Tag: instruction

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Wildcard Wednesdays

Webinar: Using ChatGPT to Engage in Library Instruction

If you read any education publications, you’ve probably heard about ChatGPT, whether you want to or not. Writers’ reactions range from excitement to doomsaying to dismissal, but everyone seems to have something to say.

A common topic of discussion is how ChatGPT will impact student research and writing. Although I haven’t encountered this myself, I’ve heard stories of librarians being approached by students with citations they want to track down, only to learn that the student generated the citation using ChatGPT and the article does not actually exist. I’ve also heard about schools considering banning the software. Nothing of the sort has happened at my own institution – in fact, there have been no statements, mandates, or guidance put forth at all. If people at my college are discussing ChatGPT, it is only behind closed doors.

Because of this, I was intrigued to come across a recording for a LiLi Show and Tell webinar from February 2023: Using ChatGPT to Engage in Library Instruction? Challenges and Opportunities by Ray Pun. In the presentation (embedded below) Pun introduces librarians to some basics about how the tool works, discusses benefits and risks associated with its use (with a focus on BIPOC and international students), explores how ChatGPT complicates citation and attribution, and offers ideas for activities integrating ChatGPT into information literacy instruction, with an eye toward helping students approach the tool more critically.

Pun takes pains to clarify that the content of the presentation will become outdated quickly (in fact, GPT-4 was released after the recording), but I still found a lot of the information thought provoking. In particular, his point that suspicions over ChatGPT use could fall more heavily on BIPOC and international students gave me pause. Instructors relying on stereotypes might have lower expectations for, say, non-native English speakers’ writing, and if the writing exceeded those expectations, they could falsely accuse the students of using AI assistance. It’s a reminder that educators need to remain aware of their own biases.

Although I don’t have a ChatGPT account and am not currently planning on making one, I was also taken by one of Pun’s suggested activities: having the AI generate a reading list of sources for a topic and then asking students to critique the list. Are all the sources real? Do the selections make sense? What’s left out? It’s a good way to show students the limitations of the AI and get them thinking about the broader limitations of ‘canonical’ research – the AI’s selections will likely recreate hegemonic biases in whose research gets the most attention.

Whether we like it or not, and whether commentators’ positive and negative predictions end up being overblown, AI is something we as librarians will have to deal with for the foreseeable future. Presentations like Pun’s are a great way for us to start thinking about how to handle it.  

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Events

Upcoming Events

Here are some upcoming free, online, professional development opportunities. Sign up to attend whatever catches your interest!

CJCLS Section Event

Making Connections: In consideration of career ladders in undergraduate LIS education – Monday, April 25, 2022 from 2-3pm ET

Organized by the Committee on Library Staff Education

Ithaka S+R Event

Assessing the evolution of community college library mission – Tuesday, April 19, 2022 from 2-3pm, ET

Organized by Ithaka S+R as part of the series of Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration

20th Annual Information Literacy Summit

Expanding the Conversation: Digital, Media, and Civic Literacies In and Out of the Library – Friday, April 29, 2022

Presented by DePaul University Library, Moraine Valley Community College Library & College of DuPage Library

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Wildcard Wednesdays

Building an Instructional Menu

A nine-square grid with three columns labeled in person, virtual, and self paced with rows for objectives 1, 2, and 3. Three squares have a X marked on them. The grid is titled 'Design your library instruction menu!'

We love it, we hate it, we can’t escape it: gallons of physical and digital ink have been spilled over the library one-shot, where we spend an hour telling students everything they might ever need to know about research and the library. When I started my position, one-shots were the library’s primary way of providing instruction. Our most frequent visitors were English classes, as both English 101 and 102 are required courses for most degree paths. Unfortunately, library visits aren’t required – some instructors build us into our schedule, while others pass us by. I began to notice that some students got variations of the same presentation over and over, while others never saw us at all. Surely there had to be a better way.

I reached out to the heads of the English department and made my case. At best, students were getting a haphazard grounding in valuable research skills. Inconsistent coverage meant librarians had no opportunity to build on concepts between English 101 and 102. The faculty I spoke with agreed. They’d also noticed student dissatisfaction with current library instruction practices. It was time for a change.

