Revisiting digital badges, 2016 edition

After a Twitter convo about what's going on with badging initiatives and recently reading an article about badging in libraries that I (+ noted by some others) don't agree with, it feels like time for an update on my thoughts about badging.

When I first started thinking about badges and using badges, they seemed to help solve the problem of so many requests for library instruction, but without having the resources to physically be embedded in each class. I first designed and implemented badging into the one-credit course we used to have for information literacy. It was fully online and part of the coursework included tutorials and other online work. I created badges for our initial pilot that required instructor feedback and more conversation between instructor and student for badges to be earned (rather than automated earning through multiple choice, etc.). This pilot was very successful. Students enjoyed earning badges, saying it helped them organize what they were learning and that it provided more... closure perhaps... than just doing a tutorial or reading something and moving on. Since this course was geared toward freshmen, the badges added a student success component to help them think more about how to study and how to move through a course.

When we moved into the Fall semester pilot (still in 2013), when enrollment for this course gets to be the largest (over 100), we had to revise the badges and make them all mostly automated so that our GA could actually get through all of them plus her regular grading and instruction work for this course. Although students were still positive for the most part about the badges, it didn't feel as successful, to me at least, from an instructor standpoint. This could wind up being a discussion instead about class size, but I think both aspects played a role in my impression.

During this time, I thought since the info lit outcomes for our general education program weren't as strong (and mandatory?) as they needed to be, and that perhaps embedding badging options into gen ed courses would help usher in more info lit instruction, but where librarians wouldn't need to be coming in to do one-shots. We just don't have the resources for those anymore, and as Instruction Coordinator, I will firmly say I don't feel they are beneficial pedagogically to our instruction goals here at the UofA (we are phasing them out, #nomoreoneshots).

I wrote about my presentation to gen ed faculty here and also included student feedback from the pilots. Faculty were positive and it was a possibility to make this work. With a new online college established (UA Online), we also considered embedding badges in these programs since badges might work better with fully online courses. We also considered badges for the Writing Program at the beginning of this academic year. But just popping in automated badges in various spots of the curriculum (without greater collaboration with faculty, potentially) would essentially be the same thing as a one-shot, just virtually. This would be more physically possible, but not be so beneficial pedagogically. After bouncing around and evaluating what might work best instruction-wise, and based on the needs of these programs and departments, we reverted back to thinking about badges as a student success tool. So we have ultimately landed on collaborating with the College of Letters, Arts, & Sciences (CLAS) to use badges in their student success course for undecided students. We are working with our GA and ARL CEP Fellow to have them create and design these badges, and there will be 4 available to students in this program to introduce them to research.

This brings up the discussion also then of using badges with the Framework versus the Standards. I was able to design badges, that required instructor feedback and communication (not automated), to teach students about scholarship as conversation, research as iterative, and other frames. It was totally possible. But when we needed to shift badges to automated for our large pilot (and CLAS has over 1,000 students), this isn't really possible. And it has nothing to do with what is better, the Framework or the Standards--I do like the Framework better, FYI--but pedagogically, instructor feedback and interaction with students is going to be more effective and have a greater impact (that's my opinion, at least).

I do think badges are great for student success purposes and for engagement. Badges contribute to how a one might want to project their identity. After discussions on campus about badging stemming from the pilot I did, badges are being used in a large-scale student engagement initiative that's essentially related to AAC&U High Impact Practices. I think this is a great way for students to track what more holistic experiences they are having on campus and can help them conceptualize what they've done. When it comes to classroom instruction or information literacy initiatives, I think the use of badges gets more tricky and a number of factors need to be considered. And I prefer more fluidity in instructional design and collaborations with faculty that badges anchoring curriculum can't provide.

Now, one of those factors that always seems to pop up when badges are discussed is employer needs and employer impressions of students' value as future workers. I recently wrote about the state of higher education and info lit instruction in the winter 2015 issue of Communications in Information Literacy: A Pedagogy of Inquiry, so you can get more context on where I'm coming from with that article. My entire perspective of badges since I first became interested was about improving pedagogy, badges as instructional design, and trying to give students more autonomy over how they might want to represent themselves and their learning. If the badges and the learning piqued employers' interest and helped students get jobs after graduating, that's great, but should not be the sole purpose of badging (or education!). This is one of the main problems I have with a recent article about badges for employers in the Jan 2016 issue of C&RL. The use of "critical information literacy" in the title is a bit misleading, but regardless, critical (as in essential, according to this article's use of the word) anything for instruction shouldn't hinge on what employers say they need. This post is already getting quite long, so do read my CIL article if you'd like more on that. As others had pointed out to me, some of the other problems with the article include: lack of citations to librarians who have already published and presented on badge-related topics (and the citation of my work is incorrect--we saw my article is the only one cited of librarians who have researched this, and is also described strangely, plus my name isn't even included in the citation); it's confusing why HR reps and not even hiring managers were interviewed; and why this particular methodology was chosen.

I'm writing this quickly before I do an ACRL webinar soon (to talk about our use of the Framework and how we are phasing out one-shots... which I would love to write more about sometime in the future), but I knew if I didn't make this post now I might not have time again for awhile. Here's hoping there aren't any glaring errors. And hoping more that this post was useful to those of you asking about what I've learned about badging and how we're using them here at the University of Arizona.

Why I #critlib

For the #critlib chat tonight, we are talking #feelings (moderated by Kevin Seeber), and instead of a reading Kevin asked that participants reflect on some questions. A few people have already written great posts. Some from the top of the feed: Kelly McElroy, Emily Drabinski, Andrew Preater, and more if you go to the hash. My attempt is below.

