Confidence-zappers and how to handle them
Abstract:
This chapter highlights a number of challenging situations that can cause teaching librarians to doubt their self-efficacy and drain their confidence. Each challenge is described and analysed and solutions are suggested to help librarians deal with the difficulties they may experience, both in their day-to-day teaching work and from an overall strategic or organisational perspective. The challenges regularly faced by teaching librarians include poor student attendance at elective sessions, trying to facilitate active learning with large classes, low student motivation and poor engagement, trying to find effective ways of using a VLE to support learning activities, dealing with adult learners, and trying to create meaningful learning experiences within ‘one-shot’ class sessions.
In his text on reflective teaching, Pollard (2008) notes that a significant cause of stress among (school) teachers arises from their attempts to resolve the everyday dilemmas which result from the conflation of numerous competing factors in their environments – for example, practical classroom matters, performance standards, personal ideals and wider educational concerns all jostle for attention in the business of teaching (p. 6). He notes that ‘the resolution of such dilemmas calls for teachers to use professional judgement to assess the most appropriate course of action in any particular situation’ (ibid.). As teaching librarians, we too find that we must deal with a multiplicity of factors in our attempts to teach effectively, and sometimes our feelings of confidence can be buffeted by the difficult circumstances that confront us and the recurring issues that slow us down and cause us frustration. Woolfolk et al. define self-efficacy as ‘a person’s sense of being able to deal effectively with a particular task’ (2008: 722). The authors also draw attention to research which has shown that a teacher’s sense of self-efficacy is one of the few factors that are positively correlated with learner achievement – the more a teacher believes in their ability to facilitate learning, the more likely they are to invest time and energy in managing and overcoming challenging situations. An important point to note is that self-efficacy is more likely to develop from actual concrete success experienced with learners, rather than ‘cheer leading’ or support from colleagues: ‘Any experience of training that helps people succeed in the day-to-day tasks of teaching will provide a foundation for developing a sense of efficacy in your career (Woolfolk et al., 2008: 403). So, while encouragement is important, it is primarily through building on experience that your sense of confidence and self-efficacy will grow and enable you to face any situation, unfazed.
As we have already noted, teaching librarians face a number of challenges that are not shared by school teachers or even university lecturers, although they operate in essentially the same environment. Some of the main stress factors for teaching librarians have already been discussed in this book, including:
being constantly overstretched – combining teaching with general library duties;
lack of training in how to teach;
operating in a vacuum – lack of involvement in subject curricula;
insufficient time with students – predominance of ‘one-shot’ sessions;
student motivation – unaccredited courses and sessions attract few students;
coping with a diverse student body – every group is different;
constant self-promotion required – ‘selling’ the instructional services of the library;
Teacher anxiety among librarians was specifically explored by Davis (2007) in her survey of 382 academic librarians in the US. She reported the following findings:
63 per cent of her sample claimed to feel nervous before starting a class, with 60 per cent experiencing physical symptoms associated with that stress, e.g. sweating, upset stomach, blushing, etc.
65 per cent indicated that they experience mental or emotional symptoms; their worries included fears about being underprepared to deal with difficult questions (40 per cent) and public speaking (27 per cent).
A number of respondents reported feeling anxious about librarian stereotyping (24 per cent), particularly with regard to academics’ perceptions of their role.
The following sections explore several of the more challenging situations that crop up frequently in the work of teaching librarians. They represent many of the key themes that have already been discussed – motivation, active learning, classroom management, technology, relationships with academics and student diversity. Unresolved, these situations can lower motivation, increase stress and have a negative effect on perceptions of self-efficacy. Some of the situations are common to all teachers; others are specific to the circumstances of teaching librarians and relate to their unique role in the academic community. They are described in ‘real’ terms, designed to represent actual questions that teaching librarians might ask themselves about their work. In exploring each situation in a systematic way and applying the knowledge and concepts discussed in previous chapters, it is hoped that each section will offer you, as teaching librarians, a means to plan and develop strategies to confidently handle the issues that you face.
‘Attendance at our elective information literacy workshops is poor – what can I do to encourage students to sign up?’
Elective, or ‘drop-in’, sessions represent a unique dilemma for teaching librarians. On the one hand, they offer a means for librarians to reach students (and academic staff) when curriculum-integrated instruction proves difficult to establish. On the other, however, they are often ignored by the very students they are designed to reach, and suffer from poor attendance. However, rather than becoming discouraged and dispirited by the lack of take-up of elective sessions, teaching librarians should endeavour to think of them in a more strategic way and to use them as a promotional tool, while at the same time continuing to work towards curriculum-integration and alignment with institutional objectives.
Appreciating what motivates students in educational environments is the first step in understanding why they might not attend drop-in sessions.
Typically, students’ action, or inaction, arises from extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors (Jacobson and Xu, 2004: 4–6):
Extrinsic motivation concerns factors which are external to the student. According to this perspective, learners respond to: a) positive reinforcers or rewards, which in the academic environment might include successfully passing a course, obtaining high grades, or simply gaining praise for an assignment well done; and b) negative reinforcers, which refer to the students’ desire to avoid punishment or adverse consequences, e.g. failing a course, having to resubmit course work, angry parents, etc.
Intrinsic motivation, by contrast, derives from students’ personal interest in subjects, and their innate desire to learn; they are not motivated by the promise of reward, but simply gain pleasure from the learning process itself, and are highly self-directed and independent learners. Learning which derives from intrinsic motivation is inevitably deeper and more meaningful than extrinsically motivated learning.
