WILU 2010 Conference: What I really learned

18-20-year-olds don't have long-term planning skills.

To Do: match the ILCCs to my library instruction sessions from Fall 2009-Winter 2010 & make a chart by department & course of where ILCCs are being met.
School | Department | Course # | ILCC
___________________________
SoC | Photography | CPH 279 | ILCC....

Also, add the ILCCs to my libguides.

Take a look at the LibGuides stats for my pages--which links get used the most? Re-order items according to this info.

Ask students for feedback on the LibGuide itself during the library instruction session, using the Comment link.

Since deep learning means that learners use their new knowledge and skills in a new context to solve a problem (extrapolation/transfer of knowledge to a new situation), then assessment has to employ problem-solving (as in the CLA), not be a typical standardized test such as SAILS or the JMU test.

In CAP 115, how can I apply deep learning and activity theory? After students have annotated their topic & research tool handouts (or groups' blog/wiki entries on search engines/websites), have them trade handouts (or blog/wiki entries), use the tool the student noted on the handout/blog/wiki entry, and see if it provides something useful to the person reading the handout/blog/wiki entry.

In Writing 150, have students trade essays/papers to see how the quotations or referenced items actually contribute to the point of the paragraph and overall thesis? Is it clear how it changes or adds to the student's thought?

McMaster University has a training program for COTs on the single-service-point desk. I passed the info along.

One library used their graduate library-school intern to organize the internal staff wiki. The intern made a 3x5 card to represent each page, and another card for the various headers, and asked the librarians individually for feedback about which pages went under which heading, and took notes as the librarians talked and/or moved the cards around.

WILU 2010 Conference: Sessions

2B: "Good, better, best! - in peer learning." Karen Hering, Grant McEwan University.

"Polishing Diamonds" is a tool for fostering professional development in teaching excellence. It is a non-evaluative self-assessment through reciprocal peer observation. They ran a parallel program for librarian teachers under the FTLC (equivalent).
Time commitment=1.5 hours/week for 7 weeks.
Ground rules:

• 4 people/group ("diamond")
  
• only 1 observer/instruction session
• make only positive observations, not judgments--reflect on things you saw which you could use to improve your own teaching (don't comment on the librarian's teaching!).
  

Buy-in came from the library director encouraging the librarians to participate. Run program every 2 1/2 years with different groups each time. Meet at beginning of semester with all participants to go over ground rules. Each diamond meets after everyone has observed a session to share reflections. All participants met at end of semester to wrap up.

3A: "From active learning to activity: Getting beyond busy work and into deep learning." Wendy Holliday, Utah State University

Students were engaging shallowly with information in writing classes & perceived their assignments as busy work. Activity theory--deep learning requires a contradiction or bind in which your current tools don't work. Learning is a social/joint activity.

4B: "Sources as social acts: Using Genre Theory to transform information literacy instruction." Joel Burkholder, York College of Pennsylvania.

Use social purposes to define & classify:

• language used by a community to accomplish tasks
• guidelines for participating in community.

Evaluation should expose context. Is it useful? Not? Helpful? What's appropriate & when?

5A: "From pre-defined topics to research questions: An inquiry-based approach to knowledge." Michelle Allen & Benjamin Oberdick, Michigan State University

"Cephalonian" method. Inquiry-guided learning. First-year writing students "read" & regurgitate without processing material in any fundamental way when doing traditional research papers.

Inquiry-guided learning:

• questions, problems, issues
• investigate, create new knowledge (this is the model Wendy Nelson used)
• show a 1-2 minute YouTube video to spark curiosity or show a picture (e.g., Climatechallenge.gov.uk)
• have students write a question during the video & volunteer them ("those are all great questions")
• get to the researchable questions; pick one
• tell students to use this process to analyze & develop their own research questions
• give a few minutes to search however they want to
• each group sends 1 person to demonstrate on the instructor pc/display
• ask: what can we learn from this (article, etc.)--access, evaluation--then guide them to parallel library resources
  

WILU 2010 Conference: Keynote address

Keynote speaker: James Paul Gee.
Libraries should be the interactive space for 21st-century learning. Games like Yu-Gi-Oh, Sims, & World of Warcraft optimize:

• play
• analysis of theory & practice
• fun
• learning ultra-technical language (despite gamers' reading level academically)
• problem-solving
• technical skills development
• interaction between people of varying ages--the best learning communities are not age-related or age-limited
  
• interest-driven learning--when learners design their own curriculum (as they do games)
  
• role trading (leadership is distributed; eroded distinction between amateurs & professionals/experts
• distributed knowledge --the community is the expert, not individuals
  
• personal responsibility for the learning
• clear, concise, instant, & community-based feedback
• high tolerance for frustration and for community feedback & mentoring
• play/learning in either virtual or physical space.