I almost think I was a critical librarian before even realizing it. What got me interested in becoming a librarian was a 2002 article in Punk Planet written by Alana Kumbier interviewing people like Jenna Freedman, Jessamyn West, and other awesome librarians/archivists doing activist and social justice work in the profession. I didn't even realize librarianship could be that as I read the article as an undergrad. I felt pretty blah about college and even dropped out for a year. I had some (now laughable) plans of hopping trains and maybe becoming a professional piercer... who knows. I think I read Days of War Nights of Love too many times as an impressionable 19 year old. But reading that Punk Planet article showed me that you can have a career that's not soul sucking and actually helps people and could make the world a better place. I later finished my degree but wasn't necessarily planning on librarianship as an ultimate goal. It came to me later after working for a couple years, and I decided to go to library school.

I didn't really know anything about critical theory and all of my activism-related activities were based around practice only. I didn't think of myself as much of a reader or theorist before library school, but more of a do-er. I did get interested though in how theory could guide practice (ending up as praxis) and wanted to learn more. I'm still learning. This is why we (Emily, Jenna, Kelly, Annie, and I) started this hashtag so that we could all learn from each other.

Librarianship is over 80% white and has been for a long time. Clearly we need to take other approaches and need to be critical of what has been done already if it's not working. Librarianship is also over 80% women, however men are still fast-tracked to administrator positions, make more money, and are invited to speak and lead in much larger percentages compared to their makeup in the field. Librarians, like other women-dominated, service-oriented fields, are often valued and paid less than fields dominated by men. This is not because work perceived as women's work is less valuable, but because society treats it as less valuable. These are all real things that critical approaches work to dismantle. There are many other hegemonic systems in place that oppress people, I've only touched on a few. But as I learned in my own journey here, we can't just "do," we also need to reflect, discuss, plan, and get to those bigger ideas that bring us to bigger outcomes. We need both theory and practice, and we can't do it alone, we need community. Especially when many of us are in privileged positions, we need to do a lot of listening and can't just take action on what we think might be most effective without working in collaboration with others. Those of us who participate in #critlib don't all agree on everything (as others have stated), but it is a meeting place, somewhere to exchange ideas, debate, and build momentum. That's why I'm here.

Expertise and educators: Teachers make a difference

If you care about teaching, stop what you're doing and read Joshua Beatty's CAPAL 2015 paper, "Reading Freire for first world librarians." I had seen others tweeting about how great this paper was but hadn't had a chance to read it until now.

I can't really even count the amount of exclamation points I wrote all over my printed-out copy. There are a lot! We talk about a few things regarding critical pedagogy that have had me feeling conflicted. I wasn't sure how to put my uncertainty into words. Conversations regarding teacher authority, students-as-teachers, and borderline disdain for outcomes have had me feeling like "hmmm no" but not entirely sure how to express my hesitation clearly. And when I say "we," I mean librarians, teachers, and higher ed faculty who engage in discourse about critical pedagogy, but also sometimes those more informal discussions in our #critlib chats. And this is certainly not uncommon, a hashtag to talk about umbrella topics does not automatically imply there is monolithic agreement and a shared politics/approach/philosophy. This is why these conversations are great, because it's a safe space to talk about these things. I just haven't been able to fully articulate my disagreement about these issues until reading this paper.

So without repeating everything he says, essentially, the point is that first world librarians have been interpreting Freire incorrectly. Most of us--myself included--have only read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which was written with a very specific time period and population in mind and does not apply to Western classrooms (especially in the U.S. education system). Beatty points out how "Freire believed that North American teachers had conflated the concept of authority with the concept of authoritarianism. For Freire, the difference was essential. Authoritarianism was opposed to the existence of freedom, and is illegitimate. Authority, in contrast, was not opposed to freedom, but necessary to it" (p. 6).

The teacher's authority comes from their knowledge of the subject matter; but as Beatty explains, Freire realized in our misreading of his work that in rejecting authoritarianism, we wind up rejecting the teacher's authority... the thing that is actually needed for reaching freedom. And when we reject the teacher's authority and focus on this idea of teacher as just a guide or facilitator and not an expert with authority, we are actually causing harm to both the students and the teacher.

How this causes harm to students: Teacher authority is thinly veiled behind this idea of a classroom of shared power, which is just not in existence. Problem-posing in truth would be to acknowledge the authority of the teacher, to discuss it and be aware of it, instead of pretending it doesn't exist or making it seem like it can go away. I have never fully abdicated my authority as a teacher when I am doing instruction, feeling that I would come across as insincere. I wrote a blog post previously about TMI and student retention, and how trying to appear as if on the same level as your students is not helpful to teaching. I had included a couple YouTube clip examples in the post that have seemed to disappear, but this one can illustrate the idea here from Kids in the Hall, He's Hip. He's Cool. He's 45! The dad is trying to act like his authority is invisible by being "cool" and imposing no limitations on his son. He "doesn't care" about restrictions such as curfew and even goes to offer his son a joint with his cool man stance on the couch armrest. But the son clearly sees through this facade, not taking his dad seriously, as if he's a joke (well, he literally is):

This is obviously an exaggerated example, but I think it is disingenuous to frame a classroom as hey we're all the same, teacher, students.... even though I have the authority to grade. Also, there really are right and wrong answers in a number of cases. Dialogue is important, though. Facilitating is also important, but not at the expense of denying the expertise of being a teacher.

How this causes harm to teachers: I have written about the identity of librarians, the identity of librarians specifically as educators, and presented on how incorporating critical pedagogy into information literacy education can help transform our image. What Beatty is saying in his paper ties directly to this issue inherent in women's work and female-dominated professions having an expectation for service work and caregiving. Caregiving and warmth is essential to a degree in successful teaching, as we recognize the human component necessary for learning (affect), but positioning teachers--and librarian teachers, a double-whammy--as simply guides or facilitators or helpers, we are reinforcing a renunciation of authority, respect, and the need for individuals (mostly women) in these roles. We can have authority without being authoritarians. We can be experts and strategic educators who use learning outcomes (especially as formative assessment) while also working with students to realize their own knowledge and interests via dialogue and bigger picture learning.

