Tag Archives: instruction

Voice is Not a Metaphor: Considering Teaching Voice as Sound Rather than Identity

Peer-Reviewed Article, ,

Nadia Orozco-Sahi, MLIS
Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico

Introduction

I hadn’t entered librarianship to be a teacher. But as I sat in my first research clinic at the University of New Mexico, and then my next, and then my next, observing my fellow librarians guide undergraduate students through the research process, it was clear that I was going to be one, whether I had intended to be or not. I was going to walk into a classroom and be an instructor. I was also going to be visibly brown and obviously queer. My teaching identity was going to be partially prescribed before I even spoke, just by virtue of body politics and positioning – my physical presentation, at a podium, in front of the class. Before I even spoke. And then?

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Implementation of a Research Information Course in the Radiology Curriculum

Peer-Reviewed Article, ,

Lyubov Tmanova
Darnall Medical Library
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Bethesda, MD

Abstract

Objective: The study objective was to evaluate research skills and the impact of educational instruction on enhancing these skills among first-year graduate medical education (GME) trainees. Another objective was to design the research course focusing on developing essential research skills for conducting research projects and publishing findings in scholarly journals.

Methods: The Research Information Skills Proficiency Scale (RISPS) was designed and used in this study to assess both perceptive and objective research information skills in GME trainees. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the pre-test and post-test data collected after two 45-minute lectures on information and literature literacy. Additionally, trainees’ learning methods and approaches were assessed using a learning assessment and the clinical research appraisal inventory to evaluate their learning and skills perception.

Results: The RISPS scale was beneficial in assessing trainees’ skills and influenced the design of an elective course for the radiology curriculum. Demographic and educational factors, like research experience and major, have a significant impact on radiology residents’ skills, perceptions, and research abilities. Radiology residents have varying levels of understanding of study conceptualization, design, and collaborative research skills.

Conclusions: The study’s design of the RISPS scale enables the assessment of GME trainees’ perceived and objective research information skills. Implementing the RISPS perceived and objective scale each year for a new cohort of GME trainees equips GME program directors with essential educational data to tailor instructional designs according to the cohort’s learning proficiency. Furthermore, RISPS and the clinical research appraisal inventory (CRAI) are crucial in assessing research information skills and integrating trainees’ learning styles and preferences for research efficiency. The GME faculty can use the data from these questionnaires to guide the design of learning interventions aimed at enhancing the research skills and competencies of GME trainees. The course developed in the study can be added as an elective to the GME radiology curriculum to improve research skills and meet the scholarly activity requirements for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

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Formalizing the Informal: Making Conversations with Faculty Count

Essay, , ,

by Jenna Pitera
Instruction Librarian
Union College

My colleagues joke that I am always selling. I am an instruction librarian at a small liberal arts college that calls itself ‘very relationship based.’ When I came to Union College in Upstate New York, in a barely post-pandemic world, I had an uphill battle to climb when I tried to communicate the utility of our library to the campus. During the pandemic, the library was a rockstar amongst campus services, finding innovative ways to continue services and instruction in a remote environment, but despite my colleagues’ immense efforts, many faculty had moved to a research instruction model where they sprinkled how to find research articles into their standard lessons, using the methods they employ in their own research rather than working with librarians. “I just teach my students what I do” said an economics faculty member to me when I asked him how he works with the library. “I know how to find articles.”
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Negotiating the Power Dynamics of Librarian-Led Instruction: Strategies for Overcoming the Limits of One-Shot Instruction

Essay, , ,

Michelle Bishop, First-Year Experience Librarian,
Nicole Westerdahl, Research, Instruction, and Outreach Librarian,
and Deborah Bauder, Research, Instruction, and Outreach Librarian,
State University of New York at Oswego

Introduction

By its very nature, the traditional one-shot information literacy instruction session goes against most pedagogical best practices, yet remains a common format for instruction in academic libraries. The typical one-shot, as implied by its name, is a one-time instructional session where librarians provide varying levels of instruction on library or research related topics. The persistent struggles associated with this teaching model continue to dominate the information literacy literature. The history of this discussion has centered on debates about the instructional role of librarians, calls for better collaborations with discipline faculty, meaningful assessment, inclusive teaching practices, librarian burnout, and effective professional development. Despite the abundance of articles addressing these challenges, librarians continue to grapple with this instructional method and to explore creative approaches to mitigate the many well-documented pedagogical challenges of the one-shot.

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Trading Eights: Teaching Collaboratively with Primary Sources

Peer-Reviewed Article, , , , , , , ,

By Jill E. Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian
and Kevin Fleming, Popular Music & Culture Archivist
Georgia State University Library

Introduction

This case study focuses on how Kevin Fleming, Popular Music and Culture Archivist, and Jill Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian, have developed a series of “Teaching with Primary Sources” library workshops at Georgia State University, an R1 public university. We designed these workshops to introduce faculty and graduate-student instructors to creative strategies for incorporating primary sources into their instruction. Drawing on historical comic books in the archivist’s collections, the active-learning exercises we devised for these workshops are meant to encourage attendees to consider and share their own ideas about instruction with archival and other primary source types. Rather than presenting ourselves as all-knowing “experts,” we aim to make ourselves available as possible partners for this kind of instruction. With these workshops, we hope to foster attendees’ own imaginative ideas about teaching with primary sources, while at the same time encouraging instructors to consider including us as partners in their classrooms. We received a 2019 Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC) Award for Excellence in the Educational Use of Historical Records for these workshops. In this article, we will describe our collaborative processes in the context of the evolution of our workshops. We will begin by discussing our initial collaboration in support of the librarian’s Honors freshman seminar, describe the evolution of our instructor workshops, and close with a discussion of our embedment in a College of Education and Human Development graduate course on Children’s and Adolescent Literature as a direct result of these workshops.

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