The English faculty generated a list of library skills they wanted their students to master. I converted these into objectives and began designing synchronous lesson plans and asynchronous instructional materials for each one. Our goal is to allow English faculty to choose from a “menu” of synchronous and asynchronous options, so they can build a library instruction program that fits their schedule and course format.

The asynchronous materials, and a form allowing instructors to sign up for live library instruction, will be hosted on libguides to keep everything organized and easily sharable. The English 101 libguide isn’t quite ready for students yet, but you can preview the draft here.

I’m excited to see how faculty and students respond to our new plan for English library instruction. Although this could decrease live library visits if instructors favor the asynchronous options, I hope it will provide students with more consistent exposure to library instruction. Additionally, librarians teaching more specialized or advanced instruction sessions can assume a shared baseline of student knowledge. Other disciplines may even show interest in developing their own instructional menus!

A note on feasibility: Experience with video creation and a recent instructional design degree has helped me with this project. However, instruction is not my full-time role, and I’ve had to combine this initiative with my other duties. I believe a collaboration like this is feasible for most community college librarians, although the form your materials take and the timeline for development may depend on your personal skills and workload. If one-shots aren’t working for you, I encourage you to think outside the box. You may find your faculty are just as eager to come up with something new!

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listserv-results

The Framework: Love It or Hate It?

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Love It or Hate It?

by Lindsay Davis

What’s it like to live in a post-Standards world? Do you love or hate the new Framework  (sorry, we’re capitalizing on Valentine’s Day)?

In January, the CJCLS listserv had a lively conversation regarding the “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education” and the rescinding of the “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.”

Troy Swanson, Teaching and Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College, shared his article “Sharing the ACRL Framework with Faculty: Opening Campus Conversations.” In the article, Swanson outlines a professional development course for faculty that he designed with librarian Tish Hayes. The course was focused on introducing faculty to the Framework. Faculty who participated made a variety of connections to the Framework from their own disciplines. The experience also allowed for discussion about how the general education information literacy outcome might be approached at Moraine.

Heather Craven, Learning Resource Center director at County College of Morris, also shared her opinion piece “ACRL and Community College Libraries: We’ve been Framed!” Her article discusses the Framework/Standards issue as it affects some community college libraries.

Sharon Weiner, Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy at Purdue University Libraries, also shared a citation for her and Lana Jackman’s opinion piece “The Rescinding of the ACRL 2000 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education…Really??” Jackman is President of the National Forum and the principal and founder of Mélange Information Services, Inc.

You may also want to check out “The Framework is Elitist,” a viewpoint essay by Christine Bombaro, Associate Director for Information Literacy and Research Services at Dickinson College, and “Is the Framework Elitist? Is ACRL?,” a response to Bombaro’s essay by Meredith Farkas, Faculty Librarian at Portland Community College.

Check out the CJCLS listserv archives for more on this topic.

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Uncategorized

Inclusive Learning Resources: GADP & TILE

By Lindsay Davis

In the last post on the CJCLS blog, “Instruction for Diverse Populations Bibliography,” I mentioned that several of us in the ACRL Instruction Section Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee attended the National Diversity in Libraries Conference that was held at UCLA this August. During the conference, I sat it on a session related to instruction called “Educating the Educators: Proactive Approaches to the Inclusive Classroom,” which introduced me to two new resources for developing a more inclusive learning environment, the Global Awareness Dialogue Project (GADP) and the Toolkit for Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE).

This session was comprised of two individual presentations. The first presentation was given by Paula M. Smith, Reference Librarian, from Penn State Abington and focused on the Global Awareness Dialogue Project (GADP). GADP is a faculty development program that engages faculty in the exchange of ideas about contemporary global issues in education, with an emphasis on non-Western educational systems. The sessions are three hours long and are open to 20 or so faculty members who register for the program.

After Smith introduced the session, we were asked to complete The Numbers Exercise, which was developed by Roxanna Senyshyn and Marianne Brandt. Essentially, it’s a list of simple math problems, but the directions indicate that subtract means to multiply; divide means to add; add means to divide; and multiply means to subtract. So 12 x 2 really means 12-2. After a few minutes, Smith asked how we felt completing the worksheet. I said it was stressful. The idea behind this is that this is the sort of frustration international and immigrant students feel navigating American academic life.