I have found somewhat of a clash between educational psychology / instructional design principles and critical pedagogy when considering design, outcomes, and the role of the educator. I was so glad to read Beatty's paper to help me realize exactly where I felt uncomfortable with this conflict and why it existed. He talks about a lot of other great things like the idea of neutrality, the importance of collaboration with faculty, and neoliberalism + educational technology... you should really read.

And so, if anyone really can be a facilitator or a guide or a helper, then who needs us? Freire's notion of laissez-faire education would be realized. Teachers make a difference, and we can use our authority to help students learn. 

WAAL 2015 Opening Keynote: Transforming our image through a compass of critical librarianship

I went to Wisconsin this week to present the opening keynote at the annual Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians conference for 2015. I had a great time meeting librarians from all over the state, and really enjoyed talking about librarian stereotypes and using critical librarianship as a compass to transform our image.

Find details and access to all materials below!

Title: Transforming our image through a compass of critical librarianship

Description: Librarians have been lamenting our stereotypes for over 100 years, but has anything changed? Critical librarianship--the process of incorporating social justice through theory and practice into professional philosophies and day-to-day work--pushes us past a simple dismissal of stereotypes, and toward a consideration of what implications these tropes have on our diversity, status, pay, and ability to collaboratively carry out our work with faculty as partners.

This keynote address will examine how implementing critical librarianship through our library instructional pedagogy, scholarship, and other ongoing work can add greater value to the profession, and help transform the perception of librarians to campus, as well as our own perception of ourselves.

Transcript: Find the full transcript here, including list of references

Slides (It looks like slide 81 is blank, but it's a video)... the full PPTX is here, which includes the videos that you can watch in the ppt, and then image credits are in the notes of each slide). Below is the SlideShare version for quick reference but videos won't play here.

Opening Keynote, #WAAL2015 Conference (Pagowsky) from Nicole Pagowsky

Zines fests, neutrality, and tie ins to library work

photo by Jen Collins/ Flickr Creative Commons

Today I was reading here and here about how the Brooklyn Zine Fest silenced People of Color (POC), through removing a panel about #BlackLivesMatter under the guise of keeping the fest "apolitical." This is appalling and additionally depressing to hear about considering that this essentially is a space for activists and those who are endeavoring to express alternative points of view. We have to remember, sadly, that the erasing or silencing of POC can happen anywhere, not just in spaces that have a more hostile agenda.

Also, an 'apolitical' zine fest??? I would say that's a definite oxymoron.

I really want to tie this in to library work. In Jordan Alam's blog post about this, she says:

"Our bodies and lives do not have the privilege to claim that they are ‘apolitical.’ By our basic existence, we must contend with the very politicized assumptions placed upon us, black people most of all. Shutting us out from programming is a choice to align with the dominant racist and anti-black culture."


This is relevant to the argument that we say "we're neutral!" in libraries and that we are aware of and represent "all" points of view. In our collections, in our instruction, in how we organize and describe our materials, and all the work we do. Because this blanket of neutrality supposedly covers the whole library, I would imagine, when making this argument.

But just like at this zine fest, when a point of view was silenced to stay 'apolitical,' it's like turning the conversation around #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter. White people have the luxury of being viewed as "normal" and "apolitical" and "neutral." #AllLivesMatter is the point of view that is always front and center. And this point of view tends to take the perspective of whiteness. POC are always silenced or marginalized or othered. Actually showing "all" points of view would be to put more focus on these perspectives that are not always in the spotlight, as whiteness is the lens we tend to see everything through.

I made this argument with my colleague, Niamh Wallace, in our recent article for C&RL News, "Black Lives Matter! Shedding library neutrality rhetoric for social justice." But I think the point can still be missed by those who might not be seeing past what the true meaning of neutrality in library work means.

Librarians have been talking about this for some time, I have never implied I am the first to discuss this, but I think there is an extra focus or interest in these topics again currently. We should be talking about this as a profession, as being critical involves dialogue. We're not going to always agree, and it's not going to always be in binary terms of right or wrong, but that's not a reason to not engage. And if we are representing diverse communities with different perspectives than ~85% white librarianship, this idea of "we'll just show all points of view" but remain "neutral" misses the point and further marginalizes our users.

I really hope Brooklyn Zine Fest will engage in productive discussion (and apology) about this with their community, particularly zinesters of color, and add an extra event focusing on these issues during the fest.

#acrl2015 reflection: experiences of academic librarians of color

Before #acrl2015 might become a blur, I wanted to reflect on the conference, and one session in particular, From the Individual to the Institution: Exploring the Experiences of Academic Librarians of Color with panelists Juleah Swanson, Isabel Gonzalez-Smith, Azusa Tanaka, Ione Damasco, Dracine Hodges, Todd Honma, and Isabel Espinal. You can find the Storify from the session here. I'm parsing my ideas together still, so apologies if this is a little messy...

One of the main takeaways from this session for me was that we need to stop framing diversity as a problem that needs to be solved, and that diversity is everyone's responsibility. This drives home the point for me even further that diversity and inclusivity research and other work should be woven into, and encouraged in, day-to-day work as well as in the tenure and promotion process. Something I wrote about over the summer was related to hiring for diversity and this panel made me think even more about the burden of responsibility we put on those who are diverse to do this work. We should all be doing this work, we should be doing this research as tied to our "regular" work. As Isabel Gonzalez-Smith noted during the panel, our students' diversity is skyrocketing, but diversity of librarians is crawling along at 0.5%. Why is that? If we're concerned with how people use our resources, how we do instruction, and the value of the library, shouldn't we be spending as much time on figuring out why we haven't been able to improve our diversity and how that affects our field and our constituents? I feel like I might still be framing it as a problem here, and it's a hard rhetoric to get away from, something that many of us could probably change our perspective on.