However, the structure of the educational process at both school and university level is typically based on norm-referenced assessment (see Chapter 3), which effectively pits the students against each other competitively and focuses on high grades as proof of successful learning. Students, therefore, tend to become strategic about their learning and to focus their efforts primarily on activities that they perceive will contribute to the attainment of those grades. Elective courses, if they are not mandated by lecturers, do not usually fall into this category, and are consequently perceived by students as something that can be safely ignored. Obviously, courses or sessions that are accredited, or which count towards a grade in a subject area, are less likely to suffer from attendance problems (although the problem of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation is still an issue, from the perspective of depth of learning).
So, what can you, as teaching librarians, do if your sessions are not accredited? From an overall perspective, you should, of course, continue to proactively explore ways of integrating your instruction into academic curricula, where it is appropriate to do so, for the many reasons discussed in previous chapters. But, does this mean that elective sessions should be abandoned entirely? Not necessarily. When perceived in a different way, drop-in sessions can become an important marketing and promotional tool for libraries. If your elective offerings are not proving popular, it is important to look at them with a critical eye, and ask a number of probing questions:
Is there a basic mismatch between what you think the students want or need, and what they actually want? The sessions that are on offer may only represent your estimation of what will attract students. While we are often correct in our assumptions, there is no substitute for solid market research. When it comes to selling, drop-in sessions are like any other product or service; we must find out what the customers’ needs are and try to satisfy those needs. As teaching librarians, you can adopt a proactive approach to researching your target market – for example, online surveys are now very quick and easy to create and administer, with the availability of such web-based tools as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang. Other approaches to needs assessment have been discussed in Chapter 3.
Is the channel appropriate? Most elective sessions are offered on a F2F basis, typically in an information skills laboratory located inside the library itself. Often, the idea is to ‘get students through the door’, so that, as a by-product of instruction, they will come to appreciate the library as place and the other services that are available. However, you should consider if the library is the most appropriate place to hold your instruction, or if F2F is the most suitable format. Perhaps holding a class in the campus building where the open-access computer labs are located might gain more visibility for the library, and contribute to students’ perception that the library has more to offer than that which is contained within its four walls? Or creating a series of e-tutorials which can be accessed any time, any place, might best suit the needs of the target group?
Are your sessions generic or ‘tailored’? Boyle describes the benefits of ‘tailoring’ information literacy instruction to the specific needs of defined groups, so that they can ‘experience the reflection of their curriculum modules in the library sessions they attend’ (2009: 74). Generic sessions are more difficult to ‘sell’ as they do not tap directly into students’ academic concerns, and their relevance and usefulness may not be explicit. Although curriculum-embedded sessions may not be possible, drop-in sessions can be designed with specific groups in mind and the content tailored to their needs (and, importantly, to the timing of those needs). This approach does require a degree of collaboration with academics, in order to identify the most suitable time to schedule information literacy sessions.
What promotional strategies are you using? Drop-in sessions frequently suffer from low awareness, as the promotional tools fail to hit their ‘targets’. Promotional tools should be highly visible to whatever target market you are trying to reach. In the case of drop-in sessions, you are often promoting at two levels: one, aimed at the students themselves, and two, aimed at the teaching staff, who might encourage students to attend. A frequently underestimated promotional opportunity is word of mouth, where satisfied (or unsatisfied!) customers spread the word about their experiences to family, friends and colleagues. Social networking has dramatically increased the potential of word-of-mouth promotion, as people – particularly young adults – readily air their opinions about products and services on Facebook, Twitter, and multiple Internet forums and blogs (Riegner, 2007; Godes and Mayzlin, 2004). Teaching librarians can be proactive in this regard and should not be afraid of asking students who have attended sessions to mention them on whatever social site they use, or simply to spread the word among their peers and encourage them to attend. Including testimonials (with permission) from happy customers on the library website, Facebook page or newsletter is another good way to get the word out.
Unique selling proposition (USP). This is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Business (2003) as ‘a product benefit that can be regarded as unique and therefore can be used in advertising to differentiate it from the competition’. Have you identified the elements of your instructional sessions that make them unique? Libraries have the advantage of being the first (and often only) department on campus to provide access to useful new resources, and drop-in sessions which are focused on these resources can attract staff and students.
From a general perspective, you should treat you programme of drop-in sessions as just one element in the library’s overall instructional strategy, rather than the main offering. Think of your elective programme in the same way as commercial entities think of theirs – it should be presented professionally, with clearly articulated outcomes and a statement of the benefits and value that your ‘customers’ will gain from attending. You could also give them something to take away (depending on the group) – for instance, a printed certificate of completion for students, which can give a sense of achievement, even though there is no actual credit attached.
‘How can I facilitate active learning with such a large group of students? Is it possible to do more than lecture?’
Many teachers, not just teaching librarians, feel daunted at the prospect of engaging a large group in the learning process; often, a lecture seems the easiest option, even if purely from a class management perspective. The logistics of introducing active learning techniques into a group of 100 + students might seem overly challenging, and impossible to manage.
However, as teaching librarians, active learning is the heart and soul of what we do; the principles of constructive alignment insist that lecturing is rarely appropriate for our learning situations. From a general perspective, lecturing has long fallen out of favour as an effective learning method, although it is still widely used as a practical means of managing large groups in higher education. Biggs and Tang (2007: 108–9) describe some of the reasons (based on research) why lecturing does not facilitate deep learning:
Unsupervised reading is actually more effective for presenting information to students than lecturing.
Lectures do not stimulate higher-order thinking in students.
Concentration is lowered by unchanging low-level activity (i.e. sitting and listening to a lecture).
