. Of course, we needed to come up with a catchy way for students to recognize this new offering, and so it became Project Writing and Research (PoWeR). We pitched it to students as a combined four-credit experience that would strengthen their research-writing skills. University 106 would act as a research lab for writing assignments in English 102 and the curricula would align so that the courses would be mutually supportive at the day-to-day level. Kim and I met individually with our English faculty counterparts and designed a series of weekly activities and developed shared assignments that directly supported the research-based papers and projects students were working towards in Engl102.

Right away I felt a different level of engagement from my students. I didn’t have to spend as much time introducing the “why” for research; the context existed in the paper writing of English 102. I could instead spend more time helping students explore and refine a topic and make it interesting for themselves and their intended audience. Through their reflections and performance on assignments, it was clear students were seeing the applicability of the research side of things. I often received comments from a student who expressed in amazement that they were able to find articles for a biology assignment and other coursework. It was working! Students were becoming better researchers and beginning to understand how these skills could be applied beyond University 106.

Since then we’ve expanded PoWeR course offerings from 4 to 20 sections. This growth has been supported by a state funded grant aimed to integrate technology into teaching in higher education. We’ve spent the past fall leading a series of collaborative institutes in which librarians and English faculty worked together to build the combined English 102/University 106 curriculum and content. The institutes resulted in a series of University 106 modules of research instruction, including content, activities and assessment. The modules currently number 22 in all and cover topics from image and video searching to field research to crafting search terms. Librarians and English faculty also worked to create a combined course schedule in order to ensure the Univ106 modules directly supported the weekly writing and research expectations for Engl102.

This push towards offering 20 sections has been quite an effort for everyone involved. Collaborating closely with English faculty has made our course design that much richer and, well, more fun–certainly for us, and we hope for students as well.

Photo by Flickr user Nathan deGargoyle

But, did they really get it?

Assessment has been a key tool to aid our decision-making processes, from deciding on course offerings to how we deliver and design course content. It was clear early on that if we were to put intensive efforts towards Engl102 instruction, we needed to know if students were actually learning what we intended.

At the end of each semester we’ve collected portfolios of student work from PoWeR sections. The portfolios typically consist of final drafts of their major papers and a reflective letter in response to prompts on both their growth as a research and a writer. Librarians and English faculty developed a rubric to assess the quality of student work in terms of source variety, source appropriateness, citation use, and research strategies employed. The assessment of student work has proven to be an insightful lens into what they’re learning and what they’re not, and this has directly informed the development of course content. It’s also forced us to articulate what proficient research looks like.

The spring 2009 assessment made clear that PoWeR students were using a wider variety of higher quality sources in their work. They were also significantly more able to discuss their research strategies. Students in both PoWeR and non-PoWeR sections of English 102 struggled with citations. In response, we created an annotated bibliography assignment for use during the fall 2009 semester in order to provide formative feedback for students on citations prior to submitting a final draft. The upcoming portfolio assessment this spring will show us whether the added assignment improves student performance.

Course evaluations have also proven useful when considering course delivery and activities. Students made it clear the first semester we taught PoWeR that they would prefer a combined course schedule and course site. This seems like a logical consideration now, but it was reflective of librarians and English faculty still thinking of the courses as separate in that first semester. I think the steps we’ve taken in the last semester to build on our collaborative efforts with English faculty while growing the PoWeR program has helped to create a one-course experience for students.

Opportunities & challenges

Although I’m hopeful heading into the spring semester, I’m also aware of the challenges and opportunities ahead.

First and foremost teaching Univ106, in all of its many forms, has proven a wonderful opportunity for librarians to grow as educators. We have learned to see through the water along with our students, and will continue to learn how to teach in a way that students learn. It’s felt like a cultural shift in librarian identity; my colleagues and I have truly seen ourselves as responsible for students becoming information literate, and therefore had to fully embrace our role as campus educators. Having instructional partners in the English Department, and seeing our teaching from their perspective, has also positively influenced the way we see ourselves as educators.

But with the ultimate goal of reaching all incoming freshman, the task is a bit daunting with finite resources; good teaching takes time and effort. I’m not sure that we’ll ever be able to match Univ106 with all 70 sections of Engl102, but the challenge is there. We would need to develop a scaleable model of course design and delivery that doesn’t take us backwards when it comes to student learning.

Some librarians have expressed interest in matching a Univ106-like-course to key courses in their disciplines. This is a wonderful idea, one that would tier the library instruction program to reach our goal of graduating information literate students. But we can’t be everywhere and do everything, so our course offerings will need to grow and balance over time. The ultimate goal is to have the academic library remain at the heart of teaching and learning on campus to ensure our relevancy as an academic unit and support student success in meaningful ways.

As a next step, we’ll begin an assessment project this spring to follow Univ106 students into future courses and beyond. We’ll be curious to see if students are able to transfer the foundational information literacy skills into their upper division coursework. The hope is to be better informed about what research abilities they’re expected to have in future courses, and we’ll use this insight to inform our course learning outcomes. We’ll see if they’re in fact able to see the water.

Instruction librarians are faced with the challenge of how to design and deliver an instructional program that meets information literacy learning goals. I’d like to hear about the efforts librarians are making at your own institution to address the information literacy needs of your students. I look forward to learning from your comments.

• Bowler, M. & Street, K. (2008). Investigating the efficacy of embedment: Experiments in information literacy integration. Reference Services Review, 36(4), 439-449.
• Peele, T. & Phipps, G. (2007). Research instruction at the point of need: Information literacy and online tutorials. Computers and Composition.

I’d like to thank Ellie Dworak, Emily Ford, Kim Leeder, Ellie Collier and Derik Badman for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions for this post.  And a special thanks to Kim Leeder for offering the opportunity to reflect on our work.

Wordle cloud of participants' goals

Setting the Stage

Last fall, as a part of the Texas Library Association’s “Transforming” initiative, my library held its own transforming retreat. Austin Community College (ACC) Library Services has gone through a hiring spurt recently, adding 10 new full time librarians in just the last three years. This retreat brought together all 23 of us from across our seven campuses. We were told to bring any and all wild creative ideas. As is so often the case, we also brought some fairly practical ones. One of these was a request for training on how to teach. This came both from new librarians with no formal training in instruction and from veteran librarians who were interested in learning the current theories and best practices.

As a result, during the Spring semester of this year our dean, Dr. Julie Todaro, called a group of us together to begin planning an immersive teaching training program, aimed primarily at the newer librarians to get them comfortable and up to speed. After the initial brainstorming session (which was comprised mostly of the newest hires), a smaller group (with a higher ratio of more seasoned librarians) was designated as the planning team. This included three members of our Teaching Team, our Public Relations Facilitator and myself (as the representative from the Staff Development Team).

This post will walk you through our process in the hopes that you will find both inspiration and information to help you create your own training programs.

Getting the Team Together

The first step was assembling the planning team. While I wasn’t a part of this process, I can tell you some of the obvious considerations.

Do you have staff with relevant experience or expertise? Two members of our planning team had been through ACRL’s Immersion Program.

Does your library already have teams or committees that focus on certain areas? At ACC we are one library spread across seven campuses and (with a few exceptions) all of us hold the title Reference Librarian. Rather than having titled positions in charge of the various aspects of daily library life, each librarian is a member of at least one cross campus team. I am co-chair of the Staff Development Team, which is charged with identifying professional development needs and providing access to appropriate training. Our Teaching Team focuses on information literacy instruction. In addition to coordinating study guides and interaction with faculty, one of its many charges is to identify relevant information literacy training and development curriculum and coordinate librarians’ participation in these opportunities. Our PR Facilitator was also included in the planning team. Her initial inclusion was based on her past participation in the ACRL Immersion program, but as I’ll discuss later, it was incredibly beneficial to have someone who was able to contribute experience in marketing and event planning.

Planning and Decision Making

We started with some of the basics already assigned to us. For example, you will need to consider what you want your focus to be. We concentrated on pedagogy and theory. This was to be a grounding in the current understanding of teaching and learning and accompanying best practices. This was not the place for discussing our library’s programs and practices (although we did design a follow up forum for exactly that purpose). You will need to determine who should participate. Ideas that floated around in our discussions included: making it completely voluntary, requiring applications, and making it mandatory for everyone. Ours was open to all librarians but mandatory for the librarians who had been with the college for less than 5 years. For us, that turned out to be 12 participants plus two facilitators whose professional experience varied by decades – a good mix!

With our focus and audience selected, the team met to begin brainstorming, breaking down topics and creating timelines. We contacted colleagues at other institutions to find out if they had done anything similar and what their process had been. We read through syllabi and handouts from workshops, seminars and new faculty orientations.

We debated how much time we should devote to the program and settled on two days. We felt one day wasn’t enough time to cover everything we wanted to, but more than two days would be difficult for staffing and scheduling. We also struggled with when to hold the training. We had originally thought early August would be a good and relatively slow time, but realized some librarians would be off contract. However, if we postponed until the fall semester it would have a large effect on reference desk coverage. My campus, for example, had all three of our full time librarians in the required attendance category. Based on those two factors, we decided that the first week of the librarians’ return from summer session, which is also the week before classes start for the fall semester, although not perfect, would be the best possible time available to us and allow the most librarians the chance to participate.

Our next decision point was where to hold the camp. We considered our state library association’s facilities, our business center’s training rooms, and campus activity rooms. A high priority was that the atmosphere should evoke a feeling of being ‘away from the library’ so as to encourage the immersion experience. My vote went to my favorite faculty lounge, the one with the wood panel walls, comfy chairs and great views. As a much more welcoming place to spend our time, this is where we ended up.

Presenter AJ Johnson

Moving from logistics into content, one thing that emerged fairly early was the idea of a culminating activity. We felt that it is important to provide an opportunity for the participants to immediately practice the skills they had learned. After various iterations we settled on a five minute presentation with an assigned topic. We brainstormed a list of typical class assignments. At the first day’s lunch break, the librarians would select their assignment out of a hat and a number from a second hat to provide the presentation order. They were welcome to draw again, trade, or modify their assignment if they didn’t like it. We prepared more topics than there were attendees to facilitate swapping. The idea was to give a starting point to make it easier, not to tie them down. They would have two hours at the end of the first day to prepare their presentation. They could work alone or in groups and we would provide computers. There would be an extended lunch/work session on the second day to incorporate what they’d learned that morning after which they would give a five minute presentation as though the rest of us were students and that was our assignment. They needed to address at least two learning styles (one was written on the assignment, the other was their choice) and decide what assessment they would use (they didn’t have to actually create or administer the assessment). The idea was to give participants a chance to practice designing an active learning exercise while considering a variety of learning styles and then share that exercise with the group.

We also knew we wanted to assign some readings for people to go through before camp in order to get everyone on the same page and to spark conversation. We ended up selecting a few chapters from What the Best College Teachers Do, a book that had been handed out at recent ACC faculty orientations, and one that I cannot recommend highly enough. We also agreed that it would be worthwhile to have everyone read through the ACRL definition of information literacy as well as an alternate definition, both of which were emailed to participants prior to camp. We recommended participants join ACRL’s information literacy instruction list serv [ili-l], but didn’t require it.

Wordle cloud of participants' teaching strengths

The ReBoot schedule that we settled on included several opportunities for sharing perspectives, getting to know each other, and defining our context. To facilitate this we designed a pre-camp survey with a variety of ends in mind: to help us in planning, to get the participants thinking about teaching and learning and to create our icebreaker activity. To help in our planning we asked the participants about their prior teaching experience. To help get them geared up for camp we asked the participants  to describe their teaching philosophy and to set a camp goal for themselves. We also asked them to describe their strengths and weaknesses as a teacher and to share some of their favorite analogies to use when teaching. To create our icebreakers we turned the strengths and weaknesses into Wordle clouds and posted the analogies around the room on large pads of paper for comment. After the icebreaker the facilitators (Melinda Townsel and Red Wassenich, with 18 and 25 years at ACC, respectively) welcomed everyone, went over the schedule, the definitions of information literacy and the pre-survey responses.

