Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conference. 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!










































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Friday, October 13, 2017

Updates Fall 2017

Well, I suppose I'm more than overdue for a blog update. Here goes! After my last post, it was a race to the end of the semester at Grand View, but not before hosting both the Iowa Private Academic Libraries conference and the spring Iowa Library Association ACRL conference. I was a member of the planning committee for the ILA ACRL conference and as a local person, also helped with IPAL. In addition to generally helping, I also helped plan and co-lead the Information Literacy Interest Group morning session at IPAL. But rather than drone on and on, how about we just check out some of my tweets between my last post and now! :) I think you'll see some exciting things!




































You may have noticed a shift in my role. I took a new position at Iowa State University as an Instruction Librarian focusing on teaching and teaching support. This is a big switch from a small, private university to a large, Regent university, but I'm excited to try new things and serve the students and instructors here! Also, I got an adorable puppy (with photos sprinkled in above). I'm sure I'll share more as I develop into this position, but I wanted to write an official update before I left this blog hanging even longer!
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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.

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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.

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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! 
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Friday, December 7, 2012

Iowa Library Association Conference Recap 2012 - Thursday

This past October I was very fortunate to have attended the 122nd Annual Iowa Library Association Conference held in Dubuqe, IA.  Here is a very brief recap of some of the sessions I attended.

I was teaching Thursday morning, so I wasn't able to attend the Wednesday pre-conference or early Thursday general sessions, but I did manage to slip one session in on Thursday afternoon, before the breakout meetings and evening banquet. I've been working closely with children's literature class over the past couple of years, so I thought the information shared in the Graphic Novels for Youth and Teens session, led by Andrew Frisbee (North Liberty Community Library), Sarah Latcham (Iowa City Public Schools), and Becky Johnson (Cedar Rapids Community Schools), would be helpful and give me ideas about collection development & instruction for this area. Boy, did it ever! I came away with a fantastic list I hope to purchase, plus I got to visit with a former coworker, Andrew! Below is a list of just a few of the titles that were mentioned. Graphic novels can sometimes be tricky. There is a wide range of of topics covered, and sometimes it can be tricky to determine age-appropriateness.  Particularly if you plan on recommending something to a young person, be sure you have carefully assessed this.  Just because it is presented in a visual format doesn't mean it should be fair game for some of the youngest readers.  This is also something parents don't always realize.  While this won't necessarily be a problem when purchasing for my college population, it is important for me to be aware of when presenting this type of material to our education students.

Click to enlarge

You may find more resources here: www.tinyurl.com/ia-graphic

On Thursday afternoon I attended the ILA/ACRL meeting where we took care of normal business (approval of minutes, individual & committee reports) and began to think ahead about elections for next year's officers (who have since been elected--My coworker, Dan, is the new ILA/ACRL President!).

After the ILA/ACRL meeting, a small group of instruction librarians got together to discuss Becky Canovan's idea for a group space where instruction librarians can come together to share ideas, resources, encouragement, etc. The idea behind this group came from the ILA/ACRL conference held last May in Decorah, IA.  Those who attended the instruction/IL lightning round session noticed that there were many timely, relevant questions being asked by both new and veteran librarians who may be the sole instruction librarian at their institutions.  Many great instruction ideas were shared as well.  This planted a seed in Becky Canovan’s brain and, after a few discussions and emails, the IL Interest Group began to take root. At ILA we discussed goals for the group, how/where we wanted to collaborate (online space), and what we wanted to be included (general post from one of the website moderators or guest contributors, a space where questions can be contributed and then later addressed in a post or responded to by other users, encouraging or humorous stress reliever posts to help everyone stay afloat and take a moment to remember to be a person too, and perhaps a space where users can contribute "this worked" or "this flopped" examples).  This is still very much in the early stages, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes out! This April we hope to coordinate a pre-conference session before IPAL to help connect instruction librarians around the state.

That evening Bob Anderson, Director of the Raptor Research Project in Decorah, IA, spoke during the banquet about the many projects he has worked on over the years, capturing many different species of wildlife (specifically birds) on film.  Thanks to advances in technology, online streaming of the Decorah Eagles has really taken off, but Anderson also shared stories of humor, wisdom, and science.

In my next post I will cover Friday's events.
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