Showing posts with label Presenter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presenter. Show all posts

Monday, November 12, 2018

MAC Fall Symposium 2018

I had the privilege of being invited to help lead this year's Midwest Archives Fall Symposium. What an amazing day! The theme was "From the Stacks to the Classroom" and we had such a wonderful day together exploring exciting topics, sharing ideas, and growing together! Many thanks to my co-presenters, Rachel Seale (Iowa State University Special Collections) and Anna Trammell (Pacific Lutheran University). I left feeling as though I had 34+ new friends to nerd out with about instruction!

We began the day with one of my favorite activities (that I borrowed from the Info Lit workshops I lead with Becky Canovan of University of Dubuque): Solution or Sympathy! Y'all, archivists and librarians are such kindred spirits and the questions or situations that were submitted and shared with the group were phenomenal! Here's how Solution or Sympathy works. Participants:
  • Write down instruction/archives-related questions or concerns;
  • Share the questions anonymously to see if the group has experienced something similar;
  • Offer up possible solutions, or sympathize, and let the person who submitted the question know that at least they're not alone.
What I love about this activity is that it works in almost any context with almost any profession! Everyone has problems and everyone wants to know either 1) what have others done to address/resolve this problem, or 2) who is here and can at least commiserate about this. Because, sometimes it's nice to just know you're not the only one.

We could have done Solution or Sympathy all day (seriously) but transitioned to an active learning/collaborative learning session primarily led by Rachel Seale. I LOVED the narrative building exercise she introduced to the group. To use this in your own classroom, divide your artifacts/documents into 4-6 groups. Similarly, divide students into the same amount of groups and ask them to read and evaluate the documents, preparing to share out with the rest of the class information about their resource. Because you have cultivated the collection, eventually through the sharing-out process, students will start to see a story emerge from the resources. By the end, the whole class should be able to pull together the whole story - either through a whole-class discussion, or by a volunteer student who can tie it all together. You can also discuss what's still missing from the story, or try to predict what happened next. Lots of great inquiry can be built from this example! Rachel also led another activity where groups taught each other about various Collaborative Learning Techniques. She recommended the resource Using Primary Sources: Hands-On Instructional Exercises edited by Bahde, Smedberg, and Taormina.


Rachel & I collaborated to lead a session on Growing Your Instruction Program. We set up table-topics where participants could self-select which conversation they wanted to participate in. We prepared some conversation-starter prompts, but essentially the participants ran each table independently. All we asked was that a recorder be assigned to each topic so those who are interested in more than one topic could still learn after the fact, despite not being able to be in two places at once, because the notes were shared out with participants after the conference. We did allow for participants to rotate tables partway through the activity, though most stayed at their original topic. The overarching topics were:

  • Building relationships with faculty
  • Building relationships with students
  • Building relationships with colleagues (librarians, archives, staff)
  • Advocating for resources
  • Marketing your archives

Anna Trammell led a session on Designing Special Collections Instruction Sessions Using a Social Justice Framework, and also shared out a session focusing on Utilizing Instructional Technologies in the Classroom. A few of the highlights from those sessions are found in my tweets, below.

I led a session on Assessing Your Instruction Program and presented 60 assessment ideas or tools in what was slotted for 60 minutes. I warned the audience that I'd likely be talking like the Micro Machines commercial guy or an auctioneer, and I did.
I also promised that if there was extra time, we'd go back and do some more Solution or Sympathy questions. Well, I was totally Micro Machines-y and wound up covering the 60 ideas in 30 minutes! So we dug back into the Solution or Sympathy, which also seemed to be a hit. It worked out well!

