Becoming a good/ better instructor

Some quotes of other instructors:

There are many dimensions to being a great library instructor. Teaching regularly can certainly help to keep those skills sharp, and it affords the needed opportunity to experiment with learners, to try new things, and to stretch one’s capabilities in the classroom.

(taken from ARCLog:"Maintaining your instruction Mojo")

It’s all about adding value to the learning process. He is spot on when he says that students can now go anywhere to simply hear a lecture by a talking head that is attached to a series of slides. That describes a good deal of online learning and open education resource experience. You go to a web site or a course delivery system and just tune in to a lecture/presentation. But where’s the added value that comes from the dialogue between the teacher and the student? I believe what Bowen is really afraid of losing at his school is what makes the learning experience truly unique – the engagement between the instructor and the learner.

Academic librarians need to be mindful of the same challenge. We know that while we offer high quality information resources, our students and faculty can obtain information from a wide variety of resources. And there are times when they are accessing our subscription content through free search engines and are not aware that the content is delivered by the library. Those are well known issues. If the boundaries between information sources are becoming increasingly blurry to the end user, what is it that distinguishes what the academic library does for them? Finding the answer to that question is part of the challenge we face, just as our faculty colleagues will need to make clear to future students the value that they add to the learning process. Otherwise why bother with the huge investment in a traditional college education.

(taken from ARCLog: "We have to add the Value")

There are (at least) 5 key characterists an instructor has to follow:

1. Relevance – The big challenge is to connect course content to the current culture – learning has to be relevant to them.

2. Rationale – Today’s students were raised in a non-authoritarian manner. They won’t comply because the instructor is in charge, but will be more likely to do so when given a good rationale.

3. Relaxed – They thrive in a less formal environment in which they can interact informally with the instructor and each other.

4. Rapport – More than previous generations they are used to having adults in their lives and show interest in them. They appreciate it when instructors show interest as well or when we connect on a personal level.

5. Research-based methods – Millennials have grown up constantly engaged so they can tend to bore easily, so be prepared with active learning methods

(taken from "Why don't my students think I'm groovy")

SpringerImages - Schematic of the Learning Research Cycle (LRC). A sequence of activities designed to enhance participants’ understanding of the role of information technology (IT) in doing, teaching, and learning science. Activities build on intense experiences in authentic scientific research environments with scientists in their laboratories, which occur in two 3-week periods during two summers. Participants engage in scientific research experiences using IT to seek answers to scientific questions (Ia). Participants concurrently adapt their authentic research experiences to design similar IT-based research experiences for their students, with the assistance of science educators (II). At the end of the first summer, participants leave with an Instructional Framework (IF) to integrate into their classroom instruction during the first school year (III). Reports of the results of their implementation efforts are required for participants to return for a second summer. In June of the second summer, training in mentoring and fundamentals of educational research occurs for graduate students who are chosen to work as mentors for participants during the professional development activities for the second summer (IV). In July, participants continue their work with scientists (Ib) and work with educational researchers to design classroom-based research blueprints (RB) to examine the effects of the IF on students learning (V). Participants implement their research blueprints in their classrooms during the second school year on a voluntary basis (VI) and have the option of reporting the results of their 2nd years’ implementations during a conference held at the ITS Center at the beginning of the third summer (VII). Critical to the entire LRC are multiple and continuous opportunities for discourse and feedback, provided face-to-face during the summer and electronically via a community portal throughout the entire LRC (VIII)

Schematic of the Learning Research Cycle (LRC).A sequence of activities designed to enhance participants’ understanding of the role of information technology (IT) in doing, teaching, and learning science. Activities build on intense experiences in authentic scientific research environments with scientists in their laboratories, which occur in two 3-week periods during two summers. Participants engage in scientific research experiences using IT to seek answers to scientific questions (Ia). Participants concurrently adapt their authentic research experiences to design similar IT-based research experiences for their students, with the assistance of science educators (II). At the end of the first summer, participants leave with an Instructional Framework (IF) to integrate into their classroom instruction during the first school year (III). Reports of the results of their implementation efforts are required for participants to return for a second summer. In June of the second summer, training in mentoring and fundamentals of educational research occurs for graduate students who are chosen to work as mentors for participants during the professional development activities for the second summer (IV). In July, participants continue their work with scientists (Ib) and work with educational researchers to design classroom-based research blueprints (RB) to examine the effects of the IF on students learning (V). Participants implement their research blueprints in their classrooms during the second school year on a voluntary basis (VI) and have the option of reporting the results of their 2nd years’ implementations during a conference held at the ITS Center at the beginning of the third summer (VII). Critical to the entire LRC are multiple and continuous opportunities for discourse and feedback, provided face-to-face during the summer and electronically via a community portal throughout the entire LRC (VIII)
(Quelle: SpringerImages)

Is such a model also possible in Germany?