The other thing this panel made me realize is how we talk about diversity in regards to "types" of diversity. When we say we need "all types" of diversity equally, that brings to mind the conversation around #BlackLivesMatter vs #AllLivesMatter. It's this misconception that "colorblindness" affects positive change by imagining everyone as the same, when it winds up being detrimental by not acknowledging specific, very problematic issues. Here is a tweet for some context:

If we don't focus in on specific diversity and instead just lump it all together, we can't really address what we are lacking and what needs to change. And just saying finding people with "different viewpoints" is equivalent to diversity that speaks to systemic structures, such as racism, classism, sexism, etc. is problematic, particularly if these people with different viewpoints also happen to always be white males or white middle class white women. Of course, finding people with different perspectives is important, but it doesn't stand in for addressing other issues surrounding diversity.

The other thing we should be taking about is that diversity isn't a numbers game. Filling all the lower-level positions with diverse candidates still doesn't address who holds the power. There is a highly skewed percentage toward white men holding administrative positions, so even if we get the "right" number of diverse candidates, how does that change the culture?

And the last thing I want to touch on from this panel that really made me think was the idea of "institutional fit" that a couple panelists brought up. The fact that this nebulous idea of fit when we're looking for candidates can harm our moves toward diversity by discounting certain people who we don't feel are like us. And we can say that we really don't do that, but when we think of fit it winds up being people we get along with, or people who have a similar mindset to the institutional mindset already in place. It can reinforce hegemonic structures.

So I think we have a ways to go, but it's so heartening to see more critical sessions accepted at ACRL and that there is a bigger interest in talking about these things. I'm certainly still learning and thinking about what privilege I have, but I hope we can have these larger discussions with our institutions and as a profession.

--Check out the session link above for their list of resources / bibliography, and also see Gonzalez-Smith, Swanson, and Tanaka's chapter in The Librarian Stereotype: Desconstructing Perceptions and Presentations of Information Work. The Pho & Masland chapter might be of interest as well.

#acrl2015 schedule

Next week is ACRL 2015! Posting my public schedule below...

Tuesday
6:30pm #critlib meetup, dinner at Los Gorditos, 8pm drinks at Low Brow Lounge (details at link)
@CUDJOE70 and I are going to meet up in the Benson Hotel lobby at 6:30pm to walk over (5-10min), join us if you'd like the more the merrier

Wednesday
All day, ACRL Immersion Practical Management
(bummed to miss the #critlib Unconference, but excited to have the opportunity to attend this day-long Immersion program)

8pm Battledecks! Convention Center, Portland Ballroom 251/258
We have an awesome lineup of emcees, judges, and contestants, it's going to be fun (I am biased since I'm on the committee that organized it, but it really will be fun, don't miss it!)

Thursday
There are so many good sessions, I have 3-4 choices per timeslot so I won't re-list them all here

1-2pm at the ACRL Booth (#515) with Miriam Rigby to rep The Librarian Stereotype book, come by and say hi! I'm also happy to talk about the critical library pedagogy handbook I'm co-editing with Kelly McElroy on ACRL Press, our call for proposals is still going until March 31st!

7-9pm Chair's Reception?

8-11pm EveryLibrary Meetup at Dechutes Brewery, 210 NW 11th
Come support EveryLibrary and hang out with me and awesome co-hosts!

Friday
5:30-7pm ACRL 2015 Leaders' Reception hosted by ACRL OR/WA

8-10:30pm All Conference Reception

10:30pm Que(e)ry Party at The Embers Avenue, 110 NW Broadway St.

And will also be checking out the Zine Pavillion!

See you next week!

Competency-Based Learning & Creating Meaningful Experiences: Mutually Exclusive?

Lately, I have grown to be more skeptical of competency-based learning as used in the contexts it has been generally implemented, despite the fact that I am working to integrate library information literacy badges into our university-wide general education program (see my recent presentation with Andrew Battista about this topic for the 2015 CUNY Games Festival). So I was a little unsure what to expect in the Educause webinar I attended yesterday, Participatory Learning and Assessment in Competency-Based Contexts (ignore the unfortunate abbreviation of assessment in that URL...).

But I was pleasantly surprised with the webinarand also glad to see it was Dan Hickey from Indiana University doing the presentation. I took a BOOC on assessment practices with him a year or two ago and the way that course was developed has influenced my online course design.

I just wanted to reflect on what he talked about during the webinar because I think it's important for info lit instructional design, student engagement in general, and also as a way to think about standards vs the framework as we continue to have ongoing conversations about the ACRL revisions.

So first, if you're not familiar with competency-based learning (CBL), you can get some background here. Granted, that background info might be a bit biased since the Dept of Ed is in favor of implementing CBL. It's essentially the idea of replacing Carnegie seat hours with focus on passing assessments instead. So, if you prove you already have the skills or knowledge, you don't have the spend the time (re)learning the material, or if you learn content more quickly than others, you can spend less time on a unit.. On one hand, there are some great things that could come out of that, especially when we think about making information literacy instruction more appealing for both faculty and students. But there is also the *other* hand, where both Audrey Watters and Tressie McMillan Cottom have discussed the false meritocracy this reinforces, creating more barriers and difficulty for lower-income students in particular. Likewise, when you can just buy your skills through "cheaper" online assessments that have been corporatized, where does that leave social learning and any magic that could happen in the classroom? And how much weight does that really carry for finding a job (particularly for marginalized groups)?

Dan Hickey's presentation seemed to be about bringing the benefits of CBL into the classroom, while avoiding the not-so-great parts. He did mention that CBL is really like an assembly line, and that it's hard to use competencies in this way because teaching is so contextual. We don't want to make competencies a "statement of declarative knowledge." It's impossible to have students all learn the same things in the same way. Different students will have experiences that make them find more importance in one thing over another, and different groups of students will create knowledge that differs based on varying points of view.