Students’ attention span typically drops off after 10–15 minutes.
Unless a lecture is particularly good, students prefer small group work.
Gibbs also famously dismantles many of the positive ‘myths’ surrounding the assumed effectiveness of lecturing in his paper, Twenty Terrible Reasons for Lecturing, published in 1981 – his arguments are still valid today.
For teaching librarians, whose instruction is most often focused on the process and experience of research rather than content, active learning is a sine qua non. But when we are faced with a group of 100 + students, how can we make the learning ‘active’ without invoking chaos in the lecture theatre? In truth, there are a great number of methods for introducing active learning to large group sessions (Biggs and Tang, 2007; Van der Meer et al., 2007). When it seems that, due to the size of your group, lecturing might be the only option, you can choose from some of the following activities to create an interactive learning experience for the students.
Buzz groups
In large classes, creating buzz groups means dividing the overall group into pairs, three, fours or fives, and giving them short tasks or problems, which involves them talking and discussing among themselves (the sound they create as they talk is the ‘buzz’!), and coming up with a solution, or set of points for further discussion. Each group can then be asked to present the results of their discussion with the rest of the class, perhaps using overhead transparencies, white boards, flipcharts, or other visual props. In an information literacy context, this might involve giving the groups real-life information ‘problems’ to solve, e.g. ‘What do you do when you need to find career information about becoming a lawyer?’ or other scenarios that are directly relevant to their own lives.
Rounds
An old favourite, often used as an ‘icebreaker’ exercise in group sessions, this involves going around every person in the group and asking them to respond to a question, to make a statement or give an opinion. For example, students could be asked to introduce themselves, and explain why they chose the course and what they expect to get from it. Or they could be asked to state what they already know about a topic or, in an information literacy context, what kinds of resources they’ve used before, how much library experience they have and what skills they would like to develop. However, students should always be given the opportunity to ‘pass’ if they feel too shy to speak out in front of the group. Rounds work best in groups that are not too large (20–30).
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a tried-and-tested way of stimulating the flow of ideas in a synergistic environment. Using a question as a starting point, all contributors are encouraged to shout out their ideas as they occur to them – no comments or judgements are made during the process, all ideas are treated as valid. Responses are recorded, perhaps on a flipchart, white board or blackboard, and it is only when the process is finished that discussion can occur. Students can also try to identify associations between the different ideas and perhaps try to create concept maps (mind maps), linking ideas using connectors. Another possibility would be to record each idea on a separate Post-It note, and then to cluster similar ideas by grouping the Post-Its together on a large board (or even the wall, if there is no board to hand!).
Work-along exercises
A comparatively easy way to incorporate active learning into large group sessions is to create exercises, linked to session content, which students can complete at intervals during the class, alone, in pairs or in slightly larger groups. Biggs and Tang note that, in lectures ‘a short rest or a change in activity every 15 minutes or so restores performance (i.e. concentration) almost to the original level’ (2007: 109). Even a short multiple-choice quiz in the middle of a session constitutes a task that requires students to be active. Information literacy offers a wealth of topics that lend themselves to hands-on exercises; for example, students could be asked to describe the differences between popular and scholarly resources through examining actual samples that are distributed; or they could be requested to create accurate bibliographic references for different information items.
It may also be possible to create interactive online activities, depending on the technology available in the classroom or lecture theatre. Nowadays, many lecture theatres are equipped with wifi, and students who own laptops or notebooks can be encouraged to bring them along and to access the relevant resources (e.g. databases, OPAC) to complete searches and exercises alongside the teacher. Alternatively, when students do not have their own laptops, many institutions now possess mobile ‘laptop carts’ containing a number of laptops, which can be borrowed for classes that are too large to fit into a computer laboratory.
Syndicates
Using syndicates involves small groups of students working together on specific projects (with clearly defined briefs), which require them to carry out a range of activities, including research, synthesis and presentation. Class time can be used to allow the students to progress their work, with you as moderator, moving from group to group offering support and advice where needed.
Presentations
Group presentations are activities that could run over a number of weeks. In large classes, the students can be divided into smaller groups of four to five, and each group given a different topic or problem to work on. Students must go away in their groups, gather and synthesise information on those topics, and prepare a short presentation which they will give to the rest of the class during lecture time. Depending on class numbers, one or two groups can give their presentations each week, until all groups have had a turn.
Classroom response systems (CRSs)
Classroom response systems, or ‘clickers’, might be familiar to readers from the ‘Ask the Audience’ segment of the internationally syndicated quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. Beatty (2004: 2) defines clickers as technology that:
allows an instructor to present a question or problem to the class;
allows students to enter their answers into some kind of device;
instantly aggregates and summarises students’ answers for the instructor.
In a typical lecture scenario, the software is integrated with PowerPoint; the class is presented with multiple-choice questions on the screen, and they are requested to select an answer (a,b,c,d) by pressing a button on a handheld remote device. The answers are then aggregated and appear on the screen in graphical format. Students can see if their own answer was correct; all answers are, however, submitted anonymously. As well as ‘factual’ questions, CRS can be used to gauge class opinion on particular issues, as interactive ‘polls’.
This is an application that can grab students’ attention, which they might find fun and engaging, and that can help to break up the monotony of a lecture. However, a presentation which integrates classroom response technology requires a significant amount of preparation time, and the management issues involved with the distribution and collecting of the remote devices can be burdensome. A few case studies of CRS use in information literacy classes can be found in the literature (Clobridge and Del Testa, 2008; Corcos and Monty, 2008).