Smith then discussed the types of GADP sessions they have had at the university. In one program, a panel of international and immigrant students were able to tell faculty members about some struggles they have had in the classroom. For example, a few students mentioned they were not familiar with cursive and were Googling the characters one by one. Some students also explained that they felt uncomfortable because many of their American classmates would leave exams early; these students said they were used to using the whole time allotted for an exam. There were also some challenges about what academic integrity means in the western context.

Another neat thing I jotted down that was a result of one of the GADP sessions was that faculty members who speak more than one language started putting little stickers (or signs) on their windows/doors that said, “My name is_____. I speak ________.”

The second presentation was given by Shannon Simpson, Librarian for Student Engagement and Information Fluency, from Johns Hopkins University. She helped develop the Toolkit for Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE), which is a toolkit of “best practices [and] a repository of specific examples that all faculty are welcome to replicate or re-use.”

Simpson shared a sample assignment that professors/librarians teaching information literacy, business, marketing, and communication could use. It’s a simple but effective assignment. “In 2014 a food and entertainment public relations firm called Strange Fruit was the subject of a media backlash. Ask the students to Google the term strange fruit to see why.” Students then answer these questions:

  • To what does the term refer?
  • Where did the term originate and who has used it since then?
  • What would you tell this firm if during the media firestorm they had come to you for advice?

During the session, we also did a pair-share in which we came up with groups or people we could partner with to share about TILE, such as a diversity committee, student life/affinity groups, teaching and learning groups, university departments, human resources, provost/president’s office, and other relevant people or groups.

How is your community or junior college library—or institution at large—working to build and develop more inclusive learning environments and teaching practices? Do you think your institution would benefit from using or adapting these resources?

(Examples from the GADP session revised on Oct. 25th.)

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Uncategorized

Instruction for Diverse Populations Bibliography

by Lindsay Davis

Now that it’s mid-October, many of us are in the thick of teaching research skills in the classroom and at our virtual and physical reference desks. How do you help create an inclusive learning environment? How do you learn about reaching diverse populations in your instruction?

In August of this year, several of us from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Instruction Section committee on Instruction for Diverse Populations (ISDivPops) presented a poster at the National Diversity in Libraries Conference (NDLC) at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), “Reading About Diversity: Developing and Reflecting on Inclusive Instructional Resources.” The poster outlined the work we did in the 2015/2016 academic year, which consisted of updating the Instruction for Diverse Populations bibliography.

Instruction for Diverse Populations Bibliography Poster

The ISDivPops committee’s charge is “[t]o support instruction librarians in providing instructional services to diverse populations. The committee reviews, researches new content, updates, and promotes the ‘Multilingual Glossary’ and the ‘Library Instruction for Diverse Populations Bibliography’ bi-annually, focusing on one document per year” (“Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee”). The bibliography includes print and electronic resources key to development of effective methods and materials for providing library instruction and teaching information literacy competencies to diverse student groups.

In spring 2015, the committee moved the bibliography from a static PDF document to a Zotero bibliography that utilizes collaborative and dynamic features. In fall 2015 and spring 2016, the committee added new student populations, including veteran students, and also worked on adding tags and new content. The committee focused on adding resources written primarily within the last ten years that specifically describe teaching diverse groups within an academic library context. In 2016/2017, the committee will continue to update the bibliography and will also be updating the Multilingual Glossary.

If you come across an article, book, website, or another resource you think would be a good addition to the bibliography, do let us know in the comments. Ernesto Hernandez, Teaching and Learning Librarian at University of California Irvine, is the chair of the Instruction for Diverse Populations committee this academic year.

Stay tuned later this week for a resource not yet in the bibliography that I discovered while at the NDLC.

“Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee.” ACRL Instruction Section, www.acrl.ala.org/IS/is-committees-2/committees-task-forces/instruction-for-diverse-populations. Accessed 17 Oct. 2016.

