Week 4: Final Project

Description of Teaching Environment:

I am a librarian at Normandale Community College in Minnesota. It's one of the largest (if not the largest) community colleges in the state. The student population is fairly diverse; I teach students from many other countries and cultures as well as a variety of age groups. I love the opportunity to work with so many different kinds of students! 

Next semester, with my colleagues, I plan to propose a one-credit, semester-long information literacy (IL) course to our curriculum committee on campus. This IL course will take place in a learning community -- paired with another discipline course. This will allow students to directly and immediately apply what they learn in the IL class to another class in which they are required to do research. Currently, the librarians teach only one-shot classes (occasionally with a follow-up) so this credit-bearing class would be change in how IL is taught. We still plan to teach one-shot classes but hope to offer this class as another alternative.

Learning Outcomes:
Over the course of this class, I realized that many of my learning outcomes and goals were too vague. I found creating goals and outcomes for a semester long course challenging. I'm re-learning that I need to develop learning outcomes for the entire course and then develop learning outcomes for each class period that feed into the larger goals. This is where I get bogged down -- trying to determine which are which and make sure I don't jump around. So, in order to try to stay focused, I've revised, tweaked, and streamlined my learning outcomes from week 2:

1. Students will understand that research is a process and takes time.
2. Students will demonstrate critical thinking skills in the areas of: source evaluation, developing a search strategy, using a variety of resources (print and online), and 
3. Students will understand and describe the differences between various print and online resources.
4. Students will demonstrate the ability apply different resources to different research scenarios, both in class and in their personal lives.

Assessments:

Because the majority of my teaching experience is with one-shot classes, I find this section particularly challenging. I struggled to know how to assess learning over the course of a semester as opposed to just in a shorter class period. Finding ways to assess these bigger, course learning objectives was trickier than evaluating one thing for one class period. Upon further reflection (and reading others' blogs), I've come up with a few assessments to try:

1. A self reflection journal, asking students to reflect on what they've learned and how they can use it in the paired class. I think it's so important to have students make connections between IL and their other classes.
2. In-class discussions and activities that allow students to work together, teach each other, and receive immediate feedback from their peers and from myself.
3. Quizzes and assignments that ask students to define or demonstrate key concepts -- such as creating a search strategy or identifying and comparing appropriate resources on a given topic.
4. A final project of some kind -- maybe a pathfinder or annotated bibliography -- that allows students to show all the skills they learned: critical thinking, source evaluation, the research process, etc. 

Learning Theories:

While I found all the learning theories interesting and helpful, I found I was most drawn to constructivisim. I like the idea of providing students with activities that facilitate their learning. It's a more work -- to develop activities -- than lecturing, but I really see the value in helping students learn in new ways. I think this is one way that giving students prompts to assess their own learning, would be helpful. In developing a course, I also see constructivism coming into my planning when I am planning my individual lesson plans for each class period. At that point, I see myself designing activities and using technology to help facilitate the learning goals for each class.

I identified the least with behaviorism, but I'm wondering now if that is because I teach mostly one-shot classes. It's hard to influence behavior when you only see students for 50 minutes. I can see myself using behaviorism techniques more in a semester-long class: offering rewards for coming to class on time, turning in homework, etc. Many of the behaviorism incentives are not things I've explored in one-shot classes but would most likely implement in a semester long course.

Tools

This still feels like the fuzziest part to me. I think I need to do some additional exploring of technology, including in PRIMO. I've looked through PRIMO in the past and found many interesting tutorials and materials but didn't find many of them relevant to what I needed at the time. Now that I have a more comprehensive understanding of instructional design (and a whole semesters worth of classes to plan!) I think I can see myself using more of these materials. 

I also anticipate that I would continue using videos. I use videos regularly during my one-shot classes and plan to continue to do so in a semester-long course. I will use a flipped model, assigning students videos, tutorials, etc. that I find in PRIMO or other places and then discuss them in class. This fits with my assessment model and the learning theories I identify with.

In my week 4 post I also mentioned a talk I heard at ACRL where the librarians let the students pick the resource that they felt best taught/explained a given IL concept. I think this would be a great way to incorporate more technology and keep with a flipped model.

Reflection:

I admit, I had trouble keeping up with the work for this class due to the end of the academic year at my job plus preparations for an upcoming trip to Africa to work in a library for the summer (I leave Saturday). But I did find the readings extremely helpful as I'm thinking about my instruction. I really appreciated the step-by-step process for designing a class. I've always tried to start with my learning outcomes when I plan a class but sometimes, when I'm teaching 5-6 individual one-shots in a week, I lose sight of the overall picture. It was really helpful for me to take a step back and re-think where students are coming from and what I want them to learn.

In retrospect, I might have focused on one-shot classes, since that's where I have the most experience and feel more comfortable with thinking about these concepts. But I did enjoy the opportunity to start thinking about my credit-bearing class and how I can design it to best facilitate learning. It was challenging for me but in a good way. :) I think I found that one of the biggest challenges is remembering to focus on the course outcomes and assessments without jumping ahead to outcomes and assessments for an individual class period. I'm still struggling to put all these concepts together for an entire course but I feel much more prepared to teach a semester-long course than I did before.

I think that I also have lots of tools moving forward when I go back to work in August. I've bookmarked readings and blogs that I can refer back to as I continue to develop this credit-bearing class and so that I can revamp my one-shot classes, as well. 

Blogs

Almost every blog I looked at had interesting ideas and thoughts. I really appreciated the opportunity to look at what others are teaching and doing. I confess, there aren't many in blogs that stand out in particular because I got so much out of each one. Two that stand out: http://instdesign2015.blogspot.com/ and https://abbyrovner.wordpress.com/. I also enjoyed reading the blogs by those either teaching in a community college and/or those teaching a credit-bearing class.There are so many great posts and conversations in this class...I wish we had more than a few weeks to access the class. But like I said, I feel like I have so many tools as I move forward!