"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
George Bush- Florence, South Carolina, January 11, 2000
How People Learn, Chapter 7
What I found most interesting about this chapter is that none of the teachers interviewed felt that they were done learning. This is great, but also quite daunting. I had a sense this morning that not only do I still have so much to learn, but I will always feel the need to constantly learn more. Returning to college after many years has jumpstarted my brain and I am up for the challenge.
Every teacher has to have expert knowledge of the content they are teaching to effectively teach it. I was thinking as I was creating my resume and preparing for interviews- that I should only present and express what I know and not what I am trying to remember. As a teacher, the most important gift I can give to my students is to enable them with the ability to make sense of the knowledge being presented to them. All the facts in the world do not make you any smarter, allowing you to figure out how things work and apply these concepts to satisfy your own needs. A good teacher provides students with a launching pad built of content knowledge and the tools to make sense of that content knowledge. I can know everything, but if I don't understand it- then I am only a really good Trivial Pursuit player.
Large class sizes can be a deterrent to interacting with students on a personal level , but solutions to providing scaffolding instruction in a large class setting have already been applied in blended and online learning scenarios. Our own beloved CTools is an example of how teachers can give individualized responses (and sometimes) instruction and additional instructional tools to help differently-abled learners achieve to the desired level. Also, our creation and responses to our blog posts helps use to cover a lot more ground that we would if we only had the lecture as our platform for discussion.
This chapter helped me to begin to formulate a model for excellent teaching in any content area (as long as I have the expert content knowledge to present it):
- Let students drive the direction of the curriculum through questioning and suppositions (guess what- this means you curriculum has to be flexible from year to year)
- Understand the barriers for your content area and know how to help students move past them
- A fun classroom can still (and should) be a learning classroom
- Apply content knowledge to real-life situations to help students understand why this information is important
- Never stop learning and impart this idea to your students through modeling your own experiences
Matos, Motley, Mayer 2010
The term "embedded librarian" is so misleading to me. To me, "embedded" indicates something that is hunkered down and ready for an upcoming apocalypse. Anybody ever watch the show "Preppers"? Maybe a better term for this would be "integrated librarian"? I can see how both types of "embedding" can have advantages and disadvantages depending on the department that the librarian is serving. As the article states, the most important issue to consider when developing an "embedded" program is how and where your patrons will actually use you. Whether online or in person (or a combination of both) the librarian (AND the library administration) need to understand the needs of patrons. Some librarians try to figure this out through direct contact with students, but I feel (as do others in my blog cohort) that the most effective means of integrating yourself into a curriculum is through teacher contact. Working with students (through collaborative efforts with teachers) groups at time instead of individually increases contact exponentially and can only lead to an increased use of your services and resources down the road. Go where your users are, approach them on their terms, and prove yourself invaluable.
Montgomery 2010
As Montgomery points out, webinars are a perfect means to embed library instruction into a teacher's curriculum- providing easy accessibility to library services and resources. Most of the information provided in this article is pretty obvious- students use the Internet so libraries should be more accessible via the Internet. This is no surprise, but what I found unique about this article is the focus on webinars as the preferred interactive tool. Much like chat with a librarian services the webinar provides students with the opportunity to ask questions in order to be provided with a tailored learning experience. The only problem with webinars is that they usually cannot be provided "on demand" the way a chat service can be. Would a video chat service make anymore sense? I'm not sure librarians (or anyone for that matter) would be willing to be "on camera" all day- but providing visual clues to assist with understanding the content of the lesson is always a helpful addition to learning.
Readings
How People Learn, Chapter 7
Matos, Motley, Mayer 2010
Montgomery 2010
hahaha, I can honestly say Preppers is not the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word embedded. Although now it might be :) I usually think of embedded journalists or embedded elements of a website. Those feel more inline with an embedded librarian to me. They are trying to be part of the fabric that makes up the whole unit and they bring some new piece to the table that helps hold everything together. I always like to read your take on the Bransford readings as someone who is also doing student teaching. I was wondering how a librarian's content area expertise could be incorporated into the model presented in that chapter and I think you do a good job of outlining that here.
ReplyDeleteI can know everything, but if I don't understand it- then I am only a really good Trivial Pursuit player.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really important, and not always something taken into consideration. The important part of learning may not be knowing things; the important part may be knowing things to the extent that one can use what is known to build other types of knowledge on top of it. For example, you can't do algebra if you can't do arithmetic. Arithmetic is good to know, but it's important not just in itself (though it undoubtedly IS important in itself) but as a stepping stone to something more.
Haha- right! I never want to be referred to as the "grumpy" librarian. Besides, how can we even properly reminisce about the old days- we are new new "breed" of librarian, right?
ReplyDeleteI would just like to say that, "The term "embedded librarian" is so misleading to me. To me, "embedded" indicates something that is hunkered down and ready for an upcoming apocalypse. Anybody ever watch the show "Preppers"? Maybe a better term for this would be "integrated librarian"?" is one of the most fun things I've read in days. :)
ReplyDelete