Education Commons^™

Translating Information From Scholarly Sources To Community [Notes], Melinda S. Burchard Ph.D., Sarah Myers, Liz Kielley

Faculty Educator Scholarship

Librarians and faculty collaborated in teaching and a study to improve how future teachers found, judged and communicated about evidence-based teaching practices. Students wrote literature reviews about evidence-based practices, then translating information for parent audiences. Students demonstrated gains in information literacy and interactions between knowledge and demonstrated skills.

Catching The Sotl Bug: An Interview With Librarian Lauren Hays, Lauren Hays, Kelly R. Hangauer

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Innovative Pedagogy

This interview with academic librarian, Lauren Hays, offers insight into the relationship between librarians and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). In this interview, Ms. Hays discusses her doctoral work regarding academic instruction librarians’ involvement with SoTL and how it affects their teacher identities and instructional strategies. While sharing her own research on the topic, Ms. Hays also offers background information regarding SoTL, including such influential educators as Pat Hutchings and Ernest Boyer. Ms. Hays proposes SoTL as an ideal way for librarians to learn about teaching in higher education, and recommends SoTL as an avenue for librarians to …

Habits Of Mind In The Classroom: Threshold Concepts, Instructional Philosophy, And Sotl, Alicia S. Hansen, Brad Petitfils Ph.D.

Staff publications

Students performing research in higher education, especially at the undergraduate level, is a progressively dazzling task in the universe of digital and print resources. Using sound pedagogy to create student confidence in approaching research, hand in hand with creating scholarship, is a challenge tackled well by librarians and teaching faculty together.

We will discuss three theories and their place in research methods, using ACRL’sFramework for Information Literacy as context. First, Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory. Second, Perry’s Epistemology of Learning: moving a student’s absolute belief in all things defined by authority toward a belief in his own values and …

Spectators Or Patriots? Citizens In The Information Age, Amrita Dhawan

Publications and Research

In theory, a strong democracy rests on robust citizen participation. The practice in most democracies is quite different. This gap presents a challenge, which can be narrowed by augmenting civic education to bring it up to date with the current information environment and thus give citizens the opportunity to participate. Robert Dahl’s work on democracy provides a model that looks at this problem structurally. He writes about the ideals and the actual institutions necessary for a democracy and if we situate his model in the modern information environment we get a better idea of how to improve civic education. Successful …

Transforming Instructional Design: Using Professional Learning Communities (Plcs) To Invoke Change And To Incorporate The Framework Into Instructional Practice, Natalie Bishop, Pamela Dennis

Dover Library Faculty Professional Development Activities

When challenged with migrating to LibGuides 2.0, we sought to implement an easily accessible tool that would be useful to our students. With the recent launching of Framework threshold concepts by ACRL, we saw the opportunity to combine LibGuides migration with Framework introduction to improve our existing instructional design practices. In order to attain buy-in by our library faculty, we chose to create a Professional Learning Community (PLC), allowing us to take agency for our own professional development/learning. PLCs function as a collaborative effort to improve student learning through action research and job-embedded learning (DuFour, et al., 2006). Recognizing that …

Connectivism And Information Literacy: Moving From Learning Theory To Pedagogical Practice, Beth M. Transue

Library Staff Presentations & Publications

Connectivism is an emerging learning theory positing that knowledge comprises networked relationships and that learning comprises the ability to successfully navigate through these networks. Successful pedagogical strategies involve the instructor helping students to identify, navigate, and evaluate information from their learning networks. Many principles of connectivism align with the information literacy standards of the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Librarian educators should consider connectivism learning theory when implementing pedagogical strategies in the network domains of students.