Hickey discussed 5 Participatory Learning and Assessment Design Principles in order to make this point and demonstrate how to better incorporate CBL to make it contextual, examples follow:

1. Use public contexts to give meaning to knowledge tools: it's necessary to help students unpack between course concepts and their own context. This is personalized learning, not individualized learning.
2. Reward productive disciplinary engagement: disciplinary engagement involves both declarative knowledge and cultural practices. Be open with comments and engagement, stay away from grades. Let students interact and explore.
3. Grade artifacts through local reflections: save time for interaction, not on nitpicking via grading. Grade reflections instead of posts and comments (and stay away from using discussion boards).
4. Let individuals assess their understanding privately: use re-engagement instead of remediation, and offer open-ended and optional opportunities.
5. Measure achievement discreetly: there is too much teaching to the test, focus on bigger ideas. Withhold item-level feedback for test security and don't let students obsess over item-level answer memorization.

More on ALA Instructional Design Essentials ecourse

image via infed.org

Since it's a ways off and we've had people asking about when it will be offered again, I just wanted to make a quick post that our next 4-week session of ALA Instructional Design Essentials will be offered in May 2015. Instructors are myself and Erica DeFrain. We decided to wait until May since it's a slightly less busy time for academic library instruction and thought it would work better with people's schedules. Registration will open up sometime later in spring.

We are reflecting and revising from the first session of the course in September/October 2014, but here is the gist:

What you will get out of this course:

• How to use backward design and instructional design models to create your own teaching, while being critical of the limitations of ID
• How to leverage learning theories and knowledge of student motivation to create more compelling instruction
• How to integrate assessment holistically into your curriculum, lesson, or learning object so that you can help students reflect on their own progress, while you reflect on your teaching
• How to critically select and position technology within your instruction to enhance student learning
• How to develop an awareness for critical pedagogical practices to create inclusive classroom atmospheres or learning objects 

We use a connected model of learning where participants interact and create content. Everyone is learning from everyone, and a number of students had said they made great connections to peers during the course. We had an amazing group of librarians enrolled in the fall and we really enjoyed being able to teach and learn from them!

Some feedback from students:

"This instructional design course has given me the holistic, systematic, and results-focused approach that I was hoping to cultivate towards instruction, and I look forward to further developing my teaching along these lines. My coursemates were a wonderful resource, and I found several posts helpful in thinking about measurable and contextually anchored assessment, the feedback loop, motivation and the affective domain, and the potential contexts for our teaching. Thanks in particular to [student], whose thoughtful comments were so helpful for assessment and technology applications, and to our instructors, Nicole Pagowsky and Erica DeFrain. This was my first experience in online asynchronus learning, and it has been a very positive one that I’m happy to recommend to others!"

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned so much. My biggest take away was to start from the end and work my way backwards when planning for a course and developing curriculum. I have learned that it is not what I want to teach but what I want students to learn. I will never look at instruction the same, and that is a really great thing!"

"I think the thing I found most useful was how the course was structured, i.e. that we applied these Instructional Design principles to a real-life scenario. Going into this course, I had some familiarity with ID concepts, but I had never applied them to my own work. Having an end goal in mind made it easier to explore ID concepts in a practical way. I think the concept that will stick with me most is backward design; it has made me reconsider how I approach instruction, by making sure that I think first of the goals for the course, workshop, etc. before proceeding to how the material will be presented. I struggled most with learning theories, in this class. I think that I have a decent handle on them now, but I’m still not entirely sure of the intricacies of each theory."

"I already want to say thank you to Nicole and Erica for the great course. I learned a lot out of the reading! + the peer-endorsement activity was an eye-opening experience (thx to the blog technology :)"

"What struck me the most was how much my initial class design changed from week 1 to week 4. Without realizing it, I had done an about-face! When I pulled my old posts together and tried to write up this final project post, it became clear just how much the readings and the other participants’ blogs had changed my views."

If you're interested in registering for the course, feel free to contact me or Erica with questions; or get in touch with ALA for any logistical concerns.

#acrlilrevisions Next Steps

It seems like we are almost at the final version of the ACRL Framework revisions. I submitted my feedback a couple weeks ago through the ACRL Student Learning & Information Literacy committee that I'm on (we are sending it collectively) and feel for the most part that I have a decent grasp on how we might use these at the University of Arizona. Even though it's not finalized yet, we've been needing to work with the draft as is for projects here, such as badging, programmatic instruction, and constructing our department's IL plan and philosophy not too long after we had a restructuring. I'm helping coordinate our plans for programmatic instruction here so I keep thinking and re-thinking about these frames.

When designing instruction, I like to come up with "big questions" or "understandings," as Wiggins and McTighe refer to. From looking at the frames and trying to think about how can librarians and teaching faculty collaboratively understand these concepts and work toward shared goals, I put some big questions together to try and capture broader thoughts. From there, a colleague and I also worked on writing some outcomes we could map through curriculum mapping once everything becomes finalized. I'm also using these in other work that can't wait for the final draft. I thought I'd share some of this here as some librarians in my department are also sharing this with librarians at ASU and NAU tomorrow at a joint mini-conference that I can't attend since I will actually be presenting our version of the framework so far with big questions and outcomes to general education faculty for their feedback.

Below is our draft thus far. I thought I'd share it in the hopes that it might help others grappling with this stuff. I changed "searching is strategic" back to "searching is exploration" for our purposes because we all liked that version better here. We are also trying to think of more simple frame names that we could use. Even with our bigger additions and small adjustments, it's not perfect, but we're getting there.

Since it seems there is/was some disagreement via Twitter about whether "conversation" or "discourse" might be better wording for the first frame... I am on the side of conversation. If we're talking about opening up the act of research and having students become creators, I think discourse is limiting. Discourses set rules and restrictions, not really inviting in great diversity. As Aleman (2014) says, "Those in power or in control of the discourse normalize certain principles and ways of being through discourse to perpetuate norms, and to demand compliance, conformity, and submission to these norms" (p. 113). Discourse limits diversity in perspective and often in mode of publication. I also love this quote from Ball in Egea that I shared not too long ago: 

discourse, problems, neoliberalism via Egea, O.M., 2013 pic.twitter.com/cIyP6Qb25o
— Nicole Pagowsky (@pumpedlibrarian) October 9, 2014

So I say keep it "conversation." Ok and now here are our frames and outcomes:

Frame 1: Scholarship is a Conversation

Scholarship is a conversation refers to the idea of ongoing discourse within a community of scholars who create, consume, and critique new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of competing perspectives and interpretations, building on each other.