Ellie Collier leads a discussion on campus differences

We felt it was important to begin by focusing on what we know about the students we would be teaching. Our dean, Dr. Julie Todaro, presented an overview of ACC’s student population. We also watched some quick informal videos created by one of our facilitators, Melinda Townsel, asking ACC students about their own research methods and a short documentary, Private Universe, which deals with the concepts we (wrongfully) assume students already know and explains how teaching methods can create those misconceptions. Red Wassenich, our other facilitator went over some recent ACC information literacy assessment results and I led a discussion about campus differences with participants giving a summary of their campus population. For example, my campus has a higher proportion of students in English as a Second Language and developmental courses coming in to the library as well as a noticeable number of students who don’t have computers at home.

The bulk of the camp focused on cognitive development, active learning, learning theory, learning styles, and assessment. We considered having the participants break up into groups, research the topics ahead of time and present to each other. We also brainstormed people and groups we thought might be willing and able to present on these topics. This included psychology and education faculty, trainers in the college’s professional development department as well as fellow librarians at neighboring institutions. In the end, we were lucky enough to have a great number of incredibly talented librarians in the Austin area that were highly knowledgeable in the topics we wanted to cover and specifically how they apply to academic libraries. We also invited Dorothy Martinez, an ACC faculty member who teaches developmental reading and teacher training.

Which brings us to another issue: budget. We were not given an explicit budget, but were given some guidelines. For example, we were told it would be very hard to justify any food expenses, but we could provide a copy of the “textbook” to all attendees. We wanted to keep the group together through the lunch break to ensure continuity and allow for more sharing of ideas and strategies but didn’t feel comfortable asking everyone to bring their own lunch both days. We debated a number of options, including doing a pot luck or providing pizza and asking everyone to chip in $5. In the end, our generous dean personally covered the lunch expenses as well as breakfast treats for the two days. A note from the PR Facilitator: Don’t underestimate the time it will take to make lunch arrangements! Do a pre-event survey two weeks out, giving a few choices for box lunches (first day) and pizza toppings the second day. Make decisions on the aggregate results for pizzas with veggies only or some with meat. If at all possible, find vendors that deliver.

Speakers are another potential expense. Our speakers were all able to attend as part of their regular work duties, but funding would have been a consideration if we had gone with our initial learning styles idea, which included the respected but proprietary Kolb inventory ($125 for 10 surveys plus the travel cost of a trained analyst). By choosing a free learning styles inventory we were able to invite our speakers to have lunch with us and provide them with a small thank you gift (we chose travel mugs with a positive teacher message from Positive Promotions). Using local presenters provided much more than budget relief. A number of them stayed to see each other’s presentations and participate in discussion. It provided a wonderful connection between each of our institutions and inspired plans to collaborate more often.

Participants Barbara Jorge, Adrian Erb, Molly Dahlstrom, Linda Clement and Steve Self

An issue that came up later in the process was that of partial participation. We had a few librarians that were interested in attending just for one or two topics, or wanted to come to all of it, but didn’t want to give the presentation at the end. We felt strongly that a fundamental part of the camp was that it was an immersion, where participants interact and collaborate intensely. I also felt that it would send a negative message to say that those who have been here longer get special treatment and don’t have to fully participate. In promoting the training camp we had tried hard to communicate that we truly wanted a mix of ‘new to ACC’ librarians and veterans and that the presentation would be a wonderful opportunity for them to immediately practice what they had learned. We reassured the reluctant presenters that it would be a non-threatening environment with no grades or formal evaluation. Ultimately, however, everyone who expressed reservations about fully participating chose not to attend.

What’s in a Name?

One of the many important contributions of our PR Facilitator was her explanation of the importance of a name for the training – in her words “a hook to hang everything from.” We threw out tons of options and debated their relative merits. We were particularly interested in making this a collaborative and participatory endeavor that would be equally stimulating for experienced and green librarians alike. Our final choice “[RE]BOOT CAMP: Share some. Learn more. Teach Better.” set the theme of learning as a group for the rest of our promotion. Our flyer, which included our dean’s face merged with a pointing Uncle Sam, listed who had been drafted and encouraged veterans to re-enlist. One of the facilitators even wore fatigues.

Practice What You Preach

Actions speak louder than words. The fact that all of our presenters used excellent pedagogy, including starting their presentations by stating their learning objectives, speaking to different learning styles, and using active learning, solidified those strategies far more than just having been instructed on their importance. A number of participants mentioned this aspect in particular in their evaluations. Not only was the content valuable, we had role models for teaching excellence.

Since one of our focus areas was assessment, we made sure that we offered both the pre-camp survey and an opportunity for the participants to assess the camp. The Teaching Team and Staff Development Team will use those results to help structure future trainings.

Provide Recognition

Another consideration stressed by our PR Facilitator is the importance of thanking both your presenters and your participants for their contributions and of providing a few moments to recognize each other. Each of our presenters was thanked in front of the group and given a small gift. At the end of the camp we had a very casual graduation ceremony. Each participant had his or her name called and was given a small gift (the same travel mug that the presenters were given) as well as their certificate signed by the planning team and the dean. In keeping with the boot camp theme the certificates (with a ‘Stars and Stripes’ motif in a cover with embossed gold stars) were awarded to “Eagle Squad” and “Falcon Squad” members depending on whether they had been with ACC for more or less than five years.

Facilitator Red Wassenich and participant Steve Self

Keeping the Momentum

It was very important for me personally to ensure that the excitement we created at camp not quickly fade away as we disbursed back to our separate campuses. On our evaluation form we asked, “What can we do within ACC Library Services to foster and maintain the ideas/tips/techniques we learned at camp?” We received excellent feedback and as a result we now have scheduled monthly discussion forums that provide an opportunity for our librarians as well as other library staff to come together to discuss procedures, best practices, tips and tricks, etc. We have brainstormed and voted on topics (not all teaching related) and I was thrilled to see our first forum, which focused on collection development, was impressively well attended. Future forum topics include presentation skills, electronic resources, and our college’s student success initiative.

Loose Ends and Final Thoughts

I’d like to close by sharing some overall suggestions and reflections.

Have a Plan B. You can’t plan for every possible curve ball, but thinking of as many as possible ahead of time, and how you might address them, can alleviate a lot of stress. We had two last minute issues come up with our location. The first, a previously unannounced fire drill set to happen about an hour into the program, ended up being rescheduled before we even decided how we would handle it. The second, the unforeseen closing of the library due to A/C maintenance, meant that we no longer had access to the computers and printers we had planned to use to have the participants fill out and score their learning styles questionnaires. This news came after we had already scheduled lunch arrangements with vendors close to our chosen location. After a minor panic, the planning team decided we could work around this by using the faculty computer center and the library laptops rather than move to a new location.

Be sympathetic. Remember to extend the same courtesy to your colleagues that you do to your students. I am forever grateful to my reference instructor for ingraining in me the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of the reference interview. I happen to be very comfortable speaking in public, to large groups or small, to friends or strangers, however, the presentation aspect of the camp was a looming issue for a number of our librarians. The idea of teaching to their peers was quite unnerving to some. I failed to give that issue due respect. It might have been better to provide the librarians with the full details of the assignment earlier in the process, to listen more sympathetically to their fears, and to respond with more empathy. Another approach might be to provide a session on overcoming presentation anxiety prior to the camp, or making that topic a part of the camp.

Make time for reflective writing throughout the process. Include guiding questions such as, “How will you use this in your next instruction session?” or “Why is this important?” Some of our presenters did this, and my notes and retention from their sections are far superior to the other sections where I either chose to just listen and rely on the handouts, or scribbled furious notes which have since lost their context.

Specifically focus on getting one-shot instruction sessions right. Talk about working with faculty, especially those with no assignment or bad assignments, to create a valuable library experience. Spend time discussing how much to realistically cover in one session. Emphasize strategies for helping students get the basics. Our cognitive development section touched on this when our presenter pointed out that most of the ACRL information literacy standards are well above the developmental level of most of our entering students and it was a real eye opener.

Plan follow-up standalone workshops open to all staff. Some examples we thought of include: using LibGuides as teaching tools for individual classes, profiles of community college students, presentation skills, and scheduling video taping or observations of teaching sessions.

Your turn

Have you planned or participated in something similar at your institution? What did you do differently? How did it work out? What would you like to get out of this kind of program? Share your successes and frustrations in the comments.

[RE]Boot Camp Resources

• Schedule (.doc)
• Invitation (Google Doc)
• Pre Camp Survey (Google Form)
• Information Literacy Definitions (.doc)
• Learning Styles Inventory (website)
• Presentation Prompt (.pptx)
• Post Camp Evaluation (Google Form)
• Completion Certificate (.png)
• Textbook: Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge: Harvard, 2004.

Many of our participants commented on how impressed they were with the presenters, so I’d like to also give many thanks to: A.J. Johnson (University of Texas at Austin), Barbara Jorge (Austin Community College), Liane Luckman (Texas State University), Dorothy Martinez (Austin Community College), Meghan Sitar (University of Texas at Austin), and Dr. Julie Todaro (Austin Community College) and to our planning team: Barbara Jorge, Pam Spooner, Melinda Townsel and Red Wassenich.

samsungtv 009 / http://www.flickr.com/photos/ousby/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

When we try to adapt our instructional strategies to a new medium, however, the challenge begins anew. Teaching in the classroom is not the same as teaching through a course management system (such as Blackboard), and teaching on Blackboard is different than teaching through video. All of these technologies tax our already minimal knowledge of instructional theory, and the results can turn out to be rather ineffective.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have made students watch far too many dull, lengthy screencast videos in the effort to help them learn about research. And I’ve seen many similar videos around on YouTube and on other library websites. Our intentions are always good – to educate, to equip students with research skills – but the tools we produce could be better. Recently my colleagues and I have begun a project to train ourselves in the pedagogy and technology of how to make effective video tutorials. I’d like to share some of what we’ve learned so far. It has all been new to me, and I hope that others may benefit from our efforts.

A couple of disclaimers: first, I don’t claim to be an expert in video creation or educational pedagogy. My knowledge is still nascent. Second, I don’t advocate video for video’s sake: be sure a video tutorial is the right medium for your intended goals before jumping into the recording process. When you want to teach a certain skill or idea, start by asking: how can I best get this information across? Sometimes it will be video, but other times a step-by-step text description can be simpler and more effective. Although as librarians we’re always eager to embrace the new technologies, it’s helpful to remember that the “old” technologies have their strengths as well. Tasks that involve basic, step-by-step instructions may be better presented as text on a webpage (or–gasp!–handout) that will be easier for students to follow as they complete the steps in another browser window. On the other hand, those that involve navigation through various, complex online interfaces may need video be clear. Sometimes it’s best to provide information in both formats to provide for different learning styles.

Some pedagogical context

Two well-known educational psychologists, Richard E. Mayer and Roxana Moreno, have written extensively on the cognitive implications of multimedia learning. Most notable of their writings for our purposes is a 2003 article in Educational Psychologist entitled, “Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning.” The gist of the article is that the human brain’s ability to process information is divided into two channels, the verbal and the visual. And no matter what our multi-tasking Millennials would have us believe, the brain can process only a limited amount of information from each channel at any given moment.

Here’s what the cognitive process looks like according to Mayer and Moreno. Information comes in through those two “channels” of our ears and eyes. From everything we take in through our immediate, sensory memory, we select certain words and pictures that are processed to our working, or short-term, memory. At that point we begin making sense out of those pieces: aligning the images and sounds, organizing them into meaning, and most importantly, connecting the results with our prior knowledge in a way that will be added to our long-term memory. All of these steps are important, but perhaps most critical here is what happens between the sensory memory absorbing information and the working memory organizing it: selection. That’s the point where details will be lost unless we are careful to provide the most essential information as clearly and simply as possible, to ease the selection process along.