We closed out the day with an Instructional Design Workshop where groups used provided scenarios to develop a lesson plan that incorporated some of the elements covered throughout the day. Groups had ~1 hour to work on their plan and then reported out to the group:

  • A brief description of the scenario
  • Explanation of how they addressed communication barriers, incompatible expectations, and how they worked with the requestor to find out more about their needs to develop a plan. 
  • Identified their learning outcomes
  • Described or demonstrated how they incorporated active learning techniques
  • Described what items they used (from collections)
  • They also had the option to share out instructional technologies or social justice framework elements if they chose to include them
  • How they assessed the activity/lesson
What rich conversations were generated throughout the entire day! I loved learning from participants and helping facilitate activities! Below are my tweets from the day -- with tidbits and takeaways from the various sessions! Thanks again to participants for being so wonderful, and to MAC for inviting me to help plan and facilitate the day!










































Tuesday, March 7, 2017

36th Annual Conference on the First Year Experience

I was fortunate to have been able to attend and present at the 36th Annual Conference on the First Year Experience. While I won't go into too much detail, I will say the sessions I attended were excellent and provided inspiration I plan to mull over and incorporate into my practice. Here are some brief highlights presented in a visual manner:

Welcome – Jennifer R. Keup, Director, National Resource Center

Opening Session and Keynote Address – Dr. Rishi Sriram, Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs; Graduate Program Director for the Department of Educational Administration; Faculty Master, Brooks Residential College — Baylor University; Keynote Address -- Developing Talented College Students. 
Dr. Brittany Cottrill Lloyd, myself, and Ryan Roy facilitated a discussion entitled Lost in Transitions: Expectations and Persistence in the First-Year Experience. 

Bethany Johnson-Javois, CEO, St. Louis Integrated Health Network; Closing Address -- Mobilizing Movements: The Uncomfortable Truths
While most of our time was spent in sessions, we did have an evening off to explore Atlanta. Within walking distance from our hotel was the SkyView Atlanta Ferris wheel, which gave us a view of the skyline, as well as a birds-eye view of  Centennial Olympic Park.

SkyView Atlanta from the ground.

Centennial Olympic Park
I took a lunch hour to visit the Center for Civil and Human Rights Museum, also within walking distance. It was well worth it to have made this a priority in my visit to Atlanta. 
Center for Civil and Human Rights Museum

There was such a wide range of important exhibits, and I was thankful to have been able to see them. Something about this image stood out to me. 


While I could share my pages and pages of notes and more photos from the conference, I'm still working my way through mentally processing them. I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to attend and look forward to folding new ideas into my daily work.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

CIC Workshop in Information Fluency: English and American Language and Literature

My colleague and I were invited to speak at this year's Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Workshop in Information Fluency, held in Louisville, KY, on our experiences collaborating on upper-level courses in the English major.  We spoke on our embedded librarian partnership, planning, and collaborating in American Literature I & II, Diverse Voices (previously known as Women's Literature), and Literature for Children and Adolescents, and also helped facilitate workshop conversations for participating institutions. ACRL helped co-sponsor this event, and recently shared some information here: http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/11520#.VucOSVXM5og.facebook Also, CIC will be sharing resources and campus plans here: http://www.cic.edu/meetings-and-events/Other-Events/Pages/Infofluency-Workshops.aspx

Here are a few highlights from the trip:
Welcoming remarks at the Brown Hotel.
The view from our panel presentation space.
Just before our presentation - My colleague Dr. Amy Getty of the Grand View English Department.
J. Graham Brown and his pup, Woozem, in front of the Brown Hotel.
Downtown Louisville, KY.
We had the afternoon following the completion of the workshops to sightsee in downtown Lousiville, KY.
One of the sights we saw was a glassblowing demonstration. 
Well, of course we went to the library...
Librarian at a library. Not surprising. 

We had the afternoon following the completion of the workshops to sightsee in downtown Lousiville, KY.
Can't go to Louisville without visiting the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory!
Can't go to Louisville without visiting the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory!
The Babe himself.

They also had a slightly baseball themed Ripley's Believe it or Not exhibit at the museum/factory.
Louisville Slugger Museum/Factory.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Conference Recap: New Directions in Information Fluency, Augustana College

This past weekend my colleague, Dan, and I attended the first annual (hopefully!) New Directions in Information Fluency Conference at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. I missed the Friday evening activities, but heard the dinner and library tour were great!