Big Questions:

Ø  What barriers exist when entering into the “conversation” of scholarship?

Ø  How can we gain greater understanding of topics by examining the connections and ongoing narratives between different scholarly pieces?

Ø  How do our responsibilities shift when moving from just consumers of information to critics and/or creators of it?

Students should be able to:

·         Recognize the metaphor of “conversation” to describe the purpose of research

·         Identify the contribution of specific scholarly pieces and varying perspectives to a disciplinary knowledge “conversation”

·         Contribute to the scholarly conversation at an appropriate level, through the lens of becoming a creator/critic

Frame 2: Research as Inquiry

Research as inquiry means that research is an ongoing exploration, depending on continuous questioning where answers develop new questions or new lines of interest in any field.

Big Questions:

Ø  How could understanding of a topic be improved through uncertainty in the process of research?

Ø  How can varying needs shape the importance of certain types of information?

Ø  How can we know what we don’t know? How do we go about figuring out what is not there instead of only what is visible by finding gaps in thought or content?

Students should be able to:

·         Formulate research questions based on curiosity and gaps in information or data available

·         Describe via reflection how the research process is iterative, requiring persistence

·         Apply research methods that are appropriate for the need, context, and type of inquiry

Frame 3:  Authority is Contextual and Constructed

Authority of information depends on where the source came from, the information need, and how the information will be used. It is constructed and contextual. Authority should be viewed with an attitude of informed skepticism and openness to new perspectives.

Big Questions:

Ø  How or why do we decide if someone has “authority” on a topic?

Ø  What might be expected of us as we become authorities ourselves?

Ø  How might biases privilege some sources of authority and silence others, especially in terms of others’ worldviews, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, etc.?

Students should be able to:

·         Determine attributes of authoritative information for different needs, with the understanding that context plays a role in authority-based attributes

·         Recognize that traditional notions of granting authority might hinder diverse ideas and world views

·         Acknowledge that oneself may be seen as an authority in a particular area, and recognize the responsibilities entailed

Frame 4: Information Creation is a Process

Knowledge can be expressed in different styles, which has an impact on how information is used and shared. It is important to look to the underlying processes of creation as well as the final product to critically evaluate the usefulness of the information.

Big Questions:

Ø  How might information be perceived differently based on how it’s packaged? E.g., why might there be an expectation to use scholarly sources in a college paper?

Ø  Why do certain types of information automatically seem to have credibility where others might not?

Students should be able to:

·         Articulate the purposes of various types of information as well as their distinguishing characteristics

·         Distinguish between format and method of access, understanding that these are separate entities

·         Identify which types of information best meet particular information needs

Frame 5: Searching is Exploration

Locating information requires a combination of curiosity, discovery, and luck. There is no one size fits all source for the needed information. Finding information is nonlinear and iterative, requiring the use of a broad range of information sources, flexibility, and the willingness to make mistakes and try again.

Big Questions:

Ø  How can we best determine what we’re looking for so that we can identify an effective search strategy?

Ø  How might differing information needs change an approach to searching?

Ø  How can failure and mistakes help us in finding information?

Students should be able to:

·         Make connections between the importance of matching information needs and search strategies to appropriate search tools

·         Implement more advanced searching skills to respond to a discipline-based information need

·         Reflect on the usefulness of making mistakes in the search process and how searching is not solely transactional

Frame 6: Information has Value

Information has value means that information possesses several dimensions of value, including as a commodity, as a means of education, as a means to influence, and as a means of negotiating and understanding the world. The flow of information through systems of production and dissemination is impacted by legal, sociopolitical, and economic interests.

Big Questions:

Ø  How could value of information be wielded by powerful interests in ways that marginalize certain voices?

Ø  How might the use or absence of citations impact the conversation of research?

Ø  How could something like open access change creation, publishing, and learning?

Students should be able to:

·         Distinguish between plagiarism and copyright violations

·         Identify scholarly publication practices and their related implications for access to scholarly information

·         Identify why some groups/individuals may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information

Confronting false neutrality in professional expectations

image via http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide/

I've got neutrality on my mind lately, particularly from many excellent #critlib chats talking about a sense of false neutrality in libraries and library instruction. And also in thinking about educational technology in the sense of how we use it, and how it is designed. Likewise, my ACRL-track panel proposal for ALA 2015 with Emily Drabinski, Jenna Freedman, Kelly McElroy, and Annie Pho was accepted: "But we're neutral! And other librarian fictions confronted by #critlib."

But I specifically wanted to draw greater attention to a good discussion starting on Andy Woodworth's blog in the comments about re-imagining librarian "rockstars" that hasn't gained much traction (yet?). 

Although Andy does acknowledge it is a loaded term, I think the problem comes in trying to neutralize the idea of the rockstar--or leader. In the comments, Andromeda brought up an excellent point:

“all of the nuance that comes with human beings and their personality. Should a role model librarian be assertive, but not overbearing? Be outspoken, but not self-aggrandizing? Be confident, but not arrogant?” 

To me, these are questions that can’t be addressed without also addressing their gendered and racial overtones. You and I doing exactly the same thing – you might get read as “assertive” (a masculine virtue bespeaking leadership), whereas I might get read as “aggressive” or even “bitchy”. And when I hear our black colleagues talk about how they’re read doing that same thing, it’s “bitchy” or “angry” or even “scary”. 

All of those questions you ask carry additional “but not” adjectives that narrow, or even close, the space of the possible, for some people. 