So our students need to go through several steps to make meaning out of what we teach them: first, by paying attention; second, by making sense out of it; and third, by applying it to what they already know about the topic. As a result, educators using multimedia need to be thoughtful about the amount of information we’re providing through video and audio channels, and the pace at which we’re providing the information, to ensure that we’re giving students enough time to process it in ways that make sense to them. If we provide too much information at once, we cause cognitive overload, at which point our students shut down, lose interest, or otherwise simply stop learning.

When beginning a new video tutorial, the most critical elements are the most basic ones: (i) identifying the audience, (ii) determining the goal or goals, and (ii) breaking down the task into its most basic elements. It’s always helpful to state the video’s goals at the start of a tutorial, and restate them again at the end to reinforce the message. The clearer the message of a video, the less cognitive load it will require from students who are trying to make sense out of it, and the more brainpower they will have left to process and internalize the skills being taught. All of this needs to be taken into account to achieve the goal of meaningful learning, which Mayer and Moreno define as “deep understanding of the material, which includes attending to important aspects of the presented material, mentally organizing it into a coherent cognitive structure, and integrating it with relevant existing knowledge.”

Principles of multimedia learning

So how do we take advantage of cognitive theory to create meaningful learning through video tutorials? The key is to carefully review every element we add to a video to determine whether it is adding to or detracting from the viewer’s experience. To help us with this, Moreno and Mayer offer a series of principles on how people process multimedia, and in the article I mentioned above, make nine recommendations for multimedia instruction based on those principles (these were nicely encapsulated by Ross Perkins, Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Boise State University, in a workshop he provided for myself and my colleagues):

1. Split Attention Principle: Students learn better when instruction material does not require them to split their attention between multiple sources of mutually referring information.
2. Modality Principle: Students learn better when the verbal information is presented auditorily as speech rather than visually as on-screen text both for concurrent and sequential presentations.
3. Redundancy Principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation, narration, and text if the visual information is provided simultaneously to the verbal information.
4. Spatial Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when on-screen text and visual materials are physically integrated rather than separated.
5. Temporal Contiguity Principle: Students learn better when verbal and visual materials are temporally synchronized rather than separated in time.
6. Coherence Principle: Students learn better when extraneous material is excluded rather than included in multimedia explanations.

As recommendations based on these principles, Mayer and Moreno suggest:

• using narration without on-screen text to remove the need for students to read and listen to text at the same time (called “off-loading”);
• allowing short breaks, or pauses, between sections of a presentation (called “segmenting”);
• starting off the presentation with lessons about any terms or concepts that are new and important to what they will learn in the video (called “pretraining”);
• leaving out any unnecessary audio or visual elements (called “weeding”);
• using arrows, highlighting, or other cues to the viewer as a means of clarifying important points or confusing images (called “signaling”);
• ensuring that on-screen text and images that rely on each other are shown physically close together (called “aligning”);
• removing visual elements that are duplicated by narration or graphics (called “eliminating redundancy”);
• maintaining a close match between narration and visual elements shown in the video (called “synchronizing”); and
• when possible, considering the particular audience of a video and matching the presentation style to their learning style(s).

For instance, consider videos that include both verbal narration and on-screen text. Providing such duplicative information is likely to bog down a student by requiring them to process the same information twice, using both verbal and visual channels. Meanwhile, if the narration and on-screen text is being shown simultaneously with a screencast or other video element, it is likely that the student will not be able to process this third piece at all. Instead, using verbal narration with a screencast will probably be more effective at keeping the student’s cognitive load manageable. Similarly, when using a screencast of a library homepage, keep in mind that the large number of images and links on an average page can also cause overload. It’s easy to add a large arrow or call-out identifying the particular link you want students to see, and it will significantly reduce the cognitive demands of the shot. Mayer and Moreno’s oeuvre includes much more guidance on these issues, as does a 2006 article by Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit in College & Research Libraries.

Planning for video instruction

With busy lives and jobs, many of us choose to create video tutorials on the fly simply by transferring strategies used at the reference desk or one-shot instruction. Honestly, we do it every day at the desk, right, so how hard can it be to simply record the same information? Well, it is harder than one might think when considering both pedagogical and cognitive implications. It’s important to begin with a plan; a breakdown of exactly what the goal(s) of the video will be, how the goal(s) will be achieved, and what exact steps must be shown in the video without any unnecessary or distracting elements.

Storyboarding is perhaps one of the most underestimated but most critical parts of the process of creating an instructional video. This is the same approach used by filmmakers to plan out scenes, props, and actors required in every different part of a movie. Storyboarding does not have to be complicated or high art, it can simply be a listing of what will happen in each scene, in full detail. It requires us to walk through every second of the video in advance to make sure it is doing what we want it do. Storyboards can be sketched out on paper or digitally but should incorporate whatever will be taking place on the screen visually, the full script that a narrator will speak, and an indication of any additional sound or graphical elements (such as call-outs) that may be included. I’ve just started using PowerPoint as a storyboarding tool — putting visual elements in the slide section, and audio in the notes — and fellow Leadpiper Derik suggests post-it notes as a quick and easy method. Storyboards help in planning a video so that it can be created in a way that reduces cognitive load for students, while also allowing us to budget our time more efficiently in the creation process.

Storyboards / http://www.flickr.com/photos/cgc/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Of course, those new clips can only be integrated if our method of organizing video files and completed tutorials is clear. It’s easy to let the long list of video clip, screen shot and screencast files flow into a variety of folders without keeping track of them. However, when those files are carefully tracked and identified (by filename) on the storyboard, and then all of the raw production files archived together for future reference, maintenance and updating suddenly becomes far easier and far less time consuming.

The software

Many of the best videos incorporate a mix of screencasting (or screen recording), live video from a camera, and slide clips. In some cases they may also include extra sound effects or supplemental audio tracks. This can get complicated when working with so many different types of files. And, not surprisingly, there is no perfect, easy-to-use software package for video tutorial creation. Camtasia Studio from TechSmith is generally considered to be the standard for true video and audio editing. Camtasia is one of the few programs that accepts a wide variety of audio and video formats, and makes it possible to edit and integrate them in sophisticated ways. On the downside it is expensive and takes time to learn; after using it for over a year I am just starting to feel competent in the software. Camtasia is available for a 30-day trial, and TechSmith provides a number of high-quality (wouldn’t they have to be?) video tutorials on how to use the software.

In addition to Camtasia, there are a number of simpler, free programs that make some of the same functions possible. For screencasting only, TechSmith also provides a program called Jing that is far simpler and more user-friendly than Camtasia, so that can be a great place to start for those new to video creation. ScreenToaster is a similar program, but unlike Jing it’s web-based so does not require installation. Unfortunately, neither Jing (free version) nor ScreenToaster offer much in the way of editing options, nor do they provide screencasting files that can be integrated with other video clips. When working just with live video from a webcam or video camera, the simplest editing options are the default PC and Mac programs: Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. Both can be useful and make it easier to get started, but they also have more limited options than Camtasia. For audio editing alone, Audacity is a free program that many use for creating sound clips, sound effects, and podcasts.

The settings used during video creation can have a big impact on the quality of the results. For the best quality, experts recommend that the resolution of the video recording should be as close as possible to the final product. For instance, YouTube’s standard video resolution is 640 pixels by 480 pixels, so recording should take place at that image size. We’ve all seen screencast videos that recorded the individual’s entire screen at a resolution such as 1280×720, produced the video at the same size, and then uploaded the video to YouTube, only to see the video size compressed to a degraded and unreadable result. Recording at such a high resolution would, however, be appropriate for YouTube’s High Definition video, which uses 1280×720 as the standard. Recording size can be changed within the video recording software or camera settings, or for screencasting the entire screen resolution can be changed to fit the desired result. It’s important, too, to be consistent in recording size when using video from several sources (screencast, webcam, video camera, etc.). Overall, video should be both recorded and produced at whatever size is needed for the platform where it will be viewed in the end.

Conclusion

In general, all of the recommendations from cognitive theory indicate that the simpler the video, the better. The challenge is to balance this simplicity with our other needs: to cover complex material, to cater to various learning styles, to be accessible to hearing impaired students, to work within our often-limited video editing skills, and even to be entertaining. Instruction through multimedia is highly challenging, often frustrating, and extremely time-consuming, but when done well it can have a dramatic impact upon student learning.

For example, let’s look at a couple of great examples of videos that are both engaging and reflect awareness of the pedagogical and cognitive considerations described above. I’ll start off with a video from Common Craft, a great example of simplicity in action:

Common Craft videos are excellent at breaking down an idea or task into its simplest elements and presenting them clearly and concisely without audio or visual distractions. They do all this in mere minutes while maintaining a level of humor and entertainment throughout to keep viewers interested.

Or how about this one? The University of Texas at Arlington has started a series of “Librarian vs. Stereotype” videos that are engaging and informative while still getting their message across:

Notice the simple white background; the creators of this video omitted any distractions or visual elements other than the people on the screen. And it works! Our educational psychologist friends might have recommended against the background music as a non-essential element that adds to viewers’ cognitive load, but otherwise this is a terrific instructional video.

Now it’s your turn: What are your favorite examples of high quality instruction videos? What have been your experiences in trying to create videos for teaching? The comments below are open for your thoughts, links, and experiences.

Many thanks to Lead Pipers Ellie Collier and Derik Badman, as well as my Boise colleagues Memo Cordova and Ellie Dworak, for providing valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this post.

Want to learn more? Here are a few places to start:

• Ganster, L. A., & Walsh, T. R. (2008). Enhancing Library Instruction to Undergraduates: Incorporating Online Tutorials into the Curriculum. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 15(3), 314-333.
• Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43-52.
• Oud, J. (2009). Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts. Reference Services Review, 37(2), 164-177.
• Tempelman-Kluit, N. (2006). Multimedia Learning Theories and Online Instruction. College & Research Libraries, 67(4), 364-9.

Welcome to another guest post at ItLwtLP. This time we bring you thoughts from Carrie Donovan, an instruction librarian at Indiana University Bloomington. Enjoy!

#307: Authenticity by assbach / CC-BY

Once upon a time in libraries, you could call yourself a good teacher if you spent more than 30 minutes planning a lesson, if you wowed students with your search savvy, or if nobody fell asleep during your presentation. With the growth of instructional initiatives and influence across libraries of all kinds, however, expectations for librarians to develop teaching expertise have heightened. Librarians who teach now find themselves faced with the demand to connect with students, to make libraries and information literacy knowledge meaningful, and to create learning opportunities that are memorable and long-lasting. Such a shift in expectations calls for teacher behavior that is purposeful, mindful, and rooted in the self. Transformation of this sort does not come easy, nor does it happen magically. For those in search of a true teacher identity, authenticity will serve as the best guide.

In order to create the dynamic and engaging environments that are becoming the norm among library instruction and information literacy programs, librarians rely on the participation and interest of their audience to co-construct learning. This type of dialogue requires an open and honest classroom environment in which the librarian is a facilitator and guide for learners as they discover the world of information. In asking students to be present and participatory, we must respond by bringing our own professional and personal wealth of knowledge and experience to the conversation. Putting away the “persona” of teacher and disclosing more of the personal will allow for meaningful interactions with students, increased student involvement, and memorable classroom experiences. From Roger Schank (1990), we learn that keeping up our end of this dialogue means introducing our experience and our emotions into teaching opportunities in surprising and story-driven ways. Based in real-world experiences, stories allow us to share with each other, while also making sense of the world around us as we interact with it. The Schankian application of storytelling to create a direct connection to students’ dynamic memory can also be useful for teachers in the quest to become more personable and approachable to students.

