Colleges and Universities have all recognized the need for students to master these skills as an essential part of their education. In order to help students navigate the cacophony of information in the contemporary world classroom faculty have appealed to the library and vice-versa.
That is where I come in. I see the work that we do int the classroom is critical to the preparation of students for the work they face today in the classroom, for higher level research, and in the workplace or life in general.
While all partners in education , faculty, librarians and administration all agree that these skills that are developed in the library instruction (Bibliographic Instruction) are fundamental but finding classroom time is an issue. Librarians are usually limited to one class period to convey the skills and techniques that they have to share with students, skills that will help the student as they continue on the academic journey. Often times this is simply not enough time. One recent trend in confronting this time challenge is embedded librarianship. Often time an embedded librarian is attached to a class and may come present to a class in limited amounts but, even then some teaching/classroom faculty find that too disruptive. So we have and information need to be met and limited physical access, how can we meet our goal? While I have no ultimate solution to an issue that truly needs to be a subject of a larger discussion, one that probably wont happen today, I devised a work around–go digital!
I have been working in a hybrid fashion in person for the traditional BI session, and then switching to digital support to remain a part of the research and discovery portion of the class. The professor added me as a course builder in her class Blackboard account. As a course builder, i have access to class documents, aside from grades, and have a space where students can be contact me and be contacted. Students who have questions about processes software or search strategies can contact me and get answers. If the questions are of the nature that I feel they will be beneficial to the majority of the class, I generally formulate the anonymize question and answer in the form of a blog post. For questions which pertain to uses software such as RefWorks, or if they need help in navigating databases I construct a screencast. So far this semester the hybrid approach to Bibliographic Instruction has been pretty successful in meeting many of the needs of the students and faculty member I have been working with. Hopefully, I will be able to fully develop the process to better meet the needs of students and staff at Hunter.
Cheers,
JOC
Being Involved in Learning, Even Outside the Classroom
That is where I come in. I see the work that we do int the classroom is critical to the preparation of students for the work they face today in the classroom, for higher level research, and in the workplace or life in general.
While all partners in education , faculty, librarians and administration all agree that these skills that are developed in the library instruction (Bibliographic Instruction) are fundamental but finding classroom time is an issue. Librarians are usually limited to one class period to convey the skills and techniques that they have to share with students, skills that will help the student as they continue on the academic journey. Often times this is simply not enough time. One recent trend in confronting this time challenge is embedded librarianship. Often time an embedded librarian is attached to a class and may come present to a class in limited amounts but, even then some teaching/classroom faculty find that too disruptive. So we have and information need to be met and limited physical access, how can we meet our goal? While I have no ultimate solution to an issue that truly needs to be a subject of a larger discussion, one that probably wont happen today, I devised a work around–go digital!
I have been working in a hybrid fashion in person for the traditional BI session, and then switching to digital support to remain a part of the research and discovery portion of the class. The professor added me as a course builder in her class Blackboard account. As a course builder, i have access to class documents, aside from grades, and have a space where students can be contact me and be contacted. Students who have questions about processes software or search strategies can contact me and get answers. If the questions are of the nature that I feel they will be beneficial to the majority of the class, I generally formulate the anonymize question and answer in the form of a blog post. For questions which pertain to uses software such as RefWorks, or if they need help in navigating databases I construct a screencast. So far this semester the hybrid approach to Bibliographic Instruction has been pretty successful in meeting many of the needs of the students and faculty member I have been working with. Hopefully, I will be able to fully develop the process to better meet the needs of students and staff at Hunter.