Think-pair-share
Think-pair-share involves posing a question to the class, allowing each student time to consider it individually, then asking them to join with their neighbour to discuss it in pairs and, finally, sharing their thoughts with the rest of the class. For example, you could ask them a question such as: ‘What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Google for academic research?’ or ‘How do you go about finding information on a topic you have never heard of before?’ You can then record key points and perhaps create a handout based on the session to distribute to the class the following week.
Fish bowls
Fish bowls work best when the overall group is not too large. It involves a select group who volunteer to sit in the middle of the larger group and to engage in a discussion about a topic or a problem among themselves. The other students simply observe and record the discussion or task, and then afterwards any important issues may be discussed at greater length by the whole class. In an ‘open fish bowl’ scenario, one space in the centre group is left open, and any member of the outer group is free to take the space and join in the discussion at any point. However, one member of the inner group must volunteer to leave the fishbowl when a new member joins.
Structured note-taking
If you have chosen a lecture as your teaching method, interactivity can be introduced by providing handouts of your slides, with key words and phrases missing, that the students are required to fill in during the lecture. Also, Biggs and Tang suggest that note-taking can be useful for ‘immediate review and reflection’, which involves giving them sufficient time to review their notes during class, or even swapping them with their neighbour to gain additional perspective.
Jigsaw method
The jigsaw method is when different groups in the class are asked to work on separate aspects of a problem; the groups then report back to the rest of the class and the problem is discussed holistically. Van der Meer et al. suggest that: ‘A benefit of the jigsaw approach is that multiple parts of a process can be studied by different groups simultaneously and then shared with the whole class, thereby using time efficiently’ (2007: 51). The enquiry-based scenario which was discussed in Chapter 3 is an example of the kind of multifaceted problem that would work well in a jigsaw situation.
‘I’m having trouble keeping the students interested in class – they seem bored and unmotivated. Is there anything I can do?’
Having students in class who are intrinsically motivated to learn is often perceived as a stroke of luck by teaching librarians and cherished for that reason. We always remember the enthusiastic students, who seemed to revel in learning for learning’s sake and were endlessly interested in the subject. A more general perception is that students have to be ‘persuaded’ and coaxed into learning – unless they are motivated by external factors, they will not engage willingly in the learning activities that are set up for them. This perception inevitably causes stress for us, as teaching librarians, due to the feeling that motivation is something out of our control – students are either motivated to learn, or they are not, and we have to work with whatever we have.
However, Biggs and Tang flatly reject the notion that motivation in students can be lacking completely: ‘There is no such thing as an unmotivated student: all students not in a coma want to do something’ (2007: 31). They argue that the task of the instructor is to maximise the chance that what students want to do is to attain the learning outcomes that have been set. Becoming aware of the factors that affect motivation is a useful first step for teaching librarians. Biggs and Tang suggest that there are two major factors that influence the probability that a student wants to learn or not. They frame these factors as ‘expectancy-value’ theory:
1. The task must be perceived as having some value to the student – it must be important enough for them to invest time and energy (purpose of learning).
2. The student must have an expectancy of success – they must believe that they have the ability to master the task or content (self-efficacy/ learner attitude).
Webb and Powis (2004) also add the learning environment, prior experience and learning style into the mix (2004: 44), although all of these are inextricably linked to the above two.
In terms of the first main factor – the purpose of learning – the different forms of motivation have been partly discussed before. The concepts of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation have already been explained. However, students can also be socially motivated – learning in order to satisfy the expectations of others, e.g. to please one’s parents. They can also be motivated by achievement – learning in order to enhance the ego, to feel good about oneself. The second factor, the expectation of success, or self-efficacy, is linked to the perception of control that a student believes they have over a topic or task. If poor performance, for example, is attributed to innate ability rather than effort, motivation is likely to be low, as the student might feel that no matter what they do, they cannot change their lack of ability. If they have the opposite view, however – that increased effort raises the probability of success – their conception of self-efficacy is likely to be much more positive.
Teachers exert a considerable influence on these factors, although they might not be aware of it. For instance, instructor feedback is highly instrumental in the development of student confidence and self-belief; a cynical, negative teacher can inflict serious damage to a student’s sense of self-efficacy. The enthusiasm of a teacher for a topic can be infectious and can inspire a classroom of students; similarly, a downbeat and dissatisfied instructor can have the opposite effect. Jacobson and Xu (2004: 7) draw attention to the Keller’s ARCS model of motivation in learning (1987), which pulls these factors together:
Attention: capturing students’ interest, stimulating desire to learn;
Relevance: demonstrating the value of the learning outcomes to the students’ own personal goals;
Confidence: instilling in students the belief that they can master the task or knowledge at hand;
Satisfaction: ensuring a sense of satisfaction with the learning process, in order to encourage continuing engagement.
So, bearing these factors in mind, what can we, as teaching librarians, do to stimulate and sustain student motivation? For us, the challenge is complicated further by the fact that our sessions are often unaccredited. However, based on our knowledge of the factors that motivate students, we could consider the following suggestions in our teaching:
Establish a positive teaching environment
We should endeavour to create an atmosphere in which success is attributable to effort and is perceived as achievable by the students, not something that is out of their control – in other words, we need to instil an expectation of success among our students. To explain this, Biggs and Tang refer to ‘Theory X’ and ‘Theory Y’ classrooms (2007: 37); in ‘Theory X’ situations, instructors assume that students are unwilling to learn and that they cannot be trusted to manage their own learning, while ‘Theory Y’ instructors assume the opposite – that students are positively inclined towards learning, and with the proper encouragement and intervention will do their best to achieve the learning outcomes. These beliefs naturally spill over into the teaching environment, influencing student motivation – ‘Theory X’ instructors are more likely to be cynical and sarcastic, to try and ‘catch students out’ and to display indifference to the material they are teaching, while ‘Theory Y’ teachers strive to create a wholly positive, encouraging environment, which brings out the best in students. As teaching librarians, it is up to you to articulate your belief to the students that all of them will be able to master the tasks or content, as long as they are willing to work.