The Paradox of Teaching

Talking about bringing your real self into the classroom is one thing, doing it is another thing entirely. Especially when one considers the following paradox: as teachers, we employ many of the techniques of actors, but in order to be most effective, our teaching must not be artificial. For anyone who teaches regularly, it’s easy to recognize the aspects of teaching that are similar to acting: the preparation, the practice, the warming-up of vocals, the nerves, the sweaty palms, and the vulnerability that comes with setting oneself up for approval or disapproval. In addition, teachers, like actors, often summon a charm or dynamism from within, in order to exude a presence and authority over the purpose and direction of the content for their audience.

After library instruction, I’ve had students say to me, amazed, “Gosh, you really *love* the library, don’t you?” Okay, so maybe I’m a much more enthusiastic person when I teach than I am otherwise, but I’m hopeful that my teacherly self, while a slightly more dynamic version of myself, still comes from an authentic place. If I can surprise, intrigue, or engage students because I present the shiny side of myself when teaching, I’ll do it. Becoming the most special and charming version of one’s self takes some preparation, of course, one cannot just go into the classroom cold. You have to warm up, just like actors and athletes. For example, I had a ritual with my former office-mate that entailed jazz hands and dance moves as a precursor to teaching. Nowadays, my graduate assistant and I joke about putting on our “instruction face,” which usually involves eyebrows up and a big smile. The confidence and giddiness that comes with these warm-up activities can help quell the nerves and fears that sometimes haunt teachers.

Most librarians, even those of us who are devoted to teaching, will admit that many of the same challenges that actors face in terms of stage fright also plague teachers from time to time. After ten years of teaching in libraries, I almost always feel anxious and frightened prior to any type of instruction. To overcome my fear of public speaking as a novice teacher, I started using sarcasm as a coping mechanism. Sarcasm, I have discovered, does not translate well to the classroom setting and put me in complete opposition with my authentic self. Letting go of this crutch has not been easy, but it has been necessary to the successful development of my teacher identity. Without that barrier between myself and the students, teaching and learning experiences have become more open and egalitarian, so that now we share in the vulnerability and the anxiety, as well as the benefits and opportunity that come with it.

While I still rely a lot on sarcasm outside the classroom, I no longer use it to appear fearless. In fact, I think fearlessness among teachers is highly overrated. It’s the adrenaline that comes with my stage fright that is almost like a drug to me, it keeps me coming back into the classroom. Having acknowledged that it will most likely always be a part of my teacher identity, I can now use the rush and the motivational force of my fear to become better at my craft. R.W. Hanning (1984) compares the experience of stepping into the classroom (the start of the performance) to stepping over a threshold and in doing so, we must face our fears and meet the challenges that await us.

Although there are many elements of teaching that are similar to acting, that is not to say that we should seek to be entertainers. Neil Postman warns us about this in his book Teaching as a Conserving Activity (1979) as he discusses the use of multimedia and technology in the classroom. While librarians have some of the best technology tools to teach and to aid in our teaching, we can be true to our teacher identities by relying on our primary instrument, ourselves. We should never be phony or rely too much on props or personas, but instead, we should strive to find the authentic place within from which to direct our teaching. That authenticity will evolve and change depending on the topic, audience, and situation of the day. As teachers, we should be willing to accept the risky nature of this activity and embrace the tension that exists between teaching from a place of authority, while also sharing of ourselves in such an authentic way that we become vulnerable.

Becoming Authentic

OK, so, how does one do this? Can authenticity be learned? The answer is both yes and no. We’ve all had great teachers and memorable learning experiences that shape our construct of what good teaching should be and what it looks like. What makes authenticity in teaching so elusive and slippery is that we cannot simply adopt those approaches as our own and expect them to work just as well. Instead, we must know ourselves well enough to identify our own personal qualities and wisdom and allow those to shape a unique approach to teaching that is true and relevant for us, that comes from a place within us that is real.

Teacher personality has been identified by several studies as a powerful component to effective teaching, more important even than intelligence, in some cases. When associated with personality traits, Laursen (2005) measured authenticity by looking at the extent to which teachers view students as fellow human beings, whether or not the teacher hides behind a detached persona, and how often/much teachers view themselves, as well as students, with intentions, emotions, and interests that are uniquely their own.

The difficult truth that must be acknowledged is that some teachers have a charisma and, as Malcolm Gladwell labels it, withitness, that is innate; thereby giving a natural spark to their teaching. For those of us who are accustomed to expecting results from hard work and practice rather than talent or personality, good teaching is also achievable, but it may not come as easily or inherently. But for those who want to try, the rewards are immeasurable. Just watch any film about teaching to understand what I’m talking about.

In his book, The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer (1998) discusses identity as the evolution of all the forces that come together to form a person, including: background, culture, experience, and anything else that shapes the self. Recognizing that we bring all of these aspects of ourselves to everything we do, including our instructional activities, is key to finding your teaching identity. Librarians have pursued neutrality for a long time in their provision of organized and accessible information and knowledge, but this philosophy does not serve us well in the classroom. As teachers, we must acknowledge that neutrality is unrealistic and unattainable, and by seeking it we are only doing a disservice to our learners. If we define learning as the ability to think for oneself and information literacy as the knowledge and skills to be thoughtful consumers and creators of information, then we should embrace our teaching as an opportunity to help learners recognize, understand, and question perspectives and ideologies that they encounter in information seeking.

Critical theory, as described by Powell, Cantrell, and Adams (2001), provides an excellent framework for integrating one’s teacherly identity into instruction in order to create opportunities for enhanced student learning and empowerment. Letting go of the notion that information is neutral and that we should teach information literacy or library instruction from a neutral position will allow us to provide a context to our teaching based on experience, perception, and meaning. For teaching to be memorable and meaningful, it must come from the true self and from a willingness to share the beliefs, values, and perspectives that shape it. Espousing this type of behavior in ourselves will encourage our learners to examine what shapes their identity, thereby creating opportunities for learning surrounding the questions and curiosities that arise as a result of self-disclosure, self-awareness, and self-examination.

Patricia Cranton, author of Becoming an Authentic Teacher in Higher Education (2001), presents strategies for understanding the “Self” in order to arrive at a personal and professional identity that intersects at teaching. In addition to reminding us of all the attributes that are indicators of great teachers, Cranton offers step-by-step approaches for identifying ways of discovering and disclosing your authentic self in the classroom and how to live with the benefits, as well as the fallout. Some of these steps include: understanding values and experience, merging self and teacher, telling your story, connecting with students, and knowing your critics. I like Cranton’s text as a complement to Palmer’s, as it is less inspirational and more practical. Sometimes librarians need that.

Sounds easy enough, right? To be authentic, just know yourself and be yourself! Right! However, there are many ways that this can go wrong. Students may not be accustomed to having teachers who are forthcoming with the personal aspects of themselves. They may misinterpret a teacher who is approachable as someone who is attempting to “be a friend”. Successful teaching still depends a great deal on relationship-building and students may feel annoyed or alienated by teacher self-disclosure. As with any relationship, teachers and students must seek a balance through trust-building and negotiation that allows for a teacher’s identity and authority to co-exist with students’ learning expectations and goals.

Despite the dangers and difficulties, it has been my experience that most students are open to recognizing teachers as being whole people who possess knowledge, experience, and interests that extend beyond the realm of the academy. I was pleased to see this corroborated in two studies. In 1994, Goldstein and Benassi looked at in-class participation by students and the effect of teachers’ self-disclosure on it. Upon examining students’ participation in class discussion, the number of questions asked, and the willingness to express opinions and feelings in class, the study concluded that teacher self-disclosure was positively correlated with the amount of class participation by students. Similarly, a recent study conducted by Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds (2009) looked at teacher self-disclosure in the social networking site, facebook. These researchers found that instructors who strategically share personal information (e.g. photos, interests, quotes, status, etc.) positively influenced their students’ perceptions of the teacher’s credibility, specifically competence and trustworthiness. Allowing students the opportunity to recognize similarities between themselves and their teachers, in addition to seeing teachers as people, with lives beyond the classroom, could contribute to the creation of the types of open, honest environments that encourage dialogue, participation, sharing, and ultimately – learning.

Beyond Teaching

Knowing and incorporating one’s authentic self into other areas of work can also result in great success. In leadership, librarians who stand for something and communicate their values demonstrate integrity and credibility. Robert Evans, in Educational Leadership (2007), describes the characteristics of authentic leaders as: vision, personal ethics, and belief in others. Just as when you think of great teachers you’ve had, you can probably also think of great leaders you’ve worked with who not only have a strong sense of self and inner direction, but also share it openly with those around them. This awareness and disclosure of self establishes a culture of honesty, trust, and fairness that is central to creating a common vision and shared commitment in any organization.

Down to You

Authenticity. Something that is so central to the success of one’s craft could take an entire career to cultivate, without ever truly reaching the pinnacle of achievement. But, librarians out there, if you’re anything like me, you revel in your teaching escapades because they are the one aspect of the job that is challenging beyond all expectation, shaking both body and soul, and making you all-around better and stronger. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But teaching, like so many things that are worthwhile, will break you down before it charges you up. It offers up the sweetest rewards for those who are willing to take the hardest hits. Nobody could do it really well without the reality and rawness that comes with self-disclosure, which can be at times a breathtaking walk on a tightrope and, at others, a freefalling leap of faith.

Librarians who are bold enough to develop their inner teacher will connect more deeply with learners and participate more fully in the learning process. Our authenticity will extend beyond classroom encounters to influence the teaching practices of our library colleagues and impact the instructional role of our libraries. With the potential to enhance student learning and increase the relevance of libraries to the teaching and learning continuum, authentic teachers have the opportunity to guide and lead our profession to new heights. As we pursue this path to teacherly identity, let’s be truthful, take risks, and follow our hearts. Remembering all the while, of course, that teaching is not about us, it’s about our students and their learning, as well as our libraries and their future.

If you’re a teacher who has sought out or achieved authenticity, please share your experiences, comments, failures, and successes. I look forward to hearing from you.

Recommended/Further Readings:

• Cranton, P. (2001). Becoming an authentic teacher in higher education. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Co.
• Elmborg, J. (2006). Critical information literacy: Implications for instructional practice. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(2): 192-199.
• Evans, R. (2007). The authentic leader. In The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (2^nd ed.). (pp. 135-156). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
• Gladwell, M. (2008, December 15). Most likely to succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? The New Yorker, 36.
• Goldstein, G. & Benassi, V. (1994). The relation between teacher self-disclosure and student classroom participation. Teaching of Psychology, 21(4): 212-217.
• Hanning, R.W. (1984). The classroom as theater of self: Some observations for beginning teachers. ADE Bulletin, 077, 33-37.
• Laursen, P. (2005). The authentic teacher. In D. Beijaard, P. Meijer, G. Morine-Dershimer, & H. Tillema. (Eds.). Teacher professional development in changing conditions. (pp. 199-212). New York: Springer.
• Mazer, J., Murphy, R., & Simonds, C. (2009). The effects of teacher self-disclosure via facebook on teacher credibility. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 175-183.
• Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Postman, N. (1979). Teaching as a conserving activity. New York: Delacorte Press.
• Powell, R., Cantrell, S.C., & Adams, S. (2001). Saving Black Mountain: The promise of critical literacy in a multicultural democracy. The Reading Teacher, 54(8): 772-781.
• Schank, R. (1990). Tell me a story: A new look at real and artificial memory. New York: Scribner.

Recommended Viewing:

• Dead Poets Society
• Emperor’s Club
• Finding Forrester
• The Karate Kid
• Miracle Worker
• School of Rock
• Spellbound

I would like to thank Emily Ford for inviting me to reflect on my teaching identity in order to write this piece and for being an inspiration to radical librarians everywhere. Also, thanks to Randy Hensley, who first challenged me to tap into my authentic self at ACRL’s Immersion program in 2003 and to my friends Jennifer & April who have been my instructional support system (and cynical touchstones) ever since that time.

Special shout-out goes to all the IU-SLIS Instruction Assistants and students in S573, past and present, who make teaching and discussions surrounding teaching a pure joy (especially Rachel Slough for her endless enthusiasm and willingness to serve as my reviewer on this project).

