2004-05 Major Grant Recipient Annette Marines, University Library

Project Title: Enhancing the McHenry Library Instruction Program to Enable Interactive and Collaborative Learning

Project Summary

The grant project focused on the existing link between the Writing Program’s Rhetoric and Inquiry classes and the McHenry Library instruction program. Every quarter the library provides library classes (i.e. one-time, 1-hour classes) for Writing 12 courses (about 25 students per class).  In these classes students are introduced to basic library research and evaluation techniques in order to help them complete their class’s required research elementcomponent. Through the use of laptops and learning exercises, the project sought to actively engage students and ultimately increase their understanding and retention of library concepts by adding incorporating hands-on and small-group activities into the library classes instruction sessions.

Learning exercises that utilize the grant-funded laptops and library research resources—subject encyclopedias, electronic databases, and periodicals—were designed in order an effort(just because “in order to” comes up a couple of times)  to emphasize their relevance to academic-level research as well as to introduce the idea of processs(italicize or emphasize “process” in some way – I’m not a good copy editor but Ken would know)iin library research. The exercises included: 1. rReading a pre-selected subject encyclopedia essay to identify keywords; 2. fFilling out a keyword worksheet to help categorize keywords and to illustrate Boolean Operators; 3. aA group activity (utilizing the laptops and hard copies of newspapers, magazines, and peer-reviewed journals) to search for, and evaluate the results, in an electronic database. Students worked in groups of 3 three (b/c less than ten) to complete the learning exercises.(I’m not sure if you capitalize the first word in each sentence after the bulleted list #)

Impact of the project on your teaching and students’ learning

For the project project, (comma after project - I think - because you started with a preposition?) we converted the lecture we usually traditionally give into one that incorporated participatory learning exercises and group activities, or, “hands-on” instruction (I insert this only because, otherwise, the first time we see a reference to hands-on is when you discuss the findings below.  Also, I don’t know if you put hands on in quotes or italics or do nothing to it but whatever you do it should be consistent throughout which is why I added quotes below)..  The new instruction format led to the following observations: In the hands-on classes we observed the following:

The “hands-on” class format changed the dynamic of the session.  Specifically, in that the activities helped impel (this read weird to me, but there’s nothing off about it, probably just a style thing – in any case, as a suggestion, you could say, although it is colloquial – Specifically, the activities drove the class or, “The activities set a more active and engaged pace.”) the class forward.  The instructing librarian’s role became that of facilitator, though there was still a need to chime in  reinsert one’s self in order to establish a context for and or elaborate on concepts or the benefits of specific research materials.  The format allowed librarians to not only brake break up the monotony of the lecture-style library classes, but to leverage the potentials of group learning to and increase the students’ engagement and participation levels.  During the classes students were called upon to share their findings with the rest of the group, and each time students were consistently prepared with answers and seemed were motivated to contribute.

Because librarians address practical information in their classes, it’s difficult to convey the importance of, usage of, and skill development in library research via a lecture.  The learning exercises and small group activities, the laptops, and the use of hard copies of periodicals all served to create a supportive and interactive environment for students; this allowed librarians to teach concepts in a more in-depth and productive (simply because your point is it made them better students and librarians better instructors) manner.  Students were able to interact with the materials, engage with their peers, and ask specific questions when things remained unclear.  By introducing new teaching techniques that promoted hands-on, active and collaborative learning, we were successful at better engaging students.  More importantly, because we used a variety of methods to instruct, we were better prepared to accommodate the students’ different learning styles.

The hands-on classes enabled librarians, in their role as facilitator, to observe the students in “real time,” as students worked within their groups and completed their exercises.  This form of instant feedback allowed librarians to target and/or tailor responses to students’ immediate needs.  For example, if one group was having difficulty with a concept, the librarian could readily find out if others encountered the same problem, and tailor a solution and response on the spot.  Students were observed asking peers and the course instructor questions.  During the lecture-style classes it’s it is uncommon for students to ask the librarian questions during the session.  The hands-on classes allow us to take advantage of the learning dynamic that exists in the Writing 1 courses, where relationships and trust have already been established.

As a result of the IIP grant the library committed to funding new furniture for the library instruction room.  We now have furniture to accommodate the hands-on classes more easily, and to bring us on a par with the library instructional facilities of the other UC libraries.  Preparing for a hands-on class, however, requires time to set up and put away materials and equipment (laptops must be re-powered and secured), which has created an unforeseen workload for the librarian.   

Future plans

The While the project enabled us to make significant improvements, however our preliminary findings suggest we can improve our project in the following ways:

Because the exercises utilized pre-selected topics, the hands-on classes provided no limited flexibility in terms of incorporating students’ research topics.  As a result, the connection between the hands-on classes and students’ research assignments was not always entirely evident to students.  For example, Students our in-class observations demonstrated that students were able to find and search the library databases covered in the instruction session more readily than they did in the lecture format classes, but,were observed (in the free research time after the class) to more easily find and search the library databases that were covered.  However,they didn’t did not incorporate the pre-search strategies they had practiced in the hands-on part of the class.  Our findings suggest that the library instruction and writing programs must collaborate to build a stronger connection between students’ assignments and the hands-on library classes.  I plan to work with writing instructors to develop a pre-library assignment and to better integrate students’ topics in the hands-on classes.

Because the library’s involvement in the Writing 1/2 class is limited to a one-time meeting, it is’s difficult to assess the impact of the library class.  As a result, we relied on the in-class, real-time observations for feedback.  Again, collaboration with the writing program is the key to determining what is important about the library classes.  I plan to explore a formal evaluation process to better access the impact of the hands-on library classes.