The morning began with registration, and then transitioned into the Keynote Address, given by Sandra Jamieson, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and Professor of English at Drew University who is one of the principal researchers for The Citation Project. There were many great points drawn from the data, many of which weren't surprising to me, knowing students' research habits (i.e. most students cite from only the first page of the resources they use-46%, with other citations being drawn from page two-23%, and the next highest location within a source being cited is page 3-7.9%; 525 of the 930 sources cited were only cited once within the paper; 26% of the 1,911 citations in the student papers that were examined were less than or equal to 2 pages long) but it was nice to hear the data support what we already know (which can help us "prove" to our stakeholders that there is more to be done and we need to continue to work together to improve services). We know students will take the path of least resistance whenever possible; we know they'll chose topics they're already familiar with so it's easier to write the paper; we know they'll gravitate toward easy to find, short resources to cite in their papers. My interest is to further examine the data she quoted to see how we can use that to 1) modify the instruction we are already doing, and 2) use that data to help educate faculty about student research & writing habits. So often we see faculty assuming students arrive at college with the necessary skills to research, read (and understand) scholarly materials, and write well-constructed arguments. That's simply not the case, and now we have some great data to help faculty understand that if you want your students to do something, you have to teach them how.

Awesome group workstations and the circ. desk at Augustana's Thomas Tredway Library.
One term Jamieson and others used at the conference was "threshold concepts." Essentially, threshold concepts are those concepts students must have an understanding of before moving up to the next idea. Though this term wasn't one I use often, the idea behind it is a foundation in psychology (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), video games (level up), and common sense (you can't expect a music student to be able to play a scale if they haven't mastered the skill of how to hold the violin, the same is true with all areas of education--students must first have a strong foundation before moving to the next skill or concept).

Displays and work spaces at Tredway Library.
In the first panel after the keynote, Lucas A. Street (Assistant Director of the Reading/Writing Center) & Farah Marklevits (Instructor in English) both from Augustana College, presented "To Love Locked Rooms: First-Year Inquiry and Reading." They observed in their first-year writing class their students were having difficulty understanding scholarly resources. While they understand why it's important to summarize and paraphrase, they didn't always understand how to do it (especially with difficult reading). The instructors worked with the Writing Center to help the students bridge the gap between understanding and application. They revamped their trimester outline to emphasize how to understand difficult resources during the first trimester; then in the second trimester they focused on application of skills in a basic way to help convey the "They say" part of their text, They Say/I Say. In the third trimester they work to incorporate their own ideas to bring something new to the scholarly conversation (finding common themes among resources that help support their ideas).  They also have required tutoring session for those enrolled in a 1-credit library skills class, where students have individual, regularly scheduled "lessons" or tutoring sessions where they work to practice their skills. This is particularly helpful when students are struggling with paraphrasing and bringing together multiple sources to help reinforce their ideas. It allows the instructors time to focus on individual weaknesses, and to have the students talk about the resources (usually they are better when talking through a summary than when they are trying to write it out). It was nice that the presenters built in some time for conversation to brainstorm other ways to be sure students are able to apply the skills we are emphasizing in our instruction.

A close-up of the great group booths at Tredway Library. 
For the second half of the first panel, Virginia Johnson (Director of the Reading/Writing Center, also from Augustana) outlined her "Question Quest" activity in which students draft a research question (and why they're interested in that topic), practice reading-to-write strategies, revise their questions, and research about their topics.  They extract the paper writing process from the research paper, and just focus on the research process and understanding resources/how resources relate to their research question. Throughout the semester they journal and reflect upon the process. It reminded me of the article dissection activity I helped out with at University of Dubuque, where we focused only on understanding and incorporating sources into writing. There was only one thing for the students to worry about. This flips that and the "thing" to worry about it the research process (without a huge paper looming over students). I like the short assessment questions she uses with her students:
  • What did you learn about the library?
  • What did you learn about your research question?
  • How is this different from high school?
I think those three questions are easy for first-year students to understand, but provide faculty with feedback to allow for good reflection, helping faculty better understand just what the students got from the experience (and how they might apply it). 