Set achievable tasks
One of the basic tenets of self-efficacy is that the more actual success a student has in completing tasks, the more their confidence builds and the greater the sense of self-belief: ‘Expectations of success are instilled on the basis of previous success’ (Biggs and Tang, 2007: 33). While you shouldn’t consciously ‘dumb down’ your class activities, it is an idea – initially at least – to set tasks and exercises for students that are comparatively easy to complete and which will give them a sense of control over the material, as well as the belief that they can handle more challenging assignments. You should also be very clear about what your expectations are and convey them to the students early on.
Offer encouragement
It goes without saying; you should be generous with positive feedback and encouragement; criticism should be constructive where necessary and sarcasm should be avoided at all costs. Feedback should also be as specific as possible – you should explain to students exactly what steps they can take to improve on an assignment, rather than just make general comments, such as ‘You need to be more precise here,’ or ‘Try to narrow your topic down more.’
Show enthusiasm
The teacher’s own enthusiasm and passion are powerful motivators and can inspire students to see the value of a topic or task; similarly, a teacher’s obvious distaste for an activity can be equally infectious, convey the message that it has little value and is not worth doing. If you are passionate about what you are teaching, it will show. Students respond extremely well to a teacher’s own interest in topics. From a social motivation perspective, this can translate into a student’s desire to ‘live up’ to the instructor’s passion and to do justice to it.
Demonstrate relevance
Unless your session is already embedded in the curriculum and linked to course content, it falls to you to make clear to students how the topics and tasks you are covering are useful and relevant to their studies. One way to do this is to frame the session in terms of realistic problem scenarios that the students might encounter, rather than enumerate the different skills and/or topics you are going to cover. For example, you might start a session by saying something like:
So, you’ve just been given your first university essay assignment with strict instructions not to use Google for your research. Where do you start, if you can’t use your favourite search tool?’ or ‘Your course instructor has asked you to prepare a two-page report outlining the key issues associated with climate change – how on earth do you summarise such a wide topic?
Place yourself on the side of the students – acknowledge their frustration with the assignments they have been set and tell them that what they learn in your session will enable them to deal with the work.
Tap into popular culture
For younger students in particular, adopting the themes and formats of popular culture is viewed by some as a means of capturing interest and motivating students to learn: ‘If the popular culture of today’s teens is what drives their behaviour and motivates them, why not use it to connect with them?’ (Behen, 2006: 2). Popular TV shows, computer games, rock stars and movie personalities, sports and social networking applications are all popular culture elements which appeal to traditional students and can be creatively integrated into the teaching and learning experience. Behen (2006) offers numerous examples of how teaching methods can be adapted to reflect popular culture themes, including creating a series of team-based competitive library exercises, based on the reality TV show Survivor. Other authors have suggested the use of web-based games to teach information literacy skills (Williams, 2010; Markey et al., 2008).
‘It seems like everyone on campus is using the VLE/CMS for their teaching, and I feel left behind – how can I get started with it?’
Course management systems (CMS), also known as virtual learning environments (VLE), are now used by virtually all institutions of higher education to supplement the more traditional forms of teaching and learning. Mackey and Jacobson describe some of the functions of VLEs, noting that this form of online learning ‘expands the kinds of activities instructors design for an online environment, including tutorials, quizzes and surveys, as well as writing assignments (in a journal or blog, bulletin board, or online chat session)’ (2008: 83). Popular VLEs at the moment include Blackboard, Moodle and ANGEL.
As teaching librarians, what is our role in regard to VLEs? Since VLE use is typically course-based, most of the time there is no obvious route for librarians, who are generalists and not usually attached to particular courses. Therefore, the first issue is gaining access. Your access to the VLE will probably be mediated by individual course instructors, who can request that you are added to their course areas. As Nickel (2007) confirms, ‘Working in most course management systems requires you to have access to individual courses with a login name and password’ (p. 157). The level of access you are granted determines what you will be able to do. For example, in Blackboard, there are six different course roles, which control access to the tools and content within courses. As course builder, for instance, you have access to almost everything, except student grades. As instructor, you have complete access to all areas, as this is the role that is generally designated to the course coordinator. Students have no access to any of the tools in the Control Panel and can only access content which has been made visible to them by the instructor. If you are involved in providing sessions for particular courses, the first step is to ask the course lecturer to add you to their course area on the VLE, preferably as instructor, or teacher’s assistant at the least. That will allow you to start to upload documents and create learning activities to support your instruction (Cox, 2002).
The next step is to familiarise yourself with the functionality that is provided within VLEs, either through access to training, consulting online help manuals or through simply experimenting with the system yourself. The current versions of most VLEs offer a wide range of interactive instructional tools that are accessed through a single interface. For example, in the current version of Blackboard (9.1), in addition to document storage, instructors also have access to:
It is important not to use the VLE simply as a ‘dumping ground’ for course-related materials; the principles of active learning still apply. Mackey and Jacobson emphasise that online elements should be designed carefully, so that ‘they extend student learning and provide an opportunity to deepen the treatment of information literacy concepts and skills’ (2008: 86). This means embracing the interactive potential of the system and using the tools to create teaching activities that align with your ILOs – just like any other instructional format.