It's problematic to think about what we should expect from our leaders as broad, neutral categories of traits if 1. desirable leadership traits are based on norms of white, middle-class, cis-het males and if 2. we truly hope to increase diversity within librarianship. I added a comment:

These are great things to think about, but I do think Andromeda’s points warrant greater focus. There can’t really be an “ideal” with ongoing systems of societal oppression. We could say an assertive and highly motivated person could be an example of what a good role model would look like, but if a number of our colleagues are judged differently when exhibiting those traits, then the way we think about leaders in the profession has to be nuanced and understood within the greater context of society. Likewise, when white, cis-het men wind up being the majority of keynotes or those who are most visible, that can dictate certain expectations for leaders that seem normal and neutral but are highly skewed.

I don't want the point of this post to be giving Andy a hard time...and interrupting myself, look at that. I clearly felt it necessary to qualify my thoughts and my post to ensure I don't come across as being "bitchy" or stirring the pot. I think it's important to look at how we might easily miss false neutrality in not just library instruction and library services in what we project outward to our public, but also our own internal perceptions and expectations for ourselves as "professionals" (which can be an additionally loaded term).

Moving away from teaching to the research paper

Might be sacrilege, but I find I have more engaging instruction sessions when students don't have a research paper attached as an assignment
— Nicole Pagowsky (@pumpedlibrarian) October 10, 2014

As I've been teaching a lot more classes lately that have a big research paper or capstone assignment attached in my new role as a subject liaison, I'm comparing it to my other work focusing on FYE-type instruction and student retention, thinking about engagement. This topic also came up in the Instructional Design Essentials ecourse I'm co-teaching with Erica DeFrain for ALA. Many participants in our course are starting to see the big red flags popping up with demo-based one-shots and student motivation as they have been working through designing their instruction or learning objects. As info lit instruction practice is moving more toward programmatic instruction and ensuring that an assignment is present so that there is more student buy-in and opportunities for assessment, I'm starting to question the assignment and (formal) assessment parts of library instruction... or, at least the research-paper-as-assignment.

The problem with one shots of course is that there is often an expectation to cram a ton of information into a 50-75min session that students will need to just remember for the rest of the semester and be able to complete their research papers "well." Not to mention library instruction becomes an isolated integration into the curriculum, particularly so when this type of instruction is in the form of skill-and-drill. There are many discussions going on--that have been going on for awhile now--pointing out that just teaching students how to use a database via a demo is not effective, and is boring for everyone (agreed!). Once students get to a point where they are writing a huge research paper, I almost feel like we've missed them, that they should have had more incremental, activity-based instruction, because this juncture in their instruction-need winds up being focused more on use of databases and just finding peer-reviewed articles to get the paper "done." I was teaching some undergrad students more context about what a literature review is for their required big paper, talking about their role as creators of knowledge, thinking of research as a conversation and where their research fits in, and crafting a narrative. I also did need to weave in database demos because the students had a certain requirement to fulfill. At the end of the session, I talked to the instructor to see if the session was what he was hoping for, especially since he had another section of the course coming in a few weeks later. He told me I really didn't need to talk about all that other stuff, all I really needed to do was point them to the databases because that's what they need for their paper. Students become so focused on the need to gather x amount of articles that other discussions become irrelevant and inefficient.

This is the issue with huge summative assessments, particularly the research paper. Barbara Fister has written about this problem at length, where she talks about Why the "Research Paper" isn't Working. I don't believe we have problems with student engagement when research papers are not attached to library instruction because our (potential) content isn't interesting, I think it's because traditionally (not everyone and not always, but typically in the past) a library instruction session divorced from an assignment *still* focused on a database demo. A database demo with no purpose, of course, is going to be agony for students (and the librarian). There are so many other things we could be doing, that some of us are doing, that serve as better options.

My perspective is that by the time students are writing huge research papers, they should have already had enough library instruction to where they could benefit from just a review of what they know. We should be scaffolding from the first year up instead of dumping all the boring mechanics of searching on students, with little other context, all at once. Now of course, much of this is out of our control, we get asked to do a one-shot where an assignment is already established, or even with efforts for collaboration, faculty might not want to work with us, or might just not feel they have the time. But when we can have a larger role in collaboration, especially for programmatic instruction, I try to suggest more scaffolding and lower-risk library instruction activities to enable greater discovery and discussion. Some of the best instruction sessions I've had have been with student success courses that don't have a big research paper, working with athletes, and working with a class examining social media that needed less help with "finding" and more so with creating a bigger discussion about information and communication. Unfortunately, I think this problem goes back to faculty not really knowing what we do and assuming we're just there to help students find things, as well as perceptions of librarians tying us to a "helper" role, so I think it just depends on the faculty we are working with and what our collaborative relationships are like. But I do think trying to move away from teaching to the research paper is one step in the right direction.

The Twitter convo continues from above...

#ccourses: Modeling student engagement and community

Image via makeuseof

I've had a chance to get to the rest of the #ccourses readings for Unit 1 and am thinking about "disruption," community, and real engagement of students. Although I do agree with Laura that disruption is a not-so-great term, I'm understanding that as used in this week's #ccourses readings, it's in the sense of describing the use of high-impact practices for education rather than traditional seat time. There is a huge initiative on my campus speaking to this, and I am very excited about it.

(Also see this discussion on A Beschdel test for higher ed disruption.)

Although I started off thinking about the WHY of my library instruction for UA students, I am changing gears in this post to reflect on a 4-week ecourse I am teaching with Erica DeFrain: ALA Instructional Design Essentials, for librarians. 

On one hand, we have some constraints: the course is only 4 weeks long, just about everyone in the class is a busy, working professional trying to squeeze in this professional development on top of their work week, and additionally, we are required to use a LMS, Moodle. On the other hand: we have a lot of freedom, we can design the course however we'd like using just about any model we'd like (and we have taken advantage of this!). 

With 69 students in the course and only two of us, we are incorporating a great deal of peer connection and assessment. It's definitely not only because it's a high ratio of students to instructors, but also because we believe this model will be most beneficial to students. Our students have varying levels of expertise, from some who are within 6 months of their first ever library job, to those who have well over 5 years of instruction experience and want to get a fresh perspective. With that, allowing students to share their expertise and form their own personal learning network is important. We want to give them as much ownership over the course as we can, while also keeping it organized enough for a busy, working professional to be able to just swoop in, get the gist, and make a little progress, if that's all they are able to do.