This post is dedicated to my mom, Gloria Donovan, the most authentic teacher I’ve ever known.

by Flickr user foreversouls

Working in an academic environment, the majority of my student interactions are based around a specific assignment. Every semester there is at least one assignment that comes across my reference desk that makes me throw my hands up in exasperation (such as: a scavenger hunt that was written before we moved much of our content online or the requirement that the student must have at least one print source, library databases and ebooks do not count). Of course I put on a good face. I’ve been well trained. I don’t make disparaging remarks about the teacher or the assignment. I commiserate if appropriate. And most importantly, I am usually (though not always) able to fill both the underlying information need and the assignment’s specific requirements.

In researching this piece I found that much has been written about librarian/faculty relationships. I found articles on working with faculty to build assignments and even whole courses from the ground up. I found articles on the importance of collaboration and establishing positive relationships. I will not be reiterating those well made arguments.

Instead, I will be asking (and answering): what do you do after that student walks in, assignment in hand that you know just isn’t fair to them? I’m writing not as a veteran, but as a new recruit, someone who, until a few months ago, never even considered the possibility of talking to faculty about their assignments. I had heard of librarians providing assistance in designing library related assignments, but never offering unsolicited feedback.

I remember both the assignment that opened my eyes to this possibility and the one that was my personal tipping point. The eye opening experience occurred at my moonlighting gig at a four year institution. We kept getting students who had the same (admirable) weekly assignment: find and read a newspaper article covering the event they were studying that week. The article (or possibly other primary source document) had to have been written during the time of the event and from the perspective of the people involved. We had been doing fine helping them find historical and foreign papers as needed, until they came to the Ottoman Empire. And it didn’t stop there. The class was a survey of world history. They continued to have topics that simply might not have ever been documented by the people involved, unlikely in newspaper article form, certainly not in English, and may not have ever been translated into English if it did manage to get written down and preserved. African events were also particularly difficult. One of the other reference librarians called the teacher to explain that for many of these events it was going to be exceedingly difficult if not impossible for students to find the required articles. In the end, the faculty member agreed to allow the students to use international English language papers if necessary.

This was a revelation to me. The moxie! The nerve! The courage! Who was she to tell a faculty member there was a problem with her assignment? Course assignments are the purview of the instructor. How did she have the self-assurance to consider it her place? How did she have the skill to affect change and the finesse to do so without offending? And yet when the librarians told me the assignment had been modified they said it as though this were an everyday occurrence, that they discuss assignments with faculty all the time and the faculty are usually responsive. This wasn’t covered in library school and it isn’t common practice at my day job, so I was struck in particular that the librarians did not think this was anything special. To me it seemed incredibly liberating to take action rather than be silently frustrated. The seed was planted.

My personal tipping point happened when a student came in to me at my community college job and needed to have at least one print article. I started with my usual, “the library databases have the same articles and still totally count,” but she interrupted me. No, actually, her teacher had specifically said that those do not count. She had to physically touch the original source. At my college we have almost completely transitioned to online versions for our articles. Luckily it turned out she just needed one print source, it didn’t have to be a journal article, so I was able to help her find a suitable encyclopedia article.

I had encountered the “must have a print source” requirement before, but this was the first time I had a student tell me that the teacher had explicitly said the library databases did not count. My first thought was to assume the requirement was an attempt to force the students into the library. Personally, I was more impressed that the student had already found a number of scholarly articles in our databases. But then I wondered whether this was another case of lumping everything “online” into one category of “to be avoided” and perhaps not realizing that it is the same article regardless of format.

I sent out requests to my librarian friends and asked “How do you talk to teachers about their assignments?” Read on to find out. I’ve amalgamated their responses and organized them around some of the typical problems I’ve encountered to provide you with readily adaptable scripts which you are welcome to use. (Note: You will see some repeated sentiments as many of the arguments can and do overlap.)

The Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunt assignments are frustrating for everyone. Looking up trivia is not the same as conducting research and without a meaningful application of the process of using the library anything they learn through the scavenger hunt is less likely to stick.

“Resentment toward rather than appreciation of library research is the likely result of these assignments. Library assignments are more meaningful if students use the information they find for an authentic task related to the topics covered in the course.”¹

Outdated scavenger hunt assignments are even worse. Here’s one way to approach a faculty member with an outdated scavenger hunt assignment:

We had some of your students in the library today working on your scavenger hunt assignment that familiarizes them with library resources. We are excited that you are giving out an assignment like that, but some of the activities in the assignment are a little dated, since the scavenger hunt seems to be from 2004. Some of the paper handouts referred to in the assignment are now online. One of my librarians, [name], said she’d be very happy to get with you to help you update the assignment so it would be a bit more useful for your students. You might also want to look at the Info Game on the library web page. It’s something you could use as well. Library Services tries to get away from the scavenger hunt concept and I think [name] could help you come up with some excellent alternatives. She’s one of our most imaginative young librarians! You can reach [name] at [email] and [phone number]. We are very happy that you are using the library with your students!

In the interest of full disclosure, that email did not get us a reply. Being more comfortable with email myself, it tends to be my default communication method, but most likely a phone call or office visit is the better approach. However, I think the script is still worth sharing. The general tone and sentiment shows appreciation that the faculty member uses the library and lets her know that some of the questions are no longer applicable. It also offers assistance in the updating process. And as one of my respondents told me, “It doesn’t always work.”

“No Online Sources”

This is a nuanced declaration and a number of the headings below touch on some of the different aspects. Setting aside online library resources for a moment: a flat ban on anything found online not only eliminates a large number of incredibly useful sources (census data, CDC info, LOC historical documents, etc.), but it also discourages using and developing critical thinking skills.

In college, we try to focus students on *critically thinking* about authority and appropriateness. We’ve found that limiting students to print resources hurts their ability to find the resources they need, and they are not able to support their research project as well as they could if they were able to use the best sources regardless of format.

Of course there is always the question of what exactly the faculty meant by “no online sources.”

“The Internet” vs. Web Based Academic Resources

Often the student, the faculty, or both don’t differentiate between the free web and resources that the library has purchased, but are available electronically. The argument above about the value of allowing use of the free web notwithstanding, it may be necessary to clarify the instructor’s definition of what constitutes an “online source” and to ask that faculty member to assure his or her students that the library’s electronic resources are allowed.

I was helping one of your students recently who needed a print resource for an assignment and I thought there might have been a misunderstanding over the definition of what constitutes an “online source.” My understanding of the definition you’re using is that you exclude sources found in library subscription databases, not simply those found on web sites through Google or another search engine.

I’d like to assure you that the online articles and ebooks found through library databases are content that the library has purchased and are indeed the exact same content found in the print versions. As you may know, libraries are increasingly receiving journal subscriptions only electronically and discontinuing expensive print subscriptions. Among the many reasons for the current trend towards receiving these articles digitally is that it provides a better value for our students – one purchase makes all of the content available at all of our campuses and extension sites, rather than having to purchase separate print subscriptions for each of them. We are also able to provide access to a vast number of resources that we wouldn’t have physical space to store.

Because of this, students will often find the full text of the article in the database but we will not have a current print subscription of the same periodical title. In addition, as students are learning to evaluate information and sources, they may be confused as to why a scholarly source in a subscription database does not meet the assignment requirements. Finally, there is no easy way to lead students to print-only articles because our databases serve as indexes and many of them contain or link to full-text online.

With all of this in mind, I wondered if you would be willing to expand your definition of an acceptable source to include sources found in library subscription databases.

“I want to be sure they’re using the library” or “I just want them to have the experience”

As more and more resources go online and as libraries push to create virtual branches and online portals, physically coming in to the library becomes less and less necessary to complete a research paper. While my knee jerk reaction is frustration towards holding on to nostalgic perceptions of library as place, in reality, these are exactly the faculty that I should most appreciate. They value libraries and want to pass that on to their students. They’re on our side! Unfortunately, requiring a print source doesn’t necessarily achieve the intended goal. Instead, it often just means grabbing a source, any source, as long as it’s print, after the paper has already been mostly written.

We hear from many professors who are thankfully concerned that their students learn how to use a college library. If you want to be sure that your students use library resources, we have had a lot of success with students creating annotated bibliographies explaining why they chose each source, or alternately writing down the steps they took to find an article online through the library website and what qualities make the article appropriate for their paper for at least 1 of their sources. That way students are forced to think about process and quality of resources.

or

I am guessing that one reason for requiring print is to encourage students to visit the library in person. I completely understand that you want your students to learn how to use the library and critically think about authority and appropriateness. We do too! However, in many cases we’ve found that requiring a print resource can actually be counterproductive in this regard. Students wind up not being forced to use the critical thinking skills we’re requiring of them. They may use something that doesn’t work very well just to fill the requirement and they aren’t forced to consider authority, appropriateness of content, etc. Also, because most libraries are moving or have already moved to all online journals we’re concerned our students know what to expect now and in the future. We want them to leave here knowing how to use a library, including the subscription databases, and to have a clear understanding of the difference between articles found online through the library and those out on the open web.

or

It’s so important that students learn how to find authoritative journal articles. We want our students to be prepared for (grad school/work/4-year) and most (four year universities/schools with grad programs/corporations) have moved to all online journals. They may even be getting rid of their print archives and replacing them with online archives! We’re concerned our students know what to expect now and in the future. We want them to leave here knowing how to use a library.

This is also the place to offer an in library instruction session or a specialized assignment to accomplish the goal of getting the students in to the library.

We could also create a brief assignment which would require students to visit the library to find out about the resources and services available.

Sometimes the information just doesn’t exist.

I’ve already mentioned the newspaper articles from the time of an event, from the country where the event took place, when it took place in the distant past and in a country with a different language. Another example would be peer reviewed journal articles on an extremely recent event.

In this situation you can ask the teacher whether they have specific resources in mind. It is always possible that they know of a source that you don’t. Of course it is also possible that the library no longer has access to something the faculty member was accustomed to using in the past, or that a new faculty member simply isn’t familiar with your library’s particular collection yet and is making assumptions based on his or her former institution. This opens the door to discussing collection development and acquiring new resources to help support the curriculum. If neither of those are the case you can fall back on explaining types of information sources and why that information just isn’t readily available. One of the first things I ask students to do when beginning their research is to ask themselves who would have collected the information they’re looking for and how would they have then made it available. This is particularly helpful when trying to find statistics. But it is also helpful here in explaining why we’re not necessarily going to be able to find a newspaper article, in English, from the 1700′s in Turkey talking about a specific war from a specific side.

In the case of the peer reviewed journal article we can explain the peer review process, that it takes time, and that for this topic, perhaps newspaper articles from large papers or government publications could be considered authoritative. I want to leave you with a perspective that particularly struck me:

“The berating of faculty for not being intuitively information literate, or for not taking the time to become information literate is a puzzling attitude – particularly given librarians’ professed mandate to guide users and provide instruction in the use of information resources. … The images of troublesome, arrogant faculty, who have little understanding of librarians’ roles, point to a problem at the core of the relationship issue; that until librarians embrace faculty as clients themselves, deserving of the same level of respect and support afforded undergraduate and graduate students, IL librarians may continue to fight an uphill battle to bring faculty members onside. Why do librarians, for example, assume that faculty should necessarily understand what they have not been taught, or necessarily understand how to use information systems that are not user-friendly? Do librarians ask this of other users?”²

The further reading section contains a number of links to pages that various libraries have created to provide tips for instructors who want to create library related assignments. Some of the wording could be a tad friendlier in places, but the content is good. There are also links to a best practices discussion and a model program.

I hope that librarians who have been frustrated by what they felt was an unfair assignment feel both empowered to contact faculty and prepared with some tools to use. I hope that librarians who have been there and done that will share their stories of what to do and what to avoid in the comments.

Further reading:

• Share Your Teaching Tool Kit: Best Practices in Library Instruction Topic: Teaching to a Bad Assignment (Notes from ACRL IS Discussion)
• Mosley, Pixey Anne. “Creating a library assignment workshop for university faculty.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 24.1 (Jan. 1998): 33-41.
• Effective assignments using library and internet sources (From the University of California Berkeley)
• Creating Effective Research Assignments (From the University of Maryland)
• Designing Effective Library Assignments (From the University of North Carolina Wilmington)
• Integrating Library and Information Literacy into your Assignment (From St. Cloud State University)

Thanks to Liane Luckman and Meghan Sitar for sharing their strategies and to Andrew Shuping and Emily Ford for reviewing and editing.

1. From the University of California at Berkeley’s Effective Assignments Using Library and Internet Resources
2. From Julien, Heidi and Lisa M. Given. “Faculty-Librarian Relationships in the Information Literacy Context: A Content Analysis of Librarians’ Expressed Attitudes and Experiences.” <u>The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science</u> 27.3 (2002/2003): 75-87.

We at In the Library with the Lead Pipe are happy to welcome two guest authors to our blog! Hyun-Duck Chung and Kim Duckett are two of our creative and inspiring colleagues at the North Carolina State University Libraries. Read on to learn more…

Lately we’ve been thinking a lot about the creation and re-use of online instructional content in libraries. To be more precise, we’ve been thinking about categories that might characterize the instructional intent behind some of this content creation. A casual survey of materials online suggests that much of the content focuses on how to use a tool, or how to follow a process. There seems to be less content that helps explain why the information landscape is organized the way it is. This background explanation, or “back story” can be useful in contextualizing how information is created, debated, vetted, and why we find information the way we do. In this way it also has the potential to help student researchers become more critical of their search for, and use of, information.  In this post we discuss our experience of providing the back story of peer review using an e-learning resource. But first, let’s take a brief look at the growing interest in e-learning resources in libraries today.

E-learning Resources in Libraries

“E-learning resources” is our shorthand for describing asynchronous, web-based instructional content. In other words, media that is hosted and disseminated online for the purpose of teaching and learning in the form of html tutorials, interactive video, flash animations, screen captured presentations, and the like. Instructional designers may use the term “learning objects,” but we do not use it here as it has been criticized for being overly broad and therefore less than useful.¹  Bell and Shank prefer the phrase “digital learning materials,” but their definition emphasizes “interactivity” as a key defining character.²  While interactivity is certainly a worthwhile goal, many useful e-learning resources in libraries simply don’t meet this criteria so we’ve opted to use our own more inclusive term. Regardless of terminology, we’re basically referring to the notion of modular web-based instructional content that may be re-used across multiple courses, course sections, disciplines and even among various libraries.

Librarians have been creating e-learning resources for years, but the importance of this type of library or user instruction appears to be growing. This trend can be seen in

• frequent discussion about technologies for creating e-learning resources on library listservs and blogs;³
• popularity in the use of  screencasting tools such as Camtasia Studio, Adobe Captivate, Jing, and Qarbon Viewlet Builder;
• organized ways to share e-learning resources through repositories  like A.N.T.S.⁴  and MERLOT;⁵
• programs that review, highlight and promote high-quality e-learning resources, such as the ACRL PRIMO database;⁶
• and the publication of books that focus on best practices for designing e-learning resources. Susan Sharpless Smith’s Web-based Instruction: A Guide for Libraries (2nd edition) and Bell and Shank’s Academic Librarianship by Design are two well-known examples.

The trend seems to be undeniable, but is this a useful trend?

Extending Our Reach through E-Learning Resources

The proliferation of e-learning resources can perhaps be attributed, at least in part, to the useful potential they offer for greatly expanding the reach of a single instructor or instruction session. The one-on-one instruction or consultation at the reference desk relies on reaching only one person at a time and only those that approach the reference desk or library staff.

One to One

Workshops or classroom instruction expands that reach to “one-to-many”, connecting with students who may not (understandably) consult or even know about the expertise of librarians by their own initiative. E-learning resources have the potential (with good quality, relevance, and proper marketing) to expand the reach even farther to “one-to-many-more,” helping librarians find an audience otherwise inaccessible.

One to Many More

Categories of E-Learning Resources

Since interest in e-learning resources continues to grow, we thought we’d better start thinking about them in more detail. Recently, we sat down with colleagues at the NCSU Libraries to categorize the kinds of e-learning resources we have been developing locally and those we’ve seen elsewhere. Though the discussion is ongoing, to date we’ve come up with three categories that enable us to think more strategically about both the purpose and uses of these resources. Here’s a list of our categories with examples from various libraries:

CATEGORY 1. Teach students HOW TO USE A TOOL. This category includes screencasts and tutorials that show users how to search a particular database, the library catalog, or a library website:

• Mergent Quick Start Video Guide linked with other guides from Hyun-Duck’s Business Plan Research Guide (NCSU Libraries)
• Z. Smith Reynolds Library Toolkit is a suite of short screencasts teaching users how to use features of article databases, the library catalog, and library website — what a great concept! (Wake Forest University Library)

CATEGORY 2. Help students WITH A PROCESS. Resources in this category help learners with processes such as evaluating websites, creating citations, identifying a scholarly article online:

• Anatomy of a Scholarly Article is an interactive guide identifying various parts of a scholarly article (NCSU Libraries)
• Citing Information Tutorial (UNC Libraries)

CATEGORY 3. Provide students with MORE CONTEXT to understand a process or concept — the BACK STORY for how information is created, vetted, stored, accessed, and used. Resources in this category address social issues surrounding information and other scholarly communication topics:

• Journal Costs is a “sticker shock” website that exposes the costs of journals that are so often hidden from users (Vanderbilt University Library)
• Primary or Secondary is an interactive site that teaches users about primary and secondary sources (University of Washington Libraries)

There certainly may be more categories than these and none of the above may be mutually exclusive. For instance, large-scale information literacy tutorials are typically a blend of more than one category. We hope that by teasing out the themes and intentions of various resources, we can better design them for use in more than one instructional context. Librarians should strive to have the greatest impact from all the work and energy currently being invested into creating them.

More Back Story Please!

From a very rough survey of e-learning resources online, the landscape seems to be dominated by the first two types of categories. Perhaps this is because librarians have traditionally played a role in teaching students how to use specific kinds of tools to find information or to offer strategies for evaluating sources. It might also be that since libraries make these information resources available, we see it as our responsibility to help our users make use of them. But consider how librarians are uniquely positioned to design and develop e-learning resources that provide students with the back story about sources of information. Such concepts are rarely covered by faculty instructors within a given academic discipline, yet they fall squarely in the realm of librarian expertise. Most importantly, they help to explain realities that might otherwise seem odd to students. For example, why is so much importance given to finding “peer-reviewed” articles for an assignment? Or why does Google Scholar sometimes ask for money and what should you do to get around it? Without some background on how information and publishing “work” on the Web, students may be just going through the motions of “how-to” find information without critically reflecting on the process of solving their information problem.

Providing learners with the back story enhances understanding and use of information. Consider the pairs of questions below:

How do I identify a scholarly, peer-reviewed article?

VS.

What is peer review and why is it important?

How can I use Wikipedia in my research?

VS.

How did the information get created in Wikipedia?

How do I get started with my literature review?

VS.

What is the role of a literature review in research?

The pairings go hand-in-hand, yet often library e-learning resources are limited to answering the first questions in each set. Why don’t we cover the second questions in as much depth? Could we be making e-learning resources that provide more context? After all, understanding the back stories that address the second questions are fundamental to information literacy, participation in scholarly communication (especially for those students who will become part of it in a few short years), and most importantly, lifelong learning. They are also topics that span across many different learning scenarios and across institutional boundaries.

For Instance, Peer Review in Five Minutes

Since this notion of providing a back story can be slippery, let’s look at a concrete example where we tried to incorporate some of the ideas we’ve raised above. Our interest in the back story led to our recent development of an e-learning module – an animation on the role of peer review in scholarly research.

Click to play Peer Review in 5 Minutes

Students often come to the service desk seeking peer-reviewed articles as part of a class assignment. At this point the student may need help with accomplishing a number of tasks. Perhaps they need help identifying or verifying that the article has been peer-reviewed, searching in article databases, or understanding what a peer-reviewed article is in the first place and why it is so important in academia. Since we found existing e-learning resources addressing the first two needs, we saw an opportunity in meeting the third need through a new e-learning resource. We came up with the concept of Peer Review in 5 Minutes – an animated video that would initiate students into one of the key facets of academic culture.

Following the ADDIE model⁷ often used in instructional design, we based our design decisions on early input from potential users. Since faculty members are often the most influential factor in motivating students to pursue learning activities, we conducted informal interviews with faculty from various academic disciplines to test our assumptions on the usefulness of our idea. The response was very positive and our open discussions helped us tease out the various aspects of peer review as a topic as well as identify specific and different disciplinary needs.

A significant challenge we faced early in the process of creating the resource was scoping the content. From the broad array of ideas that came out of our interviews, zeroing in on what to include and exclude in a five minute video required an iterative process of thinking and re-thinking the goals of the video and defining our target users and their needs. In the end we decided to focus on providing a general overview of peer review for undergraduate students. Since this project was our first experiment in animation, we wanted it to serve as a proof-of-concept for reaching learners in a new way and in turn acquire departmental support for launching similar projects in the future. Targeting a broad and general audience like the undergraduate population would 1) allow us to have the broadest impact for the time and energy committed to developing the resource, and 2) there was a greater likelihood of receiving feedback from the users.

An additional challenge we faced was finding the right way to explain the back story. Where do you begin to tell the story? Where do you end it? How do you make it relevant to the student’s tasks? How do you make the content general enough to span across disciplines, yet relevant enough to each? Tackling such questions required creative narration, visuals that went well beyond screenshots, plus fairly creative use of scripting and story-boarding. In doing so we went through numerous revisions in the development process.

Another challenge we faced was in designing truly reusable content that was also highly relevant to our institution. Since we intended to create a resource for broad dissemination we also thought it would be strategic to have the video specifically point to our library’s subscription-based resources and reference services. This way the e-learning resource would not only serve instructional needs, but also market specific library services and resources to our students. Our solution was to limit any institution specific aspect to a very small scene at the very end of the video. We then, as a service to the broader educational community, created an alternate ending for a second downloadable version that was not tied to our institution. We also made this version available under a Creative Commons license so that anyone could freely use it for non-commercial purposes. To get the video go to Peer Review in 5 Minutes and click on download.

Despite the challenges we faced in developing this resource, the highly collaborative process of development offered a unique opportunity to connect with faculty, staff and students in departments within and outside of the library. The success of the project relied on recruiting the expertise and skills of various contributors. In addition to the faculty we interviewed, we worked closely with

• a graphic design intern who created the animation;⁸
• a student from the Libraries’ Digital Media Lab who created an original sound track to the video;⁹
• a couple of library colleagues who contributed their technical expertise in developing an effective web presence for the video online.¹⁰

We also consulted multimedia specialists in our distance education office about meeting accessibility requirements for creating audio-visual materials on the Web.¹¹ All of these interactions not only helped spread the word about the Libraries’ embarking on an e-learning resources project but, perhaps more importantly, communicated the Libraries’ ability, openness and willingness to collaborate as partners in instructional uses of technology.

Our experience has taught us that creating e-learning resources that tackle the back story of information is not without its own set of challenges. However, if you can work through the challenge of scoping the content and telling the story well, the greatest reward is having an end product that can be used to reach many more learners. Please let us know how well we did for this particular resource.

What’s Your Back Story?

We invite you to share your reactions to our three categories of e-learning resources. We’d also love to hear examples of how you’re engaging students with the back story as well as your ideas for what other back stories might be told through reusable, shareable, e-learning resources.

Special Thanks

Derik Badman from ITLWTLP, Steve McCann, Sandy Littletree, and Scott Warren for providing thoughtful feedback on drafts of this post. Cindy Levine and Andreas Orphanides for helping us think through the e-learning resources categories. Last but not least Hilary Davis for introducing us to ITLWTLP and inviting us as contributors.