However, you do have to start somewhere, and as you get to grips with the more complicated tools, starting simply with document upload will give you a growing sense of control over the system. For example, you can begin by embedding a small repository of general library guides, path finders and information exercises and worksheets that students can download for their own use. You might also create a ‘webliography’ of links to useful resources, including online tutorials, videos, slides and other multimedia resources, as appropriate to the course in question. This will allow you to establish a presence within the system. Other comparatively easy activities to set up initially include creating quick interactive quizzes or self-diagnostic information skills surveys for the students, or using the live chat function at specified times to provide a virtual reference service for the students.
When you feel that you have mastered the fundamentals of the system, you can begin to think more deeply about how it can be harnessed to support your ILOs and complement your F2F sessions, if you have them. Some suggestions for active learning within a VLE include the following:
Use the wiki tool. Divide the students into groups, and ask them to create a wiki on a specific course-related topic or question. If students are already working on group projects, wiki space can be set up to allow them to collaborate without having to meet in person. One interesting exercise would be to ask the groups (or individuals) to create electronic resource guides on specified topics, encouraging them to supplement the wiki text with images, embedded audio and video files, as well as links to external websites, e-books and any other resources they consider appropriate. As the instructor, you can provide regular feedback and guidance, where required, using the comments function.
Use the journal or blog tool. Students can be required to keep weekly logs of their research activities, outlining the research and reading activities engaged in, the search tools and resources accessed, the problems and challenges encountered, and just general reflection on the process. As with the wiki exercise, students can be encouraged to attach relevant documents, such as exercises completed, concept maps, lists of keywords, journal articles, or any other appendices that they consider relevant to the task. As instructor, you can provide a structured template for the journal, with clear headings and/or questions, to help the students to organise their thoughts.
Use the discussion board. The VLE discussion board tool can be used to facilitate remote group-work, Q&A sessions, or just general discussion about topics of interest. However, as with most learning tools, students usually require encouragement to use them, so setting up a structured activity is likely to work best. For example, a discussion thread might be set up to analyse a specific essay topic that the students have been given – comments could range from suggesting search terms, recommending resources or simply reflecting on the assignment. To encourage participation, students could be given credit for their contributions.
An increasing number of examples of VLE use for information literacy instruction are available in the literature (Donaldson, 2010; Masters, 2009). One of the main advantages of using a VLE for this kind of instruction is that everything is accessed through a single interface – for example, you can embed easy links to resources (databases, websites, etc.) into exercises that the students are working on, so that they don’t need to disrupt the flow of the activity to search for them. Text, audio and video can be located together to create a single multimedia resource. The interactive communication tools are also at hand – for example, a student working on an assignment can simply open the discussion board and post a question, or can use the online chat function if they know that you are also online at certain times of the day.
A common theme which unites all of these case studies is collaboration with academics, as well as IT and learning support staff. As Nickel points out: ‘As librarians we need to work with teaching faculty and instructional designers in order to secure a prominent (or at least visible) position on students’ radars’ (2008: 153).
‘I have to teach a group of adult learners and I find it intimidating – how can I live up to their expectations?’
For teaching librarians, the sense of intimidation that is sometimes felt when faced with a class of adult learners may be due to a perception that they are more knowledgeable, more life-experienced in general, more demanding of their instructors than traditional students, and less tolerant of errors. While this perception may not be entirely incorrect, it is, however, these characteristics, amongst others, that can make teaching adult learners such a rewarding experience. How do adult learners differ from traditional students? Many of the assumptions stem from Knowles’s classic research on adult learners 30 years ago and his model of andragogical theory (adult learning theory) that derived from that. They include the beliefs that:
Adult learners are highly self-directed and motivated to learn.
Adult learners expect to be treated with respect.
Adult learners expect their previous life experience to be acknowledged and view it as a strong base for their learning.
Adult learners expect their learning to satisfy an immediate need (e.g. personal, professional) – learning must be relevant to be perceived as valuable.
Adult learners often have clearly defined expectations, sometimes based on past experience, which can be positive or negative.
Adult learners tend to have more deeply entrenched beliefs than younger students and can be more reluctant to relinquish them in light of new information.
The important things to understand about adult learners are that they have chosen to return to formal education, but that there are certain practical limitations, which to some extent dictate their approach to their learning. Time is at a premium for adult learners – full-or part-time work, child care, household and other family duties reduce the time available for their studies. As a result, it is important for adult learners that their time is carefully managed and that everything they do is relevant. Flexibility is also viewed as desirable. On the upside, the fact that they have returned to education voluntarily means that they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated and eager to engage with learning activities – as long as they perceive them as useful and meaningful. Currie (2000: 222) suggests that adult learning is best facilitated when:
Learners are engaged as participants in the design of the learning.
They are encouraged to be self-directed.
The teacher functions as a facilitator rather than a didactic instructor.
The individual learner’s needs and learning styles are taken into account.
A climate conducive to learning is established.
The learner’s past experiences are utilised in the classroom.
Learning activities are deemed to have some direct relevance or utility to the learner’s circumstances.
So, when you are faced with the task of facilitating sessions for adult learners, some of the key things you can do to make the session as effective as possible include the following:
Plan and structure each session in meticulous detail, with clear learning outcomes and an outline of how the session is to be run. If there are any assessment components, bring them to the students’ attention at the start of the session or course, and explain if and how they will be graded. Adult learners like to know exactly how a course or session will be run, as well as the deadlines for submitting course work, so that they can plan their time appropriately.