As Randy Bass describes, features of participatory culture communities include:

• "low barriers to entry
• strong support for sharing one's contributions
• informal mentorship, from experienced to novice
• a sense of connection to each other
• a sense of ownership in what's being created
• a strong collaborative sense that something is at stake"

We are integrating these features in our course through relying heavily on a peer network. We encourage student ownership of discussion boards, Twitter engagement, and commenting on blog posts. We also have peers endorse the posts they find most useful to them in their learning for the week. Although I am using and researching digital badges in other ways and am including them in this course, they are not the focus, but briefly, they help visualize the peer process.

#ideala ecourse badges that participants can earn

We feel the badges provide a sense of ownership over what is being created (along with the course Zotero group we created so students have access to readings after they no longer have access to Moodle, and it is here that they are encouraged to add resources that they find important to save and share with peers). This can provide mentorship as well, between who is endorsing as the mentor, and for the endorser to feel mentored by the peer(s) they select.

I love how Cathy Davidson talks about How a class becomes a community, and we are mirroring her discussion of teacher as facilitator and guide-on-the-side. Three of her principles for her course especially stood out to me: "Educators must develop methods of assessment that fit our digital age and prioritize lifelong learning; A model classroom environment draws on every participant's unique expertise for the greater good of collective goals; and There's a difference between high standards and standardization, and it's our goal to discover the digital possibilities to support the former and transform the latter."

We are going to see how this plays out more as the course continues (we are only in week 2 right now), but so far it seems successful. I'm excited to continue with #ccourses content and see how to implement these concepts and praxis into our course, as well as have a lengthier reflection on assessment.

Starting with the WHY: #ccourses Unit 1

The first activity for #ccourses is looking at the why of why we teach. As Mike Wesch says on the #ccourses site:

We usually start by addressing the “What” question first. We have a course title or subject area and we begin populating our syllabus with the “whats” to be learned. Or, we peruse textbooks looking for the text that we think best covers the field. If we have time, we address the “How” question by considering how we can best teach the material. We sharpen our teaching technique, seek out better examples for the more difficult concepts, compile photos and videos to improve our presentations, and seek other ways to get the students engaged with the material. We may jump to incorporate the latest tools and techniques, whether it is social or interactive media or a new technique like a flipped classroom.  Our syllabus, teaching materials, and educational technology in order, we rush into the semester, rarely asking, “Why?”

As a librarian teaching library research skills / information literacy (IL), my first inclination would be to say that I'm motivated to teach students because IL prepares individuals to become active members in a participatory democracy, questioning the status quo, and knowing how to find and use quality information.

This grounding also prepares students to become creators and critics of knowledge, rather than just consumers. I think this latter point especially resonates with me. IL can pair with any discipline to help students find their voice within their chosen area of interest. I also find this near and dear personally from growing up reading, making, and distributing zines, DIY music, and cultural/community events. I felt my personal interests brought me into Freire's notion of "critical consciousness," and once I discovered the library on my own as an undergrad, I finally started to become interested in my courses because I could see how my learning was applying to my life.

Prior to that awakening, I was a disconnected and uninterested student through most of high school and most of college as an undergrad. I dropped out for awhile at one point, planning to never go back. When I did go back to school, I was just going through the motions until about my last year when I started to become energized about learning. I think this strongly affects my perspective on teaching and learning as an educator now.

In my current position, I am the faculty librarian liaison to retention* efforts across campus, so I am always reflecting back on my experiences and how that might apply to current students considering dropping out. Though, as a fairly privileged white, middle class, cisgender and hetero lady, my experiences definitely do not translate to many on campus. However, I feel like I at least have more awareness of issues surrounding retention. So in my work with these groups, my why especially leads me to think about helping students feel connected on campus, on feeling like they can get access to knowledge and information in the library that affects their lives on a personal level and that they can tie that into their studies.

Really excited about what's to come with #ccourses, taking this approach to instruction is so important.

*And of course retention does not mean only students who don't want to be in school. Students who are affected by circumstances out of their control make staying in college difficult, as well as students who might be high achievers who feel disconnected or disappointed and would want to transfer. "Retention" can apply to all types of students with varying circumstances and needs.

Instruction bootcamp training: Faculty collaboration!

The last few months have been a whirlwind! We officially started our reorganization at the UA Libraries over the summer and have been getting situated in our new roles since. Before, our teams were functional, so we had an instruction team, a collections and research services team, etc. Now our departments are based on cross-functional areas that require more collaboration. My department is a combining of what was previously the instruction team and the collections + research team since we are following a subject liaison model for campus. With this merging, those in our department with expertise are training others. I helped organize an instruction bootcamp training for back in August where I covered the new ACRL Information Literacy Framework, some basic instruction concepts, and the process of curriculum mapping since we will be working toward mapping all programs (or as many as we are able to).

I was so happy that @susanarcham was willing to let me take a look at her curriculum mapping training materials that they used at Loyola Marymount in LA, and I found a lot of great stuff that I was able to adapt for my colleagues. One of the most useful activities that I wanted to share my adaptation of was helping librarians think about faculty collaboration from our new roles as liaisons. I added in some fun characters and scenarios and thought this activity might be useful for others doing instruction and heavy campus outreach. This is following the theme of "Mission Impossible" that Susan created. My department really liked this one.

Here is a snippet of one of the faculty profiles below. I divided everyone into subject-based groups to brainstorm and role play (sciences, business, social sciences, arts and architecture, humanities), and then we all discussed as a full group.

Find the full activity with all characters and discussion questions here.

I hope to share the rest of our training materials from the bootcamp if I have more time to blog about this. Otherwise, the next month is going to be focused on the Connected Courses class I'm taking, as well as the ALA Instructional Design Essentials ecourse that I'm teaching with Erica DeFrain.