Slides from Nicole Brown's presentation at CUL's Teaching Forum on May 17, 2013.Nicole Brown Fostering Reflection.pdf

17 May 2013

NOTES on Nicole Brown's talk on Fostering Reflection in the Classroom

Mann Library, room 160

Lead by Nicole Brown (neb1@nyu.edu)

notes courtesy of Erin Eldermire

Notes from Nicole’s introductory presentation

• Reflection is an important component of instruction and learning.
• There is a continual cycle of learning, and we can enter the cycle at any point, but learning always involves all components of the cycle.
• The average wait time between an instructor asking a question and the time needed for student learning is only 3 seconds.  

Introduction of lesson

• In the beginning of the class, put up a “cover slide” - something that provides the tone of the session without saying anything.
• Use images that relate to course content
• Start a session by having students interview each other.  This helps students to talk through their project, which will help them to solidify what they are researching/doing.

Middle of lesson

• Don’t ever do a live demo, because students can’t follow what she clicks on.
• Use a screen shot with a circle around the point of interest on the website being explained, and walk around the room.
• Ask the students to find resources on their own without showing them how.  This will help them learn how to do it.  
• Show student a bibliography and then focus on one source and ask them to find it.  Let them ask questions.  

End of lesson

• Use closing reflection to help students organize their next steps.
• Ask students to provide feedback about the session.  Nicole asks two questions (using a qualtrics form or Google docs):
  • What did they learn that they didn’t already know?
  • What would they like to learn that wasn’t covered in this session?

From the book _Made to Stick : Why some ideas survive and others die... (Chip & Dan Heath)

Simple - keep the message simple

Unexpected - go against expectations, introduce something different

Concrete - explain things in terms of human action and qualities (not abstract)

Credible - tell people who you are and give related information/content

Emotional - people need to feel something in order to remember it (images work well for this)

Stories - turn anything into a story to relay information in a human sense
Follow-up questions after Nicole’s talk

• Be mindful about when students need to be in front of a computer, and when they don’t need to be.  
• Regarding faculty, relay the things that librarians see students do.  Tell them a story about how students are often confused about assignments or research.  Find a good faculty collaborator who can spread the word of how the library can help, because faculty listen to other faculty.  
• Do something unexpected at the beginning of the class to get students’ attention and to get them to buy in.  This will make your lesson much more successful.  
• Give a time limit for activities and time it with your phone
• Work with faculty on assignments
• Find ways to do things BY students FOR students.  Capitalize on excitement of those students who are really interested in taking initiative.  
• “Long night against procrastination” (Lange Nacht der Aufgeschobenen Hausarbeiten) is a German program that some innovative librarians are using.  

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Reflections after the charette
Conversation focused around: What stories did you share?

• What were your shared challenges?
• What were your shared successes?
• What are/were your opportunities to collaborate?

Relevancy and Communication in eyes of faculty

Questions:

• How do we get faculty engaged?  
• How do we get the message out that we teach?  
• How do we start the dialogue?
• How do we better promote what we actually do?  (E.g. young faculty don’t think to use the library)

Proposed solutions:

• Language
• Different ways to communicate
• Use elements of surprise

Relevancy in eyes of students

Questions:

• Even if we know what students need, how do we get the message across without falling into bla bla bla librarian talk
• How do you relay information in a way that is relevant to students?
• How do you hook the student?

Proposed suggestions:

• We need to own the information and sell it ourselves.  
• Play to the motivation of students

Student research practices

Questions:

• How do we get students to utilize all of the resources that are available to them?  
• How do we teach students to synthesize the information that they are finding rather than plucking out a factoid and presenting it out-of-context?
• Students already “know” their paper before they even start their research.  How do we teach them to conduct holistic research?  
• Students expect immediate information

Proposed suggestions:

• Remember the stories when you (the librarian) find yourself in a situation where you ask a question of somebody but you aren’t actually asking the question that you have, rather a lead-in question.  
• Students are stuck on the “source” word - that there is one source for what they need.  Work in a different word for sources, like “questions”

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How could PSEC instruction help with challenges uncovered today

• Have faculty members who have embedded librarians to come and talk to librarians about what works from their perspective.
• PSEC could facilitate something where librarians could observe each other teaching to get ideas and to get feedback from colleagues.
• 12-week seminar (for example) to discuss each standard for information literacy.  Rather than go through each and every standard at once, tackle them one-by-one and have useful discussion around it.  Or have some sort of repository of learning materials and a place/venue to talk about it.  
• Help library to communicate more clearly and effectively with different audiences about critical thinking, skills in research and all dimensions of information literacy.

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Lunch conversation
Organization of the class

• Tell the class what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them (i.e. put up an outline before the class, instruct them, and then review what you went over at the end).

How do you know if the group gleaned the points that you wanted them to understand?

• Use polls in sessions to understand where it is that that the students feel lost.  

As instructors we need to give up the past and teach students in the space that they are comfortable in.
Should PSEC consider a theme for the next year, for example?  This might help to focus on one field of instruction rather than jumping from topic to topic.  
Students could all work on a particular case together, and then have an interruption (like new evidence) to then incorporate into their research for the case.
Peer instruction/tutoring (using other students as instructors) can be a fruitful endeavor.  For example, some librarians are asking graduate students who have an instruction idea to lead the workshops.  This allows students to come up with things that would never occur to librarians.  
Nicole prepares with really good questions to ask the students after she has asked them to do something for themselves.  She will show them helpful tricks after they have all shared their other tricks.  
Beginning, middle and end of the lesson reflects the power of stories, as they also have a beginning, middle and end.  
Stories and use of analogies also help relate the experience in a memorable way - use emotional, humorous things that allows people to move from one concept to the next.
Start session by writing down things that they hate and are scary/terrifying.  How does it relate to learning?  It is a technique for coming up with own personal stories for students, and allows for comparisons to be made for research (e.g. I hate pants because it is a societal expectation that is restrictive and uncomfortable, and I feel the same way about citations).