Information Literacy Instructors Experiences of the Teaching Role

1
Information Literacy Instructors Experiences of
the Teaching Role

• Heidi Julien
• School of Library Information Studies
• University of Alberta
• CAIS/ACSI Conference, 2007

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The context

• Information literacy (IL) is critical to full
  social participation and to individual
  decision-making
• Many citizens are not as information literate as
  they might be (confidence exceeds skill levels),
  so training would be valuable
• Libraries have a role in IL training
• There are many barriers to effective training
  (e.g., resources, preparation of library staff
  for this work)

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The barrier in question

• Many library users and library staff are
  ambivalent about the potential role of libraries
  in IL training
• Some library staff do not embrace this work
  enthusiastically some express discomfort,
  antagonism
• Some reasons for this ambivalence include
  insufficient training, changing work roles,
  attitudes towards users, ambivalence about the
  place of instructional work in libraries

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The research question

• How do library staff with instructional roles
  experience and relate to those roles and what
  might be the implications of those
  self-understandings for instructional outcomes?

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Research methods

• Theoretical frameworks identity theory, role
  theory, phenomenography
• Pilot study with 26 interviews of library staff
  in one province January-April 2006
• 58 interviews January March 2007 with library
  staff (mostly professional librarians) in public
  and academic libraries across Canada
• Qualitative analyses ongoing
• Phase 2 (Fall 2007) diary method
• Phase 3 (Fall 2008) national survey

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Preliminary results initial themes

• Learning to teach mostly informal
• Importance of consulting with colleagues (perhaps
  equally untrained)
• I learned by watching people who were better at
  it than I was. (Jeffrey)
• Informal help seeking for pedagogical training
• Value experience over formal training
• Its really been trial and errorOften times
  youll see somebody teach, andthen yougo out
  and try the same thingits mostly kind of the
  parasites approach. You know, I take something
  that works and call it my ownthats probably my
  biggest survival strategy. (Curt)
• The more I did it, the more comfortable I felt.
  (Shelley)
• Little use of scholarly literature to inform
  practice
• Journal articlessometimes even browsing online
  looking at what other people are offeringor
  reading course descriptions. (Anna)

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Initial themes (continued)

• Some participants see value in formal learning
• Claire earned MA in Education spent sabbatical
  learning about learning outcomes for IL
• A minority attend IL-related conference
  presentations
• We need something thats going to push the
  scholarship forwardthats something that
  interests me. And thats something the M.Ed. gave
  me, the language and the abilities to do. Like I
  speak the language. And I present at education
  conferences now. I actually focus more on that
  now, than I do on library conferenceswe need
  some guidance from beyond our profession, in my
  opinion. (Heather)

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Initial themes (continued)

• Teaching as intuitive
• Little awareness of professional or scholarly
  attitude to teaching/pedagogy use of words like
  attune or sense (Michael)
• You sort of feel your way in. (Glen)

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Initial themes (continued)

• Teaching focus on subject content, not on
  pedagogy
• I think the reason it has been easier for me is
  that I feel confident of my knowledge, not
  necessarily my skills as an instructor or my
  understanding of instructional pedagogybut
  because I feel I do know what Im talking
  about...probably the least helpful thing was the
  instructional skills workshop because it was so
  focusedon theoryI cant see it being very
  practicalI did learn a lot aboutinstructional
  theories, and got a lot of good ideas. But
  whether I will ever incorporate them in this kind
  of instruction is doubtful. (Carole)

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Experience of teaching role

• An imposition
• early in careerI was still all starry eyed,
  and I wasnt jaded yet, so I said yes! to become
  coordinator of instructional program at a major
  university library (Curt)
• It came with the job! Instruction was tacked
  on. (Curt)
• I was thrust into this teaching role. (Shelley)
• I realized that I have to. (Carole)
• Quite honestly, at the beginning, I didnt see
  the point of it. We were probably doing it so
  badly that I was right. (Joan)
• It was written into the contract. (Stella)

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Experience of teaching role

• An expectation/duty reactive/passive approach
• Instruction has been pretty much standard
  expectations for librarians. (Anna)
• That was my job. (Shelley)
• Its just a part of what I do because I have
  certain knowledge because I work in a
  librarypeople have to know how to access those
  resources, and thats what we have to do, is tell
  them (Carole)
• Instruction is a task. (Lisa)
• When you do reference, training is an automatic
  part of that. (Charlotte)
• Its a major part of myassignment of duties.
  (Claire)

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Experience of teaching role

• Integral to professional identity inextricably
  linked
• I think when I took the instructional skills and
  I really learned a lot about how to present well,
  and it really became important to me. And you
  know, I began to understand where this fits in
  the whole purpose of the college, and why we have
  students and what theyre learning, and you know,
  how this is part of that. (Joan)
• I think its a huge part of my professional
  identity actually. I still sometimes check
  educator when I fill in surveysI think the
  reference deskoften is about teachingso its
  about the job description, but I think it really
  is the job. (Marianne)
• Teaching informs 100 of what I doit dominates
  everything I do...its why I like to get up and
  go to work in the morningit gave meaning to my
  job, and thats what I wanted to do. And if I
  couldnt do that, Id find another way to do
  that. I do recognize that libraries have an
  enormous pedagogical role in an educational
  institution like a university, so promoting that
  role is something that I feel really strongly
  about, because people can be better researchers.
  (Heather)
• Its integralas an academic librarian, teaching
  is just understood as part of what were
  aboutfor an academic librarian its
  foundational. Knowing how to teach is
  foundational to what we have to do. (Lorne)

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Experience of teaching role

• Joy in positive feedback, when students pay
  attention, lightbulb moments
• I tell my students that Im a reference
  librarian and when Im a good boy they let me
  teach. So I do love it. In fact I could imagine
  doing it more than Im doing in my present job.
  (John)
• Its huge fun! Its a little self centered to
  think that. I get such a buzz out of it. So the
  sober answer is that it enhances job
  satisfaction. Its a valuable part of the work
  that I do. I think it, properly understood, its
  important work. It gives value to people. (John)
• I love engaging, and Id see that little light
  going offthat connection that you know that they
  are getting it. (Lisa)
• I realized right off the top was thething that
  I enjoyed the most was actually the
  teaching...it is the funnest part of the
  jobbecause you get that immediate feedback and
  you get that connection and youkind of connect
  with peoplesomething thats going to make their
  lives easier. (Lisa)
• It was very satisfyingthose a-ha moments I
  think for the learner, were the highlights.
  (Michael)
• Getting questions. Seeing the light go onhaving
  studentsasking questions about things they
  didnt understandseeing them make the connection
  is really rewarding. (Lorne)

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Experience of teaching role

• Salient negative experiences student
  disengagement
• Earlier on in my teaching career, really
  challenging classes were classes where nobody
  said anything. And I didnt know