Always check in advance, even in an informal way, what kinds of basic library and IT skills your students possess; as Gold points out, ‘adult learners … often possess neither the foundational skills nor the comfort level seen in the traditional learner’ (2005: 471). Occasionally, it may be necessary to modify your lesson plans to focus on equipping the students with the basic skills that they are missing. However, it is likely that, as time goes on, this will occur less and less frequently with this demographic.
Always give adult learners an opportunity to bring their life experiences into a class – acknowledge that they have a wealth of personal and professional experiences behind them, which can enrich and enhance their learning. This might involve something as simple as asking them to outline their previous good and bad experiences of using a library. If examples are required, give the students the chance to suggest examples from their professional or personal lives – for instance, a student might remember an episode from their working life which could have been resolved through knowledge of particular resources, or they might recall a time where they did not avail of their rights through not knowing where to go for information.
Never teach a topic or skill without first explaining to the class why they are learning this particular thing. This could be as simple as including a slide in your presentation which outlines the purpose of the class. In a more hands-on scenario, if you are focusing on the use of a particular database, for example, always explain why you chose that database, and how the session will progress their learning. If you are using hands-on exercises or problem scenarios, explain the reasoning behind them – don’t ask adult learners to go through the steps of an exercise without explaining how they will enhance the learning process. If the class has very practical learning outcomes, give clear examples of how the skills and knowledge can be applied in the real world.
Don’t allow time to be wasted – if, for example, you are running a session on how to search a particular resource, ensure that you provide clear written instructions on the ‘mechanics’ of the resource – i.e. how to access the resource, which links to click, passwords to enter, etc., so that class time is not taken up with navigation and access issues (unless they are the point of your session!). For adult learners, time is precious and scarce, and every minute must be made to count. Equally, if you are running an individual or group exercise in your session, it often helps to provide an example of how the exercise might be approached, so that your students have a clear idea how to go about it.
Group-work often works particularly well with adult learners; as Webb and Powis point out: ‘the development of a group ethos can help to sustain motivation and reinforce commitment’ (2004: 46). Adult learners find the support and social aspect of group scenarios helpful, especially when everybody in the group has more or less similar circumstances. In groups which have a blend of adult and traditional learners, the adult learners more often prefer to work together, rather than mix with the traditionals, who have a different approach to their studies. If using group-work with mixed classes, you should consider allowing adult learners to form their own groups, rather than insist they work with the younger students.
Maintain flexibility in your sessions and try not to worry about ‘coverage’ – allow discussions to develop, if that is what your students appear to want. Very often the most rewarding and useful parts of a session are those in which students are permitted to air their opinions, to recount experiences they have had or simply to give their own take on topics.
Treat the learning as collaboration, rather than a traditional ‘teacher-student’ relationship. Tell the students that you expect to learn from them also and that you are looking forward to hearing about their experiences from the ‘real world’.
It is, however, worth pointing out that many of these points might apply to traditional students also, and that they represent a common-sense approach to effective teaching. In some ways, teaching adults can often turn out to be less draining than teaching traditional students – the stories and opinions which derive from the students’ life experiences can be genuinely interesting, and as teaching librarians, we often find that we can learn a lot from our sessions with adult learners.
‘A lecturer has asked me to give a one-hour session with her class, but no specific idea of what she wants me to cover – how can I develop an effective session?’
‘Instruction librarians often have a love/hate relationship with one-shot sessions. They are both the bread-and-butter and the bane of library instruction’ (Benjes-Small et al., 2009: 38).
The ‘one-shot’ information literacy session is very familiar to teaching librarians – as Benjes-Small et al. point out, despite the radical changes in the information landscape, and the increasing sophistication of information technology, as teaching librarians we are still engaged in a seemingly endless struggle to increase the time allotted to us in academic curricula, and curriculum-integrated instruction is the exception rather than the norm. Badke notes that ‘information literacy librarians do more one-shot instruction (either generic or subject-specific) than any other kind’ (2009: 47). Frequently, all that is on offer is a single slot, typically a 50-minute class period; as this may be our only chance of contact with a particular student group, we feel immense pressure to create an engaging, impressive session that will perhaps encourage the students to seek out further training, or which might help to increase the profile of the library across the institution as a whole. The temptation is to go all out and create a memorable, bells-and-whistles session, with as much content as possible; however, this is a strategy that is ultimately counterproductive: ‘While one-shot sessions remain poplar, most librarians feel pressure to include in them more content than is pedagogically sound’ (Benjes-Small et al., 2009: 31). Sometimes, though, the pressure does not come from us, but rather from the academics who request the sessions and give us a long list of what they want us to include – often, they fail to appreciate the limitations of a one-hour session and what can effectively be covered in such a short time-span.
Badke (2009) proposes three possible solutions, specifically in relation to the one-shot ‘orientation’ sessions that are so common in libraries:
1. Cancel them and devote instruction time to something more profitable.
2. Transform them into some form of active learning.
3. Do point-of-need instruction through scheduled sessions with students, who are working on specific research projects.
While Badke rejects his first option on the grounds that it would be difficult to know what they should be replaced with, the other two options offer a lot of promise. However, the question is, how do we make the most of those one-shot sessions while ensuring that they are effective from a pedagogical perspective? The principles of good teaching still apply, but this time from a micro-perspective; we still want to align our ILO(s), teaching and learning methods, and our assessment – but we must find a way to do this that will fit into 50 minutes. The key is forward planning and a focus on depth, rather than breadth.
