Recently in Reflections Category

I have decided to blog my activities and reflections while reading Char Booth's Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators. Partially to keep with the theme of the book and also so I don't write in this copy; it's on loan from IUP.

I have created an online teaching portfolio as part of the Penn State Teaching with Technology certificate program.  In additional to serving as a record of my teaching, it also has example documents and learning objects I have created as a science librarian.

These are some thoughts about a book I am reading for the Penn State Library Leaders group.  The book Reframing Academic Leadership by Bolman and Gallos is relatively short and focuses on the dissection of higher education leadership using a model of environments and roles for administrators.

One of the early points that has stuck with me is how leaders can take one of two approaches to interactions and communication: advocacy (where you speak to convince) or inquiry (in which you speak to discover). Advocacy is easier for me than inquiry though I am getting good at active listening.  It would be great to learn more skills that combine advocacy and inquiry at same time or in same situation.

The first framework of academy that seems appealing to me at first is the structural approach.  That problems can be addressed by changing organizational structure and roles.  Maybe because I am an engineer.

The second structure uses a confusing "jungle" metaphor, limited resources and many independent groups competing for it.  This chapter does introduce politics in higher education is a very understandable way, but the example is off putting (President Quixote?) and they forget to mention what the resources administration controls that is useful in deal making.

Servant and caregiver is also a favorite metaphor, perhaps due to the role of the libraries on campus.  But moreso I think because it focuses most on individual job satisfaction and the work environment.  I have seen in my short career MUCH more effective work out of a happy and content unit than a demoralized and confused one.  This may seem obvious, but I think leaders often write off personal feelings and experiences in the face of professionalism and privacy.

I am currently working on a research article on the Fields medal and Abel prize in mathematics.  What is interesting is the large clusters of winners around certain factors such as nationality, alma mater, affiliation, and focus of study in mathematics.  So I am putting my projections based on that for the four winners of the fields medal.  Please feel free to combine these features (one from each line) to determine if you could be a potential winner!

Nationality: France, Russia, UK, US
Alma Mater: Ecole Normale Superieure, Moscow State University, Princeton, University of Cambridge
Working at: Institute for Advanced Study, Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Princeton
Publishing in: Algebraic Geometry, Functional Analysis, Manifolds and Cell Complexes

Oh and you should probably be 35 years old... so good luck Kai-Wen Lan at Princeton (one example).

So I had to negotiate an information literacy session with less than 2 days notice.  Scheduling a room, getting the assignment and feedback from the instructor all at the last minute.  I actually wound up getting a HEAP from the instructor, which is great but means I can't do a canned presentation.  So I am winging it.  Here it goes.  I am going to try Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction as a framework.

1. Gain attention (bring out the book I just got a chapter in, since it is just like their assignment)
2. Today we will... (They will locate and describe resources in a specialized area of science or engineering and become familiar with two government resources in particular)
3. Remember when...? (They already did web evaluation, that skill is transferable)
4. Watch me.  Here's how it's done. (Show Green Engineering research guide, explain Engineering Village - index of sources, what it searches incl. dates and docs., Perform advanced searching tips)
5. Here's a guide for you to follow (Show the entire list of research guides, how to search it)
6. Now you try it (Give them 5-10 minutes to explore their subject area and record what they find)
7. Okay, you need to (Ask 2-3 students what index they chose and to describe it)
8. It's time for the test (Still wondering how to do this, poll Everywhere?)
9. Now let's try it over here... (Go into the GPO Catalog and show searching)

The Assignment is to create an Internet Resource Guide, which used to be called an annotated bibliography (they will be using "library resources")

Session went well, though did not seem to engage the students very much.

Pros: Began with Lionsearch, ended with Lionsearch, was a solid message and saw over half of the students looking at their results as I wandered the rows.
Asked a question that was answered by someone in the class "Are you doing a presentation?" Yes they are, so perhaps next time could add Creative Commons discussion.

Cons: Went about 10 minutes short again, really need an activity at the appropriate level.
Went pretty fast through PubMed and Proquest Nursing, demoed Access Science but was cut off from content.

It seems fitting that I post a year later inspired by the same event as last year: LDSC10 (Learning Design Summer Camp) here at Penn State.  I wanted to capture some of the big ideas that intrigued me at the sessions, all of which were good, by prompting of Brett Bixler and my own need to reflect.

Dr. Sam Richards inspiring keynote, including disturbing visuals, who said something to the effect of "getting out of the way of the students so they can learn".  I coincidentally heard over lunch that a library expert said we should "dis-intermediate" ourselves from the information seeking of our users.  Both these came together to remind me that those who libraries help and librarians teach are not simple questions, they are information seekers with needs and expertise.  If you look at each person asking a question or each student in class, they have an interest in either there answer or an education.  Don't get in the way!

Another point was made by the dueling Cole Camplese and Chris Long during their Hacking Pedagogy talk that on the continuum of student engagement in the classroom there is a way to aim high.  If the range is student attention, engagement as the next level, interaction as greater, and collaboration as highest THEN we should set our goal as collaboration with students and at least we should get engagement.

Finally there was a breakout session on the Teaching With Technology Certificate that can be earned at Penn State.  Though began as a way for instructors and graduate assistants to train in technology in teaching, it provides what I think is a great mechanism for representing Teaching for promotion and tenure with its online portfolio. 

I wanted to tweet about this but it started to get over 140 characters.  Plus Twitter is about to get hammered by #LDSC09 soon.

I have found 3 citations of the paper I wrote with Tom Conkling over a year ago in the Journal of Academic Librarian.  The first to show up was in JAL and an alert came from Web of Science by Thompson Reuters, and the same citation showed up a few weeks later in Scopus by Elsevier.  If use Google Scholar, however, you can find two other citations: one in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship and the other at an IEEE conference, both significant and scholarly.

It points back to the central problem as often asked of me as a librarian, "Is there one way to track citations for a paper or a person?"  And my answer is "No, not yet."

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a consistent, short, personal debrief after most of my teaching experiences.  This will supplement student and faculty surveys about my teaching.  Today I taught about 35 high school students in the Upward Bound program the basics of doing science research at Penn State.  By basics it was important to cover details that many freshmen already know, either from the Open House or a general English or Communications library session.  This time I prepared for 50 minutes, though since it was not a true class I actually had 60 minutes and even some extra, but no extra material.  I was told that they would not have access to the computers, but some did and shared with their neighbors, so I had no exercises and didn't come up with one on the fly.  In addition to being useful for a teaching portfolio, perhaps I could gather some of my successful activities into a portal toolkit.  I believe I am still going too fast in speaking, perhaps skipping around a bit, and definitely not waiting long enough for questions when I ask "Are there any questions?"