1. See for example,  Polsani, P.R. 2003. “Use and Abuse of Reusable Learning Objects.” Journal of Digital Information 3, no. 4 (February 19).
2. Bell, S. & Shank, J. (2007). Academic Librarianship by Design. Chicago: American Library Association.
3. OCLC’s white paper “Libraries and the enhancement of e-learning” (2003) provides a more in-depth discussion than we will offer here.
4. The Animated Tutorial Sharing Project based in Canada is an example of a collaborative project emphasizing the re-usability aspect of these resources. The A.N.T.S. project tries to coordinate development and re-use of modules beyond a single institution by tracking useful metadata (such as what modules are in the works) and hosting completed projects on a shared Screencast server for anyone to use.
5. The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Teaching is an online repository of peer reviewed digital learning materials. The collection spans across many disciplines and includes a “Library and Information Services” category.
6. PRIMO is the Peer Reviewed Information Materials Online” database. It focuses on promoting and setting best practices for implementing e-learning resources so that librarians can share ideas for creating them. At the time of writing, the database holds 191 records for materials that range from database specific modules to information literacy tutorials.
7. ADDIE — analysis, design, development, implement, and evaluate — is one of the most common instructional design models. Bell and Shank’s Academic Librarianship by Design provides a wonderful overview.
8. Susan Baker, then a senior student in the College of Design, worked closely with us to create original graphics and animate them using AffterEffects in Adobe Creative Suite 3
9. We showed Chris Hill our video and some sample music online to offer a sense of what we were looking for and he created an original track using GarageBand
10. Jason Walsh and Andreas Orphanides worked their magic to format the video for optimal viewing online through progressive downloading, and with the help of Susan created the custom border around the video.
11. We’ve used Automatic Sync for captioning. It’s fast and cheap! It cost us less than $10 per animation.

Photo by Flickr user orangeacid

My alternate title for this post was “The Internet is awesome. Start acting like it.” It is a call to arms to shift our attitude away from magnifying the perils of online research and towards examining the many types of useful information along with how and when to use them; to shift our primary focus away from teaching how to find information and towards engaging critical thinking skills. Often we have just one class period with our students and “the greater need is evaluation; they already know at least one method of finding articles.” [1]

The kernel of this post emerged from a recent conversation with my brother. He asked me, “What would you estimate the ratio of inaccurate to accurate information on the Internet is?”

I hemmed and hawed and asked, “on the free web or including subscription sites?”

He clarified, “Well anytime I’ve randomly wanted to look something up … I’ve never come across something I’ve noticed to be faulty, but I wonder sometimes if A) I’ve totally been mislead by faulty info or B) if most stuff I’ve ever looked up is OK. But they make such a big deal to not trust things on the Internet unless you know the poster is reputable. I think information is more likely to be incomplete rather than flat out wrong. Go find something wrong on the Internet and give me a link.”

I sent him some of the standards:

• http://www.dhmo.org/ [2]
• http://zapatopi.net/afdb/ [3]
• http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

He asked, “What search would bring those things up that you’d actually be looking for? I’m just curious sometimes about these things. I’m skeptical of the skeptics, you know.”

A bit of background: My brother and I are both within or at least near the cusp of the age groups defined as Millennials, digital natives, net generation, etc. We also come from a family that highly values education. We both have masters degrees; his is in science education. He teaches 9th grade science at a public school. In short, he’s an intelligent, well-educated, and Internet savvy young man. So his questions made me think hard about what I had learned about how to teach students to evaluate Internet sources.

Personally, I only know about those sites because people use them as examples when teaching how to evaluate websites. There are scores of sites that list examples for teachers to use. But I would argue that they are not the examples we should be using. They are not what will be on the first page of results on a real life information query. Or at least they wouldn’t be if so many education sites weren’t linking to them. [4] The real things they will typically encounter are much more complicated. And in all fairness, more likely to have decent information.

I’ll interject here with another anecdote as a case in point. I was helping a student who had to write a paper on psychedelic mushrooms. This is a recurring assignment from a Comp I professor who has his students write about various drugs, so I already knew from past experience that our library had relatively little information on this particular topic. The student had a note from her teacher saying she had relied too heavily on one particular source. She was frustrated because it had been the only place she had been able to find much of the information for her paper and now she wasn’t sure where else to look. It turned out to be an excellent teaching moment, and a much better example of the type of site we should be showing students how to evaluate. I explained the importance of looking for and reading the “about us” information and how she might not want to quote Fire and Earth Erowid in a college level paper. I also showed her that even though Fire and Earth don’t pass the credibility test, they did document their sources. It turned out that nearly every quote this student had selected for her paper had originally come from a government publication. Even better, the Erowid site included a direct link to the original source. I explained that the dates on these reports were a little older and showed her how she could find more recent information from the same government organizations. I very much doubt she followed up on every one, but hopefully she at least learned something about evaluating websites and following citations.

In “Dissecting the Web through Wikipedia,” Adam Bennington makes a similar case for using Wikipedia to teach these skills. [5]

“The goal here is to show students how to gather the same resources that support the Wikipedia entry. This helps expose the searcher to the wide variety of quality material contained in the library including the physical collection, electronic resources, and inter-library loan services (for resources not contained in the user’s home collection). It also gives the librarian a chance to explain how this content is different from what one might find with solely a Google search.”

I fully support Bennington in his focus on Wikipedia. It is a cultural phenomena that we ignore at our own (and our students’) peril. It is also another example of the complexity of Internet sources and another chance to practice critical thinking. When I discuss Wikipedia, I usually mention how Steven Colbert told his fans to change a Wikipedia entry on elephants to say “the number of elephants has tripled in the last six months.” So if you had seen it that day you might have believed that. In every class there are still students that didn’t know Wikipedia could be edited by anyone, so first it covers that feature. This example is not only about Wikipedia’s dangers though. The Wikipedia community responded quickly, fixing the error and protecting the page from further attack. So while it can be edited by anyone and errors do occur, so do corrections, another feature. We do our students a disservice when we dismiss such an amazing and useful resource, when instead we could be using it to teach them about the research process not to mention the power of individuals working together to share knowledge.

Using more realistic examples in our instruction and explaining the positive aspects as well as the negative will help both the students and our image. As my brother said, when he has searched for something online, he mostly receives decent information. Despite all the (certainly valid) questions about the secrets behind page ranking algorithms, a basic search will generally return fairly decent results with today’s technology. He (and our students) have every right to be skeptical of the skeptics. Condemning the Internet as a wasteland or a dangerous minefield when this is not the students’ personal experience only hurts our credibility.

Emily Drabinski summed up the severity of what is at stake in her comments on my first draft, “As a reference and instruction librarian, I feel like my entire job depends on whether or not students and faculty seek me out for help. Losing credibility by trying to convince students of a reality they have never experienced means I’ve lost a chance to seem authoritative and like I know what’s what.” If we continue to insist on this paradox between our authority and their personal experience we risk alienating the people we are trying to help.

In Free Culture, Elizabeth Daley discusses using various media in education, but her point applies here as well:

“You know, you’ve got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he can do all sorts of other things. He just can’t read your text. So Johnny comes to school and you say, “Johnny, you’re illiterate. Nothing you can do matters.” Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he’s going to dismiss you. [6]

In addition to using more realistic examples in our instruction, I’d also like to suggest a tiny change in vocabulary. When discussing sources let’s talk about whether they are appropriate to cite in the student’s paper, rather than whether they’re appropriate to use. There are many resources that are perfectly useful throughout the research process that may not be appropriate to cite in the final paper.

While pursuing my MSIS, I wrote a paper entitled “Writing Forms and Usage During the Viking Age.” Like every other student today, as part of my research process I did a Google search. I read Wikipedia entries. I also used the more encouraged sources, searching the library catalog and subscription databases, and browsing the shelves. This was an obscure subject and required a lot of digging. By far my most useful source was Vikinganswerlady.com. The Viking Answer Lady is Christie Ward. Her resume lists experience in computer science and web design, but no degrees and nothing related to viking studies. Our standard instruction would dismiss her site for not having an “about us” page and, after finding her resume, dismiss her as not an authority. Yet, reading through the site she is obviously dedicated, well read, and documents her sources.

from my bibliographic essay [7]:

“For a more in depth study of Viking Age literacy, I was lucky enough to be pointed towards James E. Knirk’s “Learning to Write with Runes in Medieval Norway” (Runica et mediævalia. Opuscula 2. Stockholm, 1994) and Aslak Liestøl’s “The Literate Vikings” (Proceedings of the Sixth Viking Congress. Uppsala, 1971). These two articles in particular provided much of the serious analysis that was missing from the easy to find general information. They also provided a large number of attempted and partial translations of runic inscriptions that helped inform my summaries of the various types extant.”

I was lucky enough to be pointed to those articles because I emailed Viking Answer Lady with my general thesis and asked her advice on where to look for more information. She might not fit the standard authority criteria that were established in the pre-Internet age, but I would argue she is most definitely an authority. Even if she is not an authority I would cite in a paper, she was an important step along the way of my research process.

We are quick to explain as it becomes easier and easier for anyone to put anything online that more and more incorrect, misleading, and otherwise “bad” information is becoming available. But the opposite is also true. It is just as easy for dedicated hobbyists, gifted amateurs, independent scholars and the like to put up incredibly useful information. (Not to mention marginal voices that are often excluded from more traditional modes of public discourse.) More and more organizations are providing their services and expertise online. We should be encouraging our students to take advantage of these wonderful resources, not handicapping them by refusing, discouraging, blocking, filtering, or otherwise denying access.

As we teach students to approach information critically we can also explain the importance of the intended use of the resource. To write a research paper on a medical condition you want to use reputable scientific information. But a chat room or forum might be much more useful for dealing with patients’ emotions and gathering first hand accounts, even if not all the scientific information in it is vetted. With these types of examples students can begin to learn to ask themselves questions about what types of information they need, who might have the information they are looking for, what type of person or group would have collected it and why, and where would it have been made available.

My brother asked in summary, “Basically, if you’re writing a paper for school, only use peer reviewed stuff.”

But it’s not that simple, is it? I sometimes moonlight at a wonderful four-year college where everyone has to take two courses that include in-depth position papers on controversial topics. Students (and even teachers sometimes) are often confused about whether what they’re looking at should count as authoritative. One of the examples I always give is that if you want to know the NRA’s stated position on gun control there’s no better place to go than the NRA website. If you want to know the statistics of children killed by their parents’ guns, I wouldn’t get it there. Another example: if you’re writing on Star Trek culture or the phenomena of fan fiction you would absolutely want to use fan sites. Rather than focus on these fan sites as examples of non-authority we should be focusing on clarifying your purpose and identifying what types of sources would fit.

I am calling for a shift in focus and in attitude. When deciding how to split your time, give precedence to critical thinking skills. Rather than extol the evils and dangers of the Internet, focus on the gems. In teaching how to find the gems we teach how to sift out the soil, sand and fool’s gold, but the emphasis should remain on the gems. Personal experience shows us that we can typically easily find anything we want online. Emphasizing the chaff discredits us. So as you go into your instruction sessions this next semester I encourage you to spend less time on Boolean and more time using realistic examples to help engage students in a critical discussion about how to best use the Internet for research.

Further Reading:

For lesson plans and concrete examples of how to incorporate these themes into your instruction see:

• Miller, Sara D. “Learning Outcomes, Instructional Design, and the 50-Minute Information Literacy Session.” Presented March 7, 2008 to the Library & Information Sciences Section.
• Bennington, Adam. “Dissecting the Web through Wikipedia.” American Libraries. August 2008: 46-48.

For more information on the growing importance of dedicated amateurs see:

• Howe, Jeff. “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” Wired June 2006

Notes:

[1] Quoted from: Miller, Sara D. “Learning Outcomes, Instructional Design, and the 50-Minute Information Literacy Session.” Presented March 7, 2008 to the Library & Information Sciences Section.