Springer offers now an image database: SpringerImages is a growing collection of scientific images that spans the scientific, technical and medical fields, including high-quality clinical images from images.MD. The continually updated collection – currently over 1.5 million images – gathers photos, graphs, histograms, figures, and tables, and is available to libraries and their patrons via a searchable online database. The SpringerImages interface enables users to search faster, more broadly and more accurately, through captions, keywords, context and more, even jumping from the image to the source article. Users can create personalized image “sets,” and can easily export images for use in their own presentations or lectures.

the (r)evolution of education and learning

Since the poll and the results offered via the video „A Vision of Students today“ I appreciate the work of Michael Wesch. By chance I discovered a new presentation given by Michael Wesch at the conference "Education Learning Initiative". The title of this amazing presentation is "From the Knowledgeable to the Knowledge-able". It describes the revolution(s) in education -
right now there is one taking place regarding the fast spreading of information by the means of new media tools like flickr, twitter etc. How can we use new media to foster the kinds of communication and community we desire in education? Michael Wesch presents both successful and unsuccessful attempts to integrate emerging technologies into the classroom to create a rich virtual learning environment.

His main points are:

• learning has to be fun!


• etwas Infrage-stellen muss das Bildungssystem zulassen, da es gut für die Kreativität und fürs Lernen selbst ist


• we have to teach HOW to think


• „it’s all about asking good questions“ => in Michael Wesch's opinion there is a a snificance-crisis for years now: the students ask "How much do I have to do to get my credits/ mark? (!)

But more important is:

• to learn is to aquire information,


• to learn is to SHARE, DISCUSS, CRITIQUING information and in the end CREATE new information: it’s about creating meaningful connections


• => to learn is to create … significance


Regarding the students' habit it's important to ask ourselves:

• How can we create significance? How can we create meaningful connections?
• How can we create students who can create meaningful connections?

The last one made me think of "Re-Brainwashing" ;)
In my opinion students forgot the significance of learning because they are not any more able to see the linkage to their lives caused by the more and more performance-oriented world.

To change students' habits we have to:

• engage real problems (that really matter to students)


• engage it with students


• recognize and harness the existing media environment so that students can recognize and harness them as well
  

Regarding the last point he stresses that there are no digital natives! (all the new services are at most only 4 years old)
To give a practical insight how to use new media tools he shows examples from his work as a professor at KSU.
After that Michael Wesch asks more critical questions

• how to get students to better work together on real projects?


• who is smarter: me or my students?

By asking the last question he puts himself in a neutral position. He knows he should be the expert but he notices that there is cumulative knowledge in front of him. It only needs someone who harnesses it and manages to draw everybody in.
Once more he presents an example out of his work where students were able to ask real relevant (world) questions: the World Simulation Spring 2007

After that he stresses that technology creates linkages between the real and the virtual world. Once more he asks several critical questions:

• have we prepared our students for this world? => Will students be able to create the information landscape of tomorrow? => have we prepared the students to CREATE this world?


• rethinking the Basics => what are basic literacy skills?

Thrilling information tasks?

Just a few minutes ago I read the interesting article "Long lost information".

In the current-day liturgy of teaching, it seems that motivating students is key. Once you have students motivated, supposedly, they will easily absorb what may otherwise seem dry or mundane. So a teacher’s plan should not be to transmit the material, but to motivate the students to learn the material for themselves while acting as a guiding frame. For librarians who teach, then, the challenge is to motivate students to be interested in searching for and critically thinking about information.

The author raises the question how to manage in particular to get the students motivated. As I am after this problem for the optimization of LOTSE I am interested in a fruitful discussion about it. So hurry up, guys! ;)