Panoramic view of the first floor of Tredway Library.
After the first session, Dan & I, along with Nicole Cooke (faculty at Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Jennifer Sharkey (Milner Library, Illinois State University) presented on the "The Big Picture" panel.  Cooke talked about librarian education and ways to ensure librarians are prepared to teach (instruction training).  I liked that she is invested in improving librarian preparation to address instruction, and that she opened it up for dialog with the group to brainstorm ideas for how library schools can approach teaching. Sharkey discussed how Milner Library developed and implemented their information fluency plan. Then Dan & I discussed our embedded librarian program, and the process that helped us expand from a few English classes into the New Core. There were some great questions, and I hope those who attended were able to walk away with something they could use or think about for the future.

Green space and walkways on Augustana College's campus.
After our session was lunch, and then the final session of the day.  For my 2:00 session, I went to "Cultivating the One-Shot" given by University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. I was impressed by this panel. They identified that they are limited to 1-shots, and so they decided to really hone in and perfect how they're approaching them.  Essentially, they went through a "Lesson Study" process where stakeholders from both the lesson content area and librarians worked together to set goals, design a lesson plan as a group, deliver the lesson plan while others observe (focusing on the lesson, not the instructor), discuss it, and then revise it to better meet the needs of the students/instructors. They broke it down into 2 primary goals (for their first-year courses):
  • Where can/should students search for various types of resources?
  • How can we recognize and demonstrate transferability of search skills? 
Throughout the process they'd deliver instruction, carefully observe/document the lesson in action, and conduct surveys/focus groups with the students.  

Then they described the "extras." Knowing you can't teach everything all at once, they created prerequisite tutorials for faculty to incorporate into their classes before they could request to come to the library for a 1-shot session. The great thing about this is, it's like a mini flipped classroom experience where students and faculty would/should have come in with a basic understanding from having gone through short video or online tutorials. A lesson learned from the presenters: it's key to be sure the technology you use to create the learning object should allow you to easily adapt, reuse, and create new versions of your materials.  

I also like the tiered lessons they mentioned, which is targeting a major (i.e. nursing) and following their course sequencing throughout the major to spiral instruction as they move into upper level classes. This way they get to build upon what they've done in the past, reduce repetition, and build relationships with students within a specific discipline. The presenter emphasized librarians adopting the major's language (i.e. PICO evaluation criteria as similar to Information Literacy evaluation criteria) to use within the planning and instruction process.  I'm looking at digging more into what they've made available through their libguides! 

 
Oh, you know. The usual TRICERATOPS at a library conference! We discovered this dino after our presentation. 

All in all, it was an interesting conference. There were many great conversations started and I was impressed with how smoothly things went, especially for this conference's first time out of the gate! One thing I would have preferred would have been to be able to attend more presentations. Many of the sessions have 5 panels to choose from (with 2-3 presentations within the panel).  I would have liked to have had more time slots with fewer concurrent sessions (maybe 3 to choose from instead of 5). Other than that, bravo, Augustana folks! 

Saturday, August 18, 2012

IULILColloq2012: Bringing Reality TV to Library Instruction

Warning: This is the blog post in which I enthusiastically discuss Becky Canovan's and my presentation and get really excited about the evaluation comments we received.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, YAHOO! I had an absolute blast presenting with Becky during our session "Bringing Reality TV to Library Instruction: Non-traditional Activities for Teaching Traditional Library Concepts." Our presentation began with a brief overview of both of our institutions (small, liberal arts but with many professional programs, similar average ACT scores--Grand View's is 21, etc.). Then we jumped into explaining the activities and how they were applied in two very different ways.

