Foundational Learners Team Update

As the Foundational Learners Team approaches the learning experience of our students, we are focusing on the learning environments we currently create. We are exploring how we can adjust them  to be more learner centered, more knowledge centered, and more assessment centered, three concepts from the 2000 book, How People Learn, which Library Learning Services is currently reading as a unit.

 (chart from page 134)

In short, learner centered environments are those that pay attention to the prior knowledge, attitudes, and culture students bring with them to the educational setting (133), knowledge centered environments focus on the way students become knowledgeable (136) and assessment centered environments foster opportunities for feedback and revision (140). As you might guess, ideal learning environments contain all three.

One of our core projects this semester addresses learner centered environments: we are doing a series of focus groups with ENGL 15 students. In these focus groups, taking place later this week, we will investigate the most ideal learning atmospheres for students, as well as their attitudes and approaches to research. Through the knowledge gained in these encounters, we will make recommendations as to when and how library sessions should take place. It will also give LLS a general idea of where students are at educationally, culturally, etc, so we meet them where they are.

Knowledge centered environments are often guided by learning outcomes, and we are surveying the librarians in LLS, to see what learning outcomes they are teaching the most often, which will then guide our discussion of foundational instruction when our groups reconvene in May.

To address assessment centered environments, we are working on three projects. The first is mapping our learning outcomes to our student and faculty evaluations, making it easier to tailor assessment to what has been taught in class. The second project is a assessment guide, giving librarians ideas for formative and summative assessment which can be done in the classroom. Finally, more broadly we are looking at the Instruction Steering Committee’s document Evaluating Library Instruction Partnerships in General Education Courses as a rubric to approach both future and current partnerships.

The Foundational Learners group hopes to leave the Instruction Reboot with new ideas about the state of our learners, the best ways to share our content, and techniques that will lead us to assess our teaching and our programs. We’re well on our way!

National Research Council 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/9853.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *