Making time at the beginning for questions
Tue 23 Feb 2010, 4:17 pm
One small thing seems to be working well for me in library instruction sessions lately. Instead of launching right into showing the students the library website and databases and the like, I’m starting with the projector off, and sitting down some distance from the instructor’s computer and asking them questions.
I try to ask questions that I really don’t know the answer to, where I’m really interested in hearing their responses. I don’t quiz them. I don’t ask rhetorical questions. I ask about the assignment they are working on and how they see it and what the deadlines are. I ask about what each of them are working on (if the class is small enough) or how much they have already done on the project. I ask if they are feeling good about it. And when I remember, I ask them what they want to learn more about, or how they think I might be able to help them in the next hour or two.
And so far, this has gone really well. I think it helps me build up a bit of a rapport with the class before saying stupid stuff like “OK, let’s all scroll down and click the link for ‘subject guides’ on the library home page.” I think it helps students see that I’m not a library-bot but that I am interested in talking about their work and their work habits–that I see them at least minimally as individuals with their own skill levels and movitvations, and not just a class that needs to be shown how to do a search in EBSCO. I think it’s more like the classroom environment they are used to.
I also think it takes me out of “performer” mode just a bit, and more into a frame of mind more common for me when I’m at the reference desk, or talking to a single student in my office. It’s like a mass reference interview. It might not work if I had to talk to large lecture halls, but the biggest class I typically get has 25 people in it, so it scales well enough for me.
In fact, I first started doing this intentionally with smaller, upper-level classes, like senior seminars. I wondered if it would work with larger introductory classes. I gave it a try this morning with a class of 25 (mostly first-year students) and it seemed to work very well.
Then I had a class of about 8 juniors and seniors, and it didn’t seem to help much. The class was quiet and I wasn’t sure if I was getting much across.
So it’s not a cure-all. But leaving some time to sit and talk helps me feel more connected to the class, and it seems to help them be a bit more receptive to what I have to say.
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This is one of my favorite teaching strategies, and I agree that it sets a good tone and connects me to the students. I’ve even expanded this to a full-class period discussion the day before the hands-on library instruction for the freshmen.
Comment by Kaijsa — February 24, 2010 @ 9:45 am
[...] some sense of where the students are (such as talking to them before launching into a session as Steve does) is so [...]
Pingback by Credo — February 24, 2010 @ 9:52 am
I love this. I do it a little bit, but not to this extent.
I almost always make sure to check in near the end of class to see what’s still confusing, what they’ve learned, and what questions they still have. For me that’s useful both as a wrap-up but also as the beginning of the next phase of instruction: the post-classroom-phase of reference desk interactions and appointments in my office. I also think that students might know what they don’t know by the end of the session more clearly than they know that at the beginning, or the shy ones might be less shy.
I think my new goal will be discussion at the beginning *and* the end.
Comment by Iris — February 24, 2010 @ 10:12 am
What a good idea – thanks for sharing!
Comment by Nikki — March 11, 2010 @ 9:54 am