The foundation for the activity:
  • Simply put, it's a series of tasks (which I enthusiastically declared many times throughout the session, partly because it's applicable, and partly because it makes me think of Ted Stevens' declaration that the Internet is a series of tubes...series of tasks...series of tubes. That's where my brain went anyway!)
  • A group activity
  • The group must complete each task before advancing to the next round, after having the librarian or instructor sign off on the task
University of Dubuque's version--The Great Poetry Race:
  • This originated from a brainstorming session on a Friday afternoon (when all great, kooky ideas are generated, of course) when library faculty & staff were trying to come up with a creative and entertaining approach to students needing to find secondary resources on a poem. The goal was to be sure students were comfortable and capable searching within the library catalog, CREDO, JSTOR, & Academic Search Premier, and they would be introduced to Literature Resource Center.  The activity was done over two class sessions. Librarians reviewed using the databases listed above & introduced Lit Resource Center and then gave the students a chance to ask questions or review something again. After that, students were grouped and had to complete (you guessed it!) a series of tasks.  They were given packets of cards, each with a different task that needed to be completed by the group.  Here's the catch: the groups had to do this without asking for help.  They had one "life raft" card they could use to get help, but other than that, they were on their own.  For each task, the groups had to select a different member of the group to be their leader.  The first group to complete their tasks & have them signed off on by a librarian was declared the leader (hooray)!
Grand View University's version--The Great Citation Race:
  • We are fortunate to have a strong embedded program with several departments on campus, including the English department.  I worked with Engl 101 (Intro to Composition, a first-year composition course) for this activity.  Many of the students we get may not have even written a research paper before, let alone mastered the science (art?...whatever.) of citations. So, long story made longer, we developed a series of activities to be delivered over five class sessions.  Each activity took the first 20 or so minutes of class; the rest of the session was spent searching the library catalog or databases for the types of materials they learned to cite earlier.  
  • For the citation activity, groups were formed based on the students' majors (the instructor liked students to learn that, rather than have 1 set citation style for the entire class...Which meant I got to teach 4 citation styles. At once.), leaving the class with seven groups.  The groups that completed the activities first received the highest number of points (7), with the next group receiving  one less (6), and so on. The whole group needed to complete the activity and have it written on their sheets in order for anyone in the group to receive their points.  At the end of all of the rounds, those individual with the highest point totals received prizes (of course, the prizes were awesome Pez dispensers & a big package of Peeps).  For each round the students completed a worksheet (I know, worksheets are gross, but I felt the students would better interact with the citations they were creating by writing them out).  Each citation style had a different worksheet, but they all worked to cite the same sources (I just had to prepare answer keys in 4 different styles for each activity).  Here's a brief overview of each of the rounds:
    • Round 1: Explained the game & learned how to cite books with one author (no editors)--This included in-text (or end note) citations, paraphrasing source material, and incorporating direct quotes
    • Round 2: Citing books with multiple authors &/or editors (followed by finding books in the library catalog)
    • Round 3: Citing journal articles from databases & in print (followed by finding journal articles in the library's collection)
    • Round 4: Citing websites (followed by searching for & evaluating websites)
    • Round 5: Recap of previous rounds, showing points progress chart, and celebrating winners (followed by independent work time for additional research)
  • It was a bit chaotic at times, but the students really made the connection between citations and responsible use of materials.  Having to prepare multiple citation styles was...a challenge and a bit time consuming, but since the instructor wanted them to learn the citation styles they would use later in their majors, we made it work. (Let me know if this doesn't make sense--I sometimes forget to explain a step or two...)
Then it was time for the IULILColloq attendees to get in on the fun and complete a series of tasks in their own groups! 
  • Round 1: Chose a course from a list we provided (see the Prezi, linked above)
  • Round 2: They identified an IL skill to target in the course they selected in Round 1
  • Round 3: They linked their IL skill from Round 2 to at least 1 ACRL IL standard (& explained why they chose it)--We provided them with a printout of the ACRL IL Standards, for easy reference
  • Round 4: They wrote 2 learning outcomes for the session/IL skills they selected (i.e. The students will...)
  • Round 5: After completing the above steps as a group (and having gotten them signed off by either Becky or myself), the attendees worked individually to write down one IL skill, course, or way in which they could use this strategy at their own institution. They then shared their responses with the group and we recorded them on the prezi (so all could access them later)
Ok, so that's the nitty-gritty stuff of how we implemented this activity at our institutions and in our presentation.  I mentioned at the beginning of this (now ridiculously long) post that we received some great feedback and comments about our presentation. Here are a few (I'm not trying to brag--I'm just super-excited that our presentation was so well-received!):
  • "Another great one!  These ladies were not only knowledgeable, but very entertaining.  I loved their storytelling approach to how they made these techniques work with their students.  Great, GREAT presentation."
  • "I thought it was smart to have the audience try out the approach."
  • "I think a little more time would have helped this session.  The presenters discussed what they did in the instruction sessions at their universities and then demonstrated how their process worked by having session members participate in a real-life example.  But, I was still left a little confused by exactly how they planned and executed their instruction.  It would have been nice to have some time to talk to them about that." Agreed--we packed a lot into a short amount of time--it would have been great to have had more time to visit at the end of the session! 
  • "Hilarious and so fun. The hour went by before we knew it. Good ideas. Look forward to implementing my own 'series of tasks'!"
  • "I loved the energy of the presenters and also the information! They mentioned empowering students to answer each other's questions, and I LOVE this idea."
  • "This was one of the best sessions I attended and I think it was because instead of telling us how they did it, they had us experience it as a participant and described the behind-the-scenes parts at the beginning and end. The session leaders demonstrated their enthusiasm and genuine desire to teach. It was great fun!"
A HUGE thank you to my co-presenter, Becky Canovan, for being on board with my crazy idea to submit a presentation proposal for a conference that was held a couple of states (and several hours in a car) away! Thanks also to Maria Accardi (IU Southeast) and Carrie Donovan (IU Bloomington) for throwing this shindig! 