Planning for a one-shot session differs according to the way in which the session is requested. If you are approached by an academic, sometimes they will have very precise ideas of what they need (see Chapter 3, ‘Instructional needs assessment’). Your challenge in this case is to translate their request into a solid learning outcome and plan the session accordingly – as noted, it may be sometimes necessary to negotiate a more realistic outcome, where too much has been requested. For instance, the academic might ask you to provide a session on ‘database searching’ for students who are beginning work on a project. Database searching is a broad topic – it could encompass basic search skills (Boolean logic, etc.), knowledge of the important databases in a particular area, critical evaluation, etc. – certainly more than can be fitted into a single session. For this class, you must find out what is the most pressing objective; do the students need to be taught how to construct searches, combining keywords with Boolean operators? Or are they experienced searchers who simply need to be familiarised with the databases that they need to do this particular project? You can also take the opportunity to offer additional, extracurricular sessions, if the instructional needs are too broad for one class, or to direct the students to online tutorials or other resources which might help them. But above all, you should avoid the temptation to try and cover everything in one hour – if you do, the students will inevitably be overwhelmed and the session will be hurried and stressful.
Another scenario that is even more challenging than the one just described is the vague request from a lecturer to ‘do a library session’ without specifying what the instructional needs are.
Creating an instructional menu
One solution to this challenge is to pre-empt the vague request and to return the responsibility for determining session content and structure to the academics themselves, rather than try to second-guess what might be effective. Providing academics with a ready-made list of instructional topics converted into sessions is one way of doing this and also represents good PR for the library. Benjes-Small and colleagues at Radford University had the idea of developing a ‘library instruction menu’ from which academics can select specific topics when requesting an instruction session from the librarians. The menu describes the instructional need that is covered by a session (e.g. ‘Will your students need to evaluate websites?’), outlines the key points that will be covered in the session (e.g. ‘Analysing sites for credibility’) and indicates how much time is required to cover that topic (e.g. 40 minutes). Their full instructional menu can be viewed at http://lib.radford.edu/instruction/menu.html.
The librarians at Radford developed their menu by identifying ‘commonly requested topics’ based on years of instructional experience. Their sessions ranged from the ‘bite-sized’ (10 minutes) to much fuller sessions (up to 50 minutes). For some topics, they offered two options, a short overview or more in-depth treatment. Apart from helping librarians to develop sessions, the authors identified some other benefits that accrued from this approach. It
proved a useful marketing tool for the library’s instructional services;
created new opportunities for academic-library collaboration;
demonstrated to academics the limitations of a one-shot session;
helped to standardise instruction among the librarians – everyone was covering the same objectives.
There is some evidence that this approach is increasing in popularity, although it is a recent phenomenon. In addition to reporting their own work, Benjes-Small et al. also carried out some online research to determine how many other North American libraries had created instructional menus. Their search found 47 libraries using the menu approach and a wide variation in the types of instructional offerings included on the menus. Their subsequent survey of the librarians involved showed a high degree of satisfaction with the approach, both from an instructional and a promotional perspective.
The menu approach represents a long-term solution to the one-shot challenge and requires an ‘all hands on deck’ approach in the library to create a list of deliverable instructional options. However, if your challenge is an immediate one, what can you do in the short term to handle these vague requests from academics? Some of the strategies include:
If an academic asks for a ‘library session’, ask to see copies of the assignments that the students have to complete for the course. This may give you some idea of the areas that need to be covered, and at what point – as we already know, tailoring the instruction to course work increases the likelihood that the students will perceive it as relevant and meaningful.
Ask the academic if they have noticed any particular difficulties among that particular group – for example, perhaps there has been an overuse of Internet sources in written assignments, or the students have not been citing sources correctly in their essays.
Ask the students themselves to submit suggestions via email for what they would like to learn in a session. Alternatively, you could set up a short online survey for this purpose, also including a few questions to assess the students’ self-perceived level of competence.
Use your own experience and observation to put together a session that you feel would be useful to any students at any level, for example using Google Scholar, or the basics of using a reference management tool such as End Note or Ref Works.
Badke offers an interesting opinion on the effectiveness of one-shot information literacy training and suggests that teaching librarians should lower their expectations about what a one-shot session can achieve. He proposes that we should treat one-shot classes as ‘familiarisation exercises’ that introduce students to certain research tools and will hopefully lead to further training in the future: ‘In fact, our profession works against real information literacy when we demand that our one-shots truly teach our students something. That’s like training first graders how to read in an hour. The one-shot is not information literacy. It’s a familiarization exercise that can serve as a doorway into information literacy’ (2009: 49). He also suggests that replacing F2F sessions with interactive online tutorials might be a more effective approach at this level and would free up teaching librarians’ time to focus on more advanced subject-specific training.
Exercises and reflections
1. You have been assigned to a cross-institutional academic librarians’ ‘troubleshooting task force’, which has been convened specifically to assist teaching librarians in the participating institutions. As a group, you need to be able to gather information quickly when a problem arises, so that you can suggest suitable approaches for resolution. Your task today is to create a ‘problem pro-forma’ which teaching librarians can complete and return to the task force when asking for help. The ‘pro-forma’ should include a checklist of the more common problems faced by teaching librarians, as well as scope to include unanticipated issues that arise.
2. As mentor to new library staff, consider that one of your roles is to create and maintain an induction document which offers helpful advice and tips for librarians who are teaching for the first time. Your task today is to develop an initial list of ‘20 top teaching tips’ designed to help novice teaching librarians to effectively deal with some of the common issues that could arise in the classroom.