Tue 1 Nov 2011, 1:33 pm
My younger son, Nick, is in first grade, which means that homework is still an interesting novelty for him. His class was studying owls for a while, which captured his imagination. He checked out some books from the school library on owls and we read them together. He told his teacher some of the things [...]
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Wed 12 Oct 2011, 10:20 am
Catherine Pellegrino wrote about talking to students about “good sources” today, and that’s something that has come up a lot for me this fall in classes with first-year students. Catherine’s answer to the question, “is this a good source?” starts with “it depends on what you are using it for,” and that’s where I often [...]
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Thu 8 Sep 2011, 12:32 pm
One of the professors here whom I am on very friendly terms with gave the library a really nice endorsement during the tour I did for his class, talking about how all the librarians here are really happy to help. “You might think,” he said, “that a librarian’s ideal day at work would be one [...]
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Thu 8 Sep 2011, 8:27 am
Do “learning goals” or “learning outcomes” on their own make teaching better? Or do they just make it more assessable?
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Tue 6 Sep 2011, 6:26 am
I’m discovering why I like zero-prep teaching. That way, I’d talk to the professor, read the syllabus and assignment, and walk into class ready to discover, Phineas and Ferb style, what we were going to do today. Now, though, that I’m trying to work with learning goals and outcomes, and walk the LibGuides talk, and [...]
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Tue 30 Aug 2011, 8:49 am
I always enjoy listening to faculty talk about student writing. Often I hear professors say they are disappointed that even some of the good student writing they get doesn’t exhibit more critical thinking. Instead of papers with a clear thesis and argument and evidence, they see a lot of papers that were what one of [...]
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Thu 25 Aug 2011, 2:27 pm
This week, I have seen a lot of discussion around two measures of information literacy. The first is the ERIAL report that studied Illinois college students and their information-seeking behavior, while the second is Alexis Madrigal’s post at The Atlantic, Why Using Control+F May Be the Most Important Computing Skill. I have a few thoughts rattling [...]
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Mon 22 Aug 2011, 4:20 pm
When teaching college students, most professors want to put the emphasis on concepts and critical thinking rather than skills and facts. The conceptual is the “higher-order” thinking, making the skills of reading and writing and researching seem a bit beneath consideration. I know that I, too, would rather talk to students about how to think [...]
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Thu 11 Aug 2011, 12:32 pm
I signed up for the WebJunction online conference Trends in Library Training and Learning 2011 solely to hear Char Booth‘s keynote, Instructional Literacy and the Library Educator: Reflective Habits for Effective Practice. And she delivered with a talk that mixed high-level thinking about teaching and learning with fairly simple and specific things I can do right now (or [...]
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Mon 9 May 2011, 3:51 pm
Bruce Springsteen tells a story about being part of Chuck Berry’s backup band for one night, and that story has stuck in my mind ever since I first heard it years ago. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I’ll let the Boss tell the story himself: I think about this story sometimes when it comes [...]
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Wed 22 Dec 2010, 2:58 pm
Can you plan to fail?
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Tue 21 Dec 2010, 9:01 am
Anna, Jason, and Rachel had me on the December episode of their podcast, “Adventures in Library Instruction,” where we talked about “winging it” when it comes to instruction.
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Tue 30 Nov 2010, 4:45 pm
A recent article argues that Google Scholar’s improved coverage of the online scholarly literature means that libraries should consider canceling abstracting and indexing databases. I can’t see how that would work out well.
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Fri 19 Nov 2010, 10:26 am
If you can easily spot the “bizarro” source, you can spend more time evaluating better sources.
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Mon 15 Nov 2010, 4:04 pm
My ideal for library teaching is zero-preparation. I like to come into the session, ask the students about the work they have done in the class so far and the work they are now expected to do from this point forward. From there, we look at ways to approach their topics given the resources and [...]
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Tue 23 Feb 2010, 4:17 pm
I’m trying to be sure to spend the first part of my library instruction sessions sitting away from the computer, asking the students about their work, and listening closely to the answers. Most of the time, this seems to help the class be more open and worthwhile.
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Wed 6 Jan 2010, 1:36 pm
Today’s class was about works where text and form are intrinsically linked.
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Sun 3 Jan 2010, 11:23 pm
The class I’m teaching with Jessy Randall starts tomorrow.
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Mon 7 Dec 2009, 5:58 pm
Mulling over what “information literacy” might really mean.
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Thu 19 Nov 2009, 11:36 pm
I blurted out at a library meeting that when students don’t get a first-year intro to the library, “it’s not like they missed their polio vaccination or anything.” Here’s what I meant.
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