It's hard for me to believe it has already been four weeks since I began my internship here at UD!
Last week was the kickoff week for RES 104. Becky Canovan, Reference and Instruction Librarian, has been working tirelessly to prepare the first set in a series of instruction sessions for this course. The librarians join each section of RES 104 (13 on campus sections, and one online section) six times throughout the semester to assist them with the research and writing process. The first round of sessions introduces the research process as it relates to the students' first paper covering social science topics.
The librarians here give each other the opportunity to observe (for the benefit of both the person rehearsing the instruction, and for those observing to be more comfortable with the content and approach before jumping into teaching). Becky ran through the Res104 Day 1 lesson (she is teaching all of the Day 1s and the Days 2 and 3 are divided between all of the librarians). She put together a creative first day incorporating various technologies as well as a haiku matching game where the students matched example topics to the prepared haikus (you can learn more about them in her blog post, click here). I was able to observe the first two (of three) of the social science sessions for one of the sections (with the third observation taking place later this week), taught by Becky. It was interesting to see (even between just the first two sessions) the difference in the ways the students responded to the instruction. I could see them connecting the ideas presented in the first session to the initial/exploratory research in the second section, as they looked to see if their proposed research questions were viable. I loved going around, helping students refine their searches and topics, asking questions and offering suggestions to help them be more successful.
This past week, Anne Marie and I also had the opportunity to discuss the collection development practices in a bit more in depth. Each librarian is responsible for approximately four different liaison areas. As is the case in many libraries, when purchasing for their liaison areas, the librarians welcome suggestions from faculty and students. The faculty suggestions are particularly key when purchasing in subject areas that are not the librarian's subject of specialty. In addition to faculty suggestions, librarians consider how the curriculum is changing, and whether the selections may serve multiple areas. Anne Marie gave examples of her selection and deselection processes, though weeding tends to fall to the bottom of the list behind instruction, public services, and selecting new items. Weeding happens, typically in the summers when the library is less busy, when space becomes an issue; deselection policies vary with department standards.
I was able to complete the WV2 prep (though some professors have yet to submit their partnering organizations to us so we can prepare the slides), update discussion threads on Moodle for the instruction sessions, and observe at the reference desk. As it was still early in the semester (only three days into the term), there were only a handful of reference questions, allowing Anne Marie and I the opportunity to discuss another one of the core classes, English 101 (ENG 101).
The design of ENG 101 is different than that of any other course I've seen, in that students are developing critical thinking, evaluation, and thesis developing skills through the writing of essentially the same research paper for the entire class. The students are learning about the research writing process and, rather than complicate or distract the students from the elements of this process, the students are presented with the same resources; as a class they evaluate the resources, formulate a class thesis, and compile the same bibliography. The students then write their own research paper using the resources from the class. The pedagogical idea is that the students are there to learn the process, not get bogged down in the resources or the last minute habits that seem to plague younger college students. By emphasizing the process and grading along the way, the students are able to better understand the building blocks of writing and connect that process to future classes (RES 104) where they complete the research, evaluation, thesis writing, and paper writing process independently. The librarians participate in a two-week unit (4-5 class days) in which the students examine the same articles (popular, scholarly), discuss, develop research questions as a class, break into smaller groups and complete a similar process for other articles, discuss answers as a class, develop a thesis/argument, and discuss how to read a scholarly article.
This week was another week where I came in on Friday to participate in meetings and instruction session observations. We had a meeting to discuss one area of the UD library's web page, the "How Do I?" page. What began as a quick reference has gotten bogged down with text, and is not necessarily presenting the information in a concise or organized fashion. We discussed:
What are the goals of the page? Is it a teaching tool? Should it not duplicate what we do in the classroom? Or should it present the same information, but in a "Reader's Digest" form? Do we want to include podcasts/screencasts? Who is our target audience (on campus students, distance students, those needing help with the research process, faculty, all)?
The plan is to look at other library web pages (including public libraries) to see how they present their FAQ or "How do I?" pages, whether it is presented in database form or browsable form or both, examine mobile interfaces, and look at best practices for libraries.
This week I'll be shadowing in several areas of the library and continuing to observe classroom instruction sessions.
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