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Graphics Presentations

Presentation and Infographic Design Tools for Librarians on a Budget

Presentation & Infographic Design Tools for Librarians on a Budget

Presentation & Infographic Design Tools for Librarians on a Budget

by Lindsay Davis

Like many of you, I’m in full-swing with research instruction and have been spending time fine-tuning presentations. While I am not a designer, I like to keep visual content fresh, so I am always experimenting with online tools for presentations and graphics. Check out the list of free (or cheap) resources below. These tools do require users to create accounts, and while full functionality may not be available for the basic versions, many have upgrades available at reduced rates for educators.

Which have you tried? Are there other tools you can recommend?

Canva can help you create social media images, presentations, infographics, and more. While Canva is free, many of the pre-made layouts have special elements that cost $1 each. However, you can upload your own images and icons and draw inspiration from the existing layouts for free. Designs can be downloaded as JPEGs, PNGs, and PDFs. You can also share them to social media. Canva for Work is the upgraded version of Canva, which allows you to resize images without recreating them from scratch, but it is $9.95 a month with an annual plan.

Easel.ly can help you create infographics with templates and design objects. You can also upload your own images for free. You can share your infographic via a link or get the embed code. The pro account is $3 a month.

With a Google account, you can access Google Slides and import a PowerPoint presentation—or download a Slides presentation as a PowerPoint. With Slides, you can also share your presentation via a link or embed it.

Piktochart is another tool that can help you make infographics. The free account has free templates and icons, and you can also upload your own images. You can download your designs as JPEGs, PNGs, and PDFs or share your designs via a link, email, or through social media. You can also export them to a variety of services. To get more functionality, you can upgrade to the pro account. The Education Pro price for an individual is $39.99 a year.

Prezi is presentation software that works spatially. You can share your presentation via a link or get the embed code. If you sign up with your college email, you can elect for one of three levels—Edu Enjoy, which is free; Edu Pro, which is $4.92 a month; or Edu Team, also $4.92 a month.

SlideShare allows you to upload files so that you can share them via email, social media, as links, or embed them. You can also create presentations directly in SlideShare with Haiku Deck, although the functionality is little limited through SlideShare.

If you design presentations directly in Haiku Deck, you get more functionality and more ways to share your design. You can share to social media, email, get a link or the embed code, or you can embed directly to a WordPress blog. With a pro account, you can even export your presentation as a PowerPoint or PDF. The cost for the pro version with the educator discount is $4.99 a month or $2.49 a month billed yearly.

Smore helps you make online newsletters or flyers. These can be shared via a link or through social media, and you can also get the embed code. You can also create an email list within Smore. The free account allows you to make five newsletters for free. The personal account, which allows you to make as many newsletters are you want, is $15 a month, but the educator rate is $59 a year. Once a year, there is a sale for educators—$39 for the whole year.

With a Microsoft email account, Sway can help you can create and share interactive reports, presentations, personal stories, and more. You can upload your own images, and you can share Sways via social media or get the embed code.

Visme can help you create infographics, interactive presentations, reports, and more. The free account is limited, but if you sign up with your college email, you can get full functionality for $5 a month through the education discount. With full functionality, you can download your designs as JPEGs, PNGs, or as PDFs, get the embed code, share to social media, or even download to present offline (HTML5).

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Uncategorized

Buried in Library Instruction?

By Kathleen Pickens

It seems like most community & junior college librarians are experiencing the rush of research instruction sessions right now–that thrilling time when we get to interact with classrooms full of students while trying to also support their needs outside of the session. It may be a few weeks until we know what all has landed in our email inbox, but we know that we’ll eventually get to it.

Although “time” seems like a foreign concept right now, it’s actually a great time to consider the supplemental materials we have for our students once they walk out of the instruction session. If you haven’t visited ACRL’s Instruction Interest Group’s PRIMO database, it holds a wealth of ideas from their “Site of the Month” selections. Some resources may be re-used, while others may provide you with inspiration before we hit this point next semester.

Or, maybe YOU have created something fabulous that you’d like to share with the instruction community? PRIMO accepts submissions year-round, but only conducts reviews bi-annually. Some deadlines to consider:

There. One more thing to add to your “post-instruction craze” list. Hang in there, everybody!