“They SHOOK MY HAND”

This week’s blog post is focused on the digital badges program that we are integrating into courses as a way for students to learn information literacy skills. For the reboot, we are piloting the use of 2 badges in 12 sections of ENGL 015. However, other courses use the digital badges and one was CAS 201 (Communication Arts and Sciences, Rhetorical Theory), a large class that used them in Fall 2018. Jeff Knapp, our liaison librarian to CAS had the opportunity to provide a course-related session for this class in addition to the badge work students did asynchronously. In this course, students worked on two badges: Evaluating Web Credibility and Recognizing Bias. Here’s how Jeff described the synergy that came with students doing digital badge work that was aligned with his session:

“They were a really great group of 80 students. I asked them about the badges when I opened the lecture, and more than one person raised their hand (that was my first “What the…?” moment). They expressed surprise at what they learned from it and the introspection that it prompted.

Throughout the lecture, any time I posed a question, rhetorical or otherwise, I always had at least three people raise their hands.  And their questions were thoughtful.

And I’m not lying… after I was done, I had exactly FIVE students approach me to thank me for an “interesting lecture”… and they SHOOK MY HAND.

It was surreal, to say the least. 

Seriously— it was one of those handful of experiences you have of your whole career that I’ll remember.

Thanks for all your help with the badges— maybe this will become a regular gig!”

We love this testimonial to how digital badges can take information literacy instruction to the next level! We hope to have many more of these in the future. If you’re interested, please feel free to be in touch.

 

What does success look like?

As Rebecca Miller Waltz noted in last week’s post, the Instruction Reboot has become a process of infusing the Library Learning Services teaching program with strategy, intention, and meaning.  These are bold words, brave words, and words that carry many possible meanings depending on the lens through which one looks. The terms are, in a word, squishy, particularly in the an academic environment often driven by metrics. So it is natural to ask next: What does success look like in the scenario driven by such squishiness?

Our answer to this question took shape during 2018, over the many months spent planning for the Instruction Reboot.  When contemplating the makings of a successful library teaching and learning program, we developed the following list:

  • Articulated shared values and priorities
  • Targeted learners (we know who we want to work with, why, and how
  • Achievable/measureable learning outcomes
  • Effective communications – within our unit, across the library, and with our targeted learning partners
  • Adaptability and Flexibility
  • A portfolio of teaching strategies and learning activities (which lend to the adaptability and flexibility point)
  • Commitment to our own continued learning
  • Administrative support and resources
  • Understanding of our role within the bigger picture – within the curricula we work with and within the University Libraries
  • Commitment to iterative design of our program

As I see our work progressing forward, I see each of these elements beginning to take shape, and it is exciting! In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more from our working teams about how these components are coming to life within their work.

Instruction Reboot in Three Words: Intentional, Meaningful, and Strategic

    Today marks the beginning of Spring Break at Penn State and the beginning of Week 9 of the Library Learning Services Instruction Reboot.  Since the Reboot will last through the Spring 2019 semester, we have just passed the halfway mark in our instruction reboot at this point.  It seems appropriate to take the time now to share a bit more about how this project is situated within the larger structure and goals of Library Learning Services and how this time has already started shaping our approach to instruction–and beyond!
    As Anne Behler wrote a few weeks ago, I was enthusiastic when she mentioned the idea of taking a “sabbatical” of sorts in order to make the professional space to reflect, plan, and grow.  It was January 2018 when we first began discussing the possibilities and potential of such a project, which meant that I had just completed my first two full years in the role of Head of the Library Learning Services unit at Penn State.  As Anne also mentioned in her post, these two years had been full of change for the Library Learning Services team.  Over the course of these two years, we re-defined our mission and vision for Library Learning Services, identified a new scope of work including four strategic areas supporting our mission and vision, and welcomed new colleagues who would help us lead new projects within our four strategic areas of work. On top of all of this change, in January 2018, the Library Learning Services team also learned that it would be moving into a new, shared office space in late 2019 as part of a Libraries-wide renovation project, which will be a very different way of working for all of us, since it will be the first time the department has been co-located and the first time that many of us will be working in an open office environment
    Essentially, in early 2018, I realized that our roles, responsibilities, resources, and working relationships were all shifting so dramatically that we needed an equally dramatic approach to managing our change. The major problem, though, was that we were so invested in our day-to-day routines of teaching, meeting, and answering emails we had no room for anything else–including managing change.  A time out from our hectic, daily schedules would give us the space, time, and capacity to reflect on how we’ve grown, strategize around how we want to continue to grow, and be intentional about where we invest our time, energy, and resources, going forward.
    Together with our Library Learning Services colleagues, Anne and I worked hard during 2018 to clarify our goals and deliverables for what we ultimately named the Instruction Reboot.  This preparation paved the way for our conversations with our campus collaborators and library administrators.  As the Library Learning Services department head, I was able to use what came from our months of preparation to advocate for the goals of our Instruction Reboot with our Associate Deans and Dean.  Fortunately, our University Libraries administration understood our need, appreciated our planning, and supported our decision to hit the pause button on many of the face-to-face teaching opportunities we usually engage in during the Spring 2019 semester.
    At this halfway point of our Instruction Reboot, I am excited by the data we’ve collected, the conversations we’ve had, and the shape that our work is taking.  If I had to pick one word that described our work during the Reboot and our future outlook, it would be “intentional.”  Our conversations have focused around being intentional about who we teach, what we teach, how we teach, and where we teach.  We recognize, though, that our intentions can still be constrained by a number of factors, including limited time, personnel, and resources.  Because of this, I would use two more words to describe our work during the Reboot:  meaningful and strategic.  We know, going forward, that we must make strategic, and often difficult, decisions about where and how we invest our time so that our work is meaningful to as many students, faculty, and community members as possible.  We have our work cut out for us over the next eight weeks or so as we continue to discover what is meaningful to our learners and to us and, with that information, make strategic decisions about our work.
    Over the next week or so, all of the reboot teams will be sharing updates on our focused efforts revolving around foundational learners, distinctive populations, and digital badges.  Stay tuned for more details on what each of these teams has been up to over the last few weeks and what we’re finding!