This type of learning can't happen in schools because of societal inertia & because schools are organized to create a bell-curve (i.e., some learners succeed & some fail). Schools emphasize individual, not communal learning. But libraries can facilitate 21st-century learning: libraries were behind the surge in 19th-century literacy; libraries include many learning tools; librarians are designers, team leaders, organizers of play & cooperation; they provide resources.

From gaming we know that reading levels are directly correlated to interest & knowledge. Learners can be organized by their passion for something, not age or race, etc. Everyone has a passion for something & a deep skill in it. This is a different model from the curricular model of everyone knowing the same thing.

library instruction for upper-level students

I worked with an upper-level Spanish class last week and since I thought that many of them had had some library instruction previously, I asked. Only 1 student had, so then I asked how many had used the Library Guides for doing research. A couple had. I asked the student who was closest to the front of the classroom if he would like to "drive" the computer and show us his research methods. He seemed shy but delighted, and did a wonderful job. I chimed in, and he also reminded me of some important elements. We used both his and other students' topics. I had more fun and the students seemed to pay attention.

Two weeks ago, I worked with the Photography senior thesis class. All of them had had library instruction previously, most with me. So I handed out a quiz which asked them to complete various tasks (based on the Photography Library Guide). I was amazed that none of them were able to complete all of the tasks "correctly" and all but 2 did not do well--I looked over each completed quiz as they finished. Then we went over the questions and answers (asking for their responses) and I reminded them of the research methods. I didn't feel very successful, but earlier this week, one of the students brought me a thank-you card signed by all of the class members, and said how helpful it had been. Hmmm. Food for thought--using a task-based assignment as a quiz to focus attention on the previous learning and present research needs.

Is it acting or does praxis become self?

Su Penn wrote in Tape Flags and First Thoughts, "I thought, ... God might transform me from a whining, self-pitying, over-sensitive complainer into someone with something meaningful to offer, an agent of grace." I empathize, and recognizing my wishful thinking, attempt to figure out where I'm at.

Peace:
At one time I felt called to ministry and eldership. I felt connected spiritually, and blessed with the kind of wisdom that comes from being distanced from issues and not knowing people well. More typical now is a sense of struggling to establish connections, aggravation with everyone’s shortcomings (including my own—my neighbor as myself), and general gloominess. Often I have trouble settling in worship. I remember, “Be still and know that I am God.” I let myself drift. I think. I look out the window. I tried an anti-depressant but don’t like side-effects; it’s summer—I feel better when outside, I work with a therapist, and read.

Integrity:
Do the work. Impatient with what I term “Quaker chaos,” I took on the coordination of scheduling and training greeters and helping as needed. I try to post queries, announcements, and schedules on the blog and website calendar in a timely fashion. I ask for advice then try to tactfully address issues with individuals and in meeting for business. I wonder if I should offer to be the back-up to the recording clerk. I try to process my frustration with the chaos afterward and breathe through it during. Sometimes reading a bit of Friends Journal helps me center down and recall what this is all about. I try to recognize and talk about my feelings with my wife before they become a Big Thing.

Equality:
I decided to try to learn a new kind of ministry: outreach—being welcoming (coming out of a shy and reserved self) and learning how to be strong and steady (while feeling quixotic and pessimistic). I like getting cards so am learning to write cards to those who have been bereaved, who are ill or suffering, or who are new to meeting. I don’t know if practice will help words come more easily or not, but the “Dear Abby” column is useful(!) in addition to my wife’s experience and wisdom.

Simplicity:
Petting the cat. Playing with the cat. Being part of two CSAs. Exercising.

Is it acting, or does praxis become self?
“I am who I am becoming.”

March 2010 Friends Journal

"Clashing with the “B” Word: Homophobia in Liberal Quakerism" by Alvin J. Figueroa was heartrending for my wife and I, as we experienced only love and support from our Meeting when we asked to be married under their care. I was especially astounded and appalled by Alvin's experience of liberal Friends using the Bible to oppress. How contradictory, ironic, and two-faced that seems to me. However, I have chosen to study the passages often quoted, in context of their surrounding text and the culture/time of their writing. I went to lectures, read essays, and made the effort to address the passages myself. How many of the liberal Friends in Alvin's current and former meetings have done so--especially those who used the passages in a hateful way instead of in love? How do their actions demonstrate "meeting that of God in everyone?"

Depression as a peculiarly Quaker spiritual discipline?

In The transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 by Thomas D. Hamm, I read that Friends thought of depression as a very necessary part of Quakerism and that these dark times were welcomed.

I decided that a lifetime of depression was enough, especially if an expression of a genetic tendency; I've joined those who believe in better living through chemicals. I miss the creative urge and general contentedness that I have felt in the past. I'm tired of complaining all of the time. (oops, that looks like a complaint in and of itself.) I want to feel energetic.

Also despite the Friendly emphasis on not fighting back, I am taking a 15-week class on "Self-defense for women." I don't believe that I should allow someone to harm me, if I can create enough time or opportunity to get away.