By Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling
Appalachian State University Libraries (retired)
gess@hey.com
Abstract
Throughout my career, my job focused heavily on library instruction. After the first few years, I started to wonder how much impact my work was actually having. I found a way to add meaning and relevance to my work by increasing my involvement with library assignments. I offered to design library assignments, share them with the course instructors for their feedback, and also, if the instructors were interested, grade them. In this article, I reflect on twenty years of working with library assignments. I discuss the following: Work done in this area by librarians at Appalachian State University; why I felt compelled to do this work, even though it was not the norm; benefits, challenges, and lessons learned; learning theory that I applied to all the assignments I developed; two library assignments for which I taught library sessions and graded students’ work many times; a grading rubric for one assignment; a partial example of high A level work for one assignment; and a document that can be used during library sessions and/or as a librarian-graded assignment.
Keywords: Library instruction, Student assignments, Grading, Job satisfaction, Job feedback