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Top Ten List: Number Six

From the Library Technology Conference, in reverse chronological order:

6. E-learning: Tips, Tricks, and Tools of the Trade, Susan Kane, Harvard Office of Information Systems
  • Susan Kane presented a wide range of tools and approaches to online instruction. She began with a brief introduction, asking which tools attendees had used in the past (see list below), to get a sense of our backgrounds/levels of experience. Then she dove into the "why?" questions. While there is nothing wrong with teaching face-to-face, particularly if instruction is an accepted and promoted part of your institution's culture, there are sometimes barriers to instruction delivery. They include scheduling conflicts, poor attendance at sessions when offered independent from a class (particularly when not tied to grades), and users may prefer to have things available online to be viewed and reviewed at their convenience. The benefits of online instruction are the flexibility of when the content is delivered (at user's convenience), reusability of tutorials when applicable, users may go a their own pace (supporting multiple learning styles when well done), instructor consistency (when delivering in-person instruction to multiple sections, some information may be accidentally excluded, creating inconsistency), and ease of standardized scoring, and that these technologies and the way information is presented is becoming more and more native to today's users. Drawbacks include a disconnect between students and librarian, potential for learner distraction (i.e. checking other web pages or doing other things while the instruction session is happening), watching tutorials can be boring, high-speed internet is usually required to successfully run online tutorials, computer proficiency, software updates "fix" or cement content (making it harder to update content). There is a trade-off between face-to-face instruction and online instruction. Face-to-face may require complex scheduling, man power, and cooperation from faculty, etc. Online instruction may be perceived as time-saving; however, production and maintenance is quite costly when examining the staff time it takes. An interesting figure presented was, for every hour of training you are trying to convert to online presentation/format you will spend between 49-127 hours in production. 49-127 production hours/1 hour of product. Making content reusable can help alleviate some of this strain, but then you risk lowering the relevance or context which may make it less valuable to the user. Kane recommends being as specific as possible within your goals for reusability. By determining what does and does not need to be taught in context, you are allowing for the potential of greater reusability.
Planning and Pre-production
  • Determine what you are starting with. Notes from an in-person lecture? PowerPoint slides? A website or other documents? Nothing?
  • Determine your goals. Does everyone agree (what are others' expectations)? What are your limitations on staff time or policy objectives? Service objectives? How much content is presented and how interactive will it be? What are the key objectives (choose one or two).
  • Do you have the tools to accomplish what you want? The hardware, software, staff time (assumption is that this will save time, but people often forget about the behind-the-scenes work in producing the content), expertise, and delivery platform?

Other helpful things to keep in mind when producing online instruction content
  • Will you need to convert the files to another format in order to deliver the content (i.e. post to Moodle, etc.)?
  • Why reinvent the wheel? Will some of your older content work with your new software (i.e. pulling in PowerPoint slides)?
  • How easy is it to add audio, what is the quality like, and how can you edit as necessary?
  • What are the costs associated with what you are using? Several options are free or quite reasonable, but do the free products offer you the flexibility you need? Are the more complex programs too complicated and clunky? Find that balance.
Resources mentioned throughout: