Improving Learning: Best Practices for Teaching in the Library

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Improving Learning  Best Practices for Teaching
in the Library

• CARLI I-Share Instruction Forum
• Heartland Community College
• November 7, 2007
• Beth S. Woodard

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Definition of Good Teaching

• Good teaching is the creating of those
  circumstances that lead to significant learning
  in others.
• --Finkel, Teaching with Your Mouth Shut

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Significant Learning

• Thinking back over your whole life, what were the
  two or three most significant learning
  experiences you ever had? That is, list the
  moments (or events) in which you discovered
  something of lasting significance in your life

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Questions to ask yourself

• Did it take place in a classroom?
• Did it take place in a school?
• Was a professional teacher instrumental in making
  the learning experience happen?
• Was a teacher-like figure (e.g., coach, minister,
  school counselor, theater director) instrumental
  in making the learning experience happen?
• If the answer to 3 or 4 is yes, then what did
  the teacher (or other person) actually do to help
  you learn?
• In general, what factors were instrumental in
  bringing about the learning?

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Creating Conducive Environments

• Motivation or personal importance
• Development of self-efficacy of the learner
• How student feels about the learning
• Brain-friendly environment
• Sense of belonging
• Support for achievement
• Sense of empowerment
• Tileston 10 Best Teaching Practices.

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Natural Critical Learning Environment

• 5 common elements
• Intriguing question or problem
• Guidance in helping the students understand the
  significance of the question
• Engages students in some higher-order
  intellectual activity encouraging them to
  compare, apply, evaluate, analyze, and
  synthesize, but, never only to listen and
  remember. Often that means asking student to make
  and defend judgments and then providing them with
  some basis for making the decision.
• Environment also helps students answer the
  question.
• Leaves students with a question Whats the
  next question?
• Ken Bain

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Address Different Learning Styles

• Auditory
• Visual
• Kinesthetic

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Auditory Preferences

• Like to talk and enjoy activities in which they
  can talk to their peers or give their opinion
• Encourage people to laugh
• Are good storytellers
• Usually like listening activities
• Can memorize easily

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Teaching to Auditory Learners

• Use direct instruction, with guiding learning
  through application and practice
• Employ peer tutoring, in which students help each
  other practice the learning
• Use group discussions, brainstorming, Socratic
  seminars.
• Verbalize while learning, and encourage students
  to verbalize as well
• Use cooperative learning activities that provide
  for student interaction.

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Visual preferences

• Watch speakers faces
• Like to work puzzles
• Notice small details
• Like for the teacher to use visuals when talking
• Like to use nonlinguistic organizers (frames,
  concept maps, mind maps, venn diagrams, fishbone)

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Teaching to Visual Learners

• Use visuals when teaching
• Use visual organizers
• Show students the patterns in learning
• Use metaphors

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Example of a Frame
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Example of a Spider Map

• Types of Contemporary Materials

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Kinesthetic Learners

• Need the opportunity to be mobile
• Want to feel, smell, and taste everything
• May want to touch their neighbor as well
• Like to take things apart to see how they work

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Teaching Kinesthetic Learners

• Use a hands-on approach to learning
• Provide opportunities to move
• Use simulations when appropriate
• Bring in music, art, and manipulatives
• Break up lecture so that it is in manageable
  chunks
• Use discovery learning when appropriate
• Use discussion groups or cooperative learning so
  that student have an opportunity to move about
  and to talk with their peers.

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Help Students Make Connections

• Teachers should not assume that transfer will
  automatically occur after students acquire a
  sufficient base of information. Significant and
  efficient transfer occurs only if we teach to
  achieve it.
• David Sousa. How the Brain Learns (1995)

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Strategies for Connections

• Association
• Refer to previous lessons
• Ask about personal experiences
• Ask students to predict behaviors or events
• Similarity
• Critical attributes
• Context and degree of original learning

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Teaching for Long-Term Memory

• Types of Memory
• Semantic
• Episodic
• Procedural
• Automatic
• Emotional

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Teaching for Long-Term Memory

• Put information into manageable chunks 7 /- 2
• Use questioning strategies
• Use peer teaching
• Use graphic and linguistic organizers
• Use mnemonics, stories, and metaphors
• Use visuals
• Use motion, such as role plays, drama, choral
  readings, debates
• Provide practice
• Engage positive emotions

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Using Higher-Level Thinking Processes

• Help them create personal goals for learning.
• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking
• Problem solving

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Blooms Taxonomy

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Evaluation

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Tools that help students

• Comparison
• Classification
• Induction
• Deduction
• Error analysis
• Construction support
• Abstracting or pattern building
• Analyzing perspectives
• Marzano 1992., R.J. A Different Kind of Classroom

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Collaborative learning

• Good teacher to student communication
• Student to student communication

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Bridging Gaps between Learners

• Build self-efficacy
• Eliminate bias
• Linguistic
• Stereotyping
• Exclusion
• Isolation
• Selectivity

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Using Authentic Assessments

• What is it that we want students to know and to
  be able to do as a result of learning?
• Examinations and assignments become a way to help
  students understand their progress in learning,
  and they also help evaluate teaching.
• Evaluation and assessment stress learning rather
  than performance

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Real-World Practice

• Starter Knowledge
• Relational Knowledge
• Globalized Knowledge
• Expert Knowledge

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Selected Resources

• Association of College and Research Libraries.
  2003. Characteristics of Programs of Information
  Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices A
  Guideline http//www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandar
  ds/characteristics.htm
• Bain, Ken. 2004. What Makes Great Teachers
  Great? The Chronicle Review, vol. 50, issue 31,
  p. B7. http//chronicle.com
• Bain, Ken. 2004. What the Best College Teachers
  Do. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press.
• Chickering, Arthur W. Gamson, Zeld F.1987.
  Seven principles of good practice in
  undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 39, 3-7.
• Donald, Janet. 1997. Improving the Environment
  for Learning Academic Leaders Talk about What
  Works. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Finkel, Donald L. 1999. Teaching with Your
  Mouth Shut. Portsmouth, NH Boynton/Cook
  Publishers.
• Livesey, Rachel C. in collaboration with Parker
  Palmer. The Courage to Teach A Guide for
  Reflection and Renewal. San Francisco
  Jossey-Bass.
• Palmer, Parker. 1998. The Courage to Teach
  Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teachers
  Life. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Tileston, Donna Walker. 2005. 10 Best Teaching
  Practices Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press.