[2] Just in case it’s not obvious: dhmo = h20 = water

[3] The tin foil hat site is often used in K-12 for website evaluation exercises. Read their response. Amusing and insightful.

[4] A fascinating aside: I did a Google search on “octopus” to see if the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site would come up. It was the second result after the Wikipedia article, most likely because it is linked to off of so many education (read-reputable) web sites. But on the search results page, underneath the link, in brackets it says “Contains fictitious information.”

[5] Quoted from: Bennington, Adam. “Dissecting the Web through Wikipedia.” American Libraries. August 2008: 46-48.

[6] Quoted from: Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. While not directly related to this post, I wanted to share that this quote continues:

But instead, if you say, “Well, with all these things that you can do, let’s talk about this issue. Play for me music that you think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw for me something that reflects that.” Not by giving a kid a video camera and … saying, “Let’s go have fun with the video camera and make a little movie. But instead, really help you take these elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning about the topic.”

[7] I just want to put a plug in for bibliographic essays as an excellent tool for ensuring real thought goes into selecting sources.

Photo by Flickr member houseofsims

I always feel the need to preface my praise for this book with a little background. I’ve read a slew of best sellers on behavior. I started when a friend was raving about Malcolm Gladwell. I picked up Blink and The Tipping Point and read through them to join in the discussion. I was generally entertained but not particularly blown away. Then I read Predictably Irrational in preparation for a panel with Dr. Ariely at ALA last year. The reviews compared it to Freakonomics, so I read that one too. Figuring I was on a roll, I ran into Sway and added it to my list. They were all quick, easy, and entertaining reads. But Made to Stick was the first to truly inspire me. I had to stop every couple of pages and share a passage with someone or make a note to myself about how I could apply a concept to my work. I’m not claiming that Made to Stick is full of revolutionary ideas. It’s not. It’s also not a librarianship book. It’s not even a teaching book. It’s a marketing book, and yet page after page I found ideas to apply in my information literacy classes and to other areas of librarianship. What Made to Stick does have are excellent examples across various disciplines. (It also has a nice sized font and a conversational tone that make for easy gym reading.)

I would like to share some of the insights that stuck with me, and, in the process, encourage you to read outside your typical areas and think of how you can apply what you learn to your work. Right now, in my personal practice, I’m focusing on my teaching and how to make my one shot presentations more effective, both with my students in the library and at conferences. The examples that dealt with teaching and the possible applications that struck me while reading are the ones that stuck with me, but there’s so much more to mine here, especially in terms of management and marketing.

The Heaths “wrote this book to help you make your ideas stick. By ‘stick,’ we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact – they change your audience’s opinions or behavior.” With that in mind they organized the book (and titled the chapters) around 6 major qualities of sticky ideas:

• Simplicity
• Unexpectedness
• Concreteness
• Credibility
• Emotions
• Stories

Again, none of this is revolutionary, but the examples (concreteness) and the Idea Clinics (sidebar thought exercises) in each chapter bring home the points. The acronym of SUCCESs was a little cheesy for my taste, but as one of my reviewers pointed out, librarians love acronyms and people remember mnemonics. So if it helps you, use it.

Simple

In the chapter on “Simple” there is an excellent detailed explanation of military strategy and the importance of the Commander’s Intent. The Commander’s Intent is the one line summary of the main objective, written at the top of the document that spells out the full strategy. There follows a detailed plan for how to achieve this, but there’s also a saying, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” The message here is to find the core of the idea. The corollary is, “No lesson plan survives contact with teenagers,” something that I can relate to in my instruction. In fact, the majority of my sessions to coworkers begin with my asking them what they hope to get out of the class. I then sketch out the details of the lesson plan on-the-fly based on their answers. I have my Commander’s Intent in the form of the topic of the session, but am free to rearrange the actual class time based on the learners’ needs. I am still working on how to pull this method into my one shot classes, where the students are much less likely to be there of their own volition and therefore less likely to have personal objectives for the class.

Made to Stick stresses that making an idea simple is “about elegance and prioritization, not dumbing down.” I’ve been struggling to determine how much information to cover in my one shot sessions. My main objective that I repeat throughout my presentation is, “I don’t expect you to remember how to do all of this. I want you to remember that the librarians know it and you can always come to us with questions.” Likewise when I cover evaluating web sites, I’ve cut it down to “Ask yourself ‘Who wrote this?’” Yes, there’s much more to it, but not much more that can be covered and absorbed in such a short period of time. “People are tempted to tell you everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front, when they should be giving you just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more.” I think so many of us struggle against this Curse of Knowledge – having difficulty seeing what we’re trying to teach through the eyes of someone who doesn’t already know it. “As a result, we become lousy communicators.” Working to make our ideas simple is probably the most challenging idea covered in the book, but certainly worth the effort.

Unexpected

The Nordstrom’s customer service training teams use a list of unexpected examples to drive home the importance of outstanding customer service. Some stories of outstanding “Nordies” include the salesperson who warmed the customer’s car while he finished shopping, the one who ironed a customer’s shirt so he could wear it later that day and the one who refunded a set of tire chains – even though Nordstrom’s doesn’t sell tire chains. Telling people something unexpected shakes them out of their standard assumptions. Most people would presume to know what good customer service is, but the unexpected story of warming a customer’s car causes them to reevaluate the meaning of outstanding.

This brings up another common problem in my classes: battling over-confidence. If my students assume they already know everything they need to know about doing research, why would they want to listen to me? Both Made to Stick and one of my colleagues have suggested the same solution: engage people by having them vote publicly and commit to an answer. Made to Stick tells of a study of 5th and 6th graders who were assigned to interact on a topic. They were broken into two groups. One group’s conversation was lead to foster disagreement, the other group’s conversation was steered towards consensus. The group whose discussion had more disagreements was more likely to skip recess to watch a video on the topic. They were more engaged than the group that quickly came to consensus. As I reviewed this section I was reminded of a recent discussion over iClickers. One of my coworkers said that she has the students vote on whether a particular site is appropriate for college level research. After they vote she has them find someone with the opposite point of view and try to persuade them. She has them vote again after their discussion and finds that the majority have come around the the right conclusion.

Concrete

“World class customer service” is abstract. A Nordie ironing a customer’s shirt is concrete. Simple and unexpected are hard and take effort. Being concrete just takes remembering to do it and not slipping into the Curse of Knowledge. There are a number of great uses of concreteness in terms of marketing in this section. In one example the people behind Hamburger Helper took the abstract idea of their users and nonusers and made them into concrete detailed pictures of individuals. The Hamburger Helper product team had multiple binders full of data on their customers, so much that it was overwhelming. They put the binders aside and sent small groups into homes where they saw that mothers valued predictability in flavor and convenience to make. Seeing the mother searching for her child’s old familiar flavor on the shelf amongst a slew of new alternatives and then preparing dinner with a child on her hip made the idea of convenience concrete. Hamburger Helper ended up simplifying the product line and, subsquently, increasing sales. Creating a concrete, detailed description of your library’s users sounds like an excellent exercise for an all staff day or, even better, an outcome of a full blown user study. At my community college we would likely create three: the transitioning-to-a-4-year-university student, the two-year-certificate/workforce student, and the continuing education student.

Credible

Authority and celebrity are two ways to boost your credibility, but thankfully this chapter spends more time on options that are readily available to the average person. One such option is the anti-authority. Take Pam Laffin – the 29 year old who started smoking at age 10, developed emphysema by 24, and suffered a failed lung transplant. Pam became an anti-smoking spokesperson appearing in ads on MTV and Dawson’s Creek. Using these kinds of vivid concrete details and putting things on a human scale are two alternative ways to evoke credibility. To show just how powerful details can be, the authors tell the story of a study in which jurors were deciding a custody case. The jurors were more likely to believe the defendant was a good mother if her testimony included the specific description that the boy used a Darth Vader toothbrush while she ensured that he brushed his teeth at night. This little detail of the type of toothbrush lent significant credibility to her testimony. One of my coworkers tells a cautionary story of the student who waited to the last minute and tried to find everything online and the one who followed the steps she was about to teach them for good research. What other ways can we bring instruction out of the abstract, into the specific and human?

One of the most applicable ideas in this section is that of testable credentials. The book gives two great examples of this. First is Ronald Reagan asking the American public in his 1980 presidential debate, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The second example is taken from a workshop held by the Positive Coaching Alliance. The trainers “use the analogy of an ‘Emotional Tank’ to get coaches to think about the right ratio of praise, support and critical feedback.” They ask the coaches to say something to drain a player’s tank after he has flubbed a key play. The coaches excel at this. When they are asked to fill the tank the room goes silent. “Observing their own behavior, the coaches learn the lesson – how they found it easier to criticize than to support, to think of ten clever insults rather than a single consolation. [They] found a way to transform [their] point into a testable credential, something the coaches could experience for themselves.” I know that my instruction could benefit from relying less on the authority and lecture angle. It’s a hard habit to break, especially since the lecture style is my personal preferred learning method, but I also see the need to foster increased critical thinking skills, allowing students to reason through more lessons on their own.

Emotional

This was my favorite chapter. Getting people to believe you is only one step in changing minds. To take action, they have to care. There are a number of incredibly compelling stories in this chapter. There’s the effectiveness of charity on a human scale (sponsoring a child rather than giving to the general cause) summed up by the quote from Mother Teresa, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” And there’s the success of the Truth cigarette campaign, which tapped into anti authoritarianism. The authors also remind us not to overlook self interest – what’s in it for you? They discuss Maslow’s Pyramid and comment that most self interest appeals invoke the physical, security, and esteem layers. We need to come out of Maslow’s basement. The shining example of this is the military mess hall operator who deemed himself in charge of morale (transendence on Maslow’s pyramid). He has soldiers that commute in from the well-protected Americanized areas just for Sunday dinner. We tend to realize higher level appeals work on us, but then assume we need to appeal to the base needs of others.

This chapter also has an excellent idea clinic on the need for algebra. It begins with the question “Why study algebra?” and a typical conference answer suffering from the Curse of Knowledge which includes gems like “Algebra provides procedures for manipulating symbols to allow for understanding the world around us.” The following slightly better example has things like, you need it to get your diploma, it will help you with reasoning skills, etc. But then the winner:

Stories

Stories “provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). Note that both benefits, simulation and inspiration, are geared towards generating action … we’ve seen that a credible idea makes people believe. An Emotional idea makes people care …the right stories make people act.” There are a number of great stories in this section, but the most important aspect for me was the emphasis on the art of spotting – not making up – these stories. We encounter inspiring stories all the time. I know that a number of libraries collect these stories from their patrons and put them on their web sites. This section has ideas on how to spot ones that are most likely to inspire others to action. I will be looking for ways to incorporate more stories into my instruction, but I think the real strength here would be in promoting libraries to our communities at large.

I hope that I’ve inspired you to pick up a copy of Made to Stick, read through it yourself and look for ways to apply some of the ideas it explains. The ideas from Made to Stick are also a good example of how reading outside the library literature can help us expand our practice without reinventing the wheel. There are so many options. You can start with the straight one to one correlation. Interested in marketing in your library? Read general marketing content. Same goes for management, teaching, presenting, etc. Also consider going to primary sources. Watch good presentations and think about what was good about them. Swap out “presentations” for “managers” or “teachers” and do it again. I’m also including a list of suggestions for further reading, mostly on presenting, that I’ve found inspiring recently. If you have suggestions to add to the list that have inspired you or ways you’ve incorporated some of these ideas, please let me know in the comments.

Suggestions for further reading:

• Authors@Google: Garr Reynolds – “encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations”
• Financial crisis simplified (a whiteboard presentation) – an example of a great concrete analogy
• Book Recommendation: Letting Go of the Words – a book on designing for web content, useful for our websites, but also for presentations
• TED Talks – a collection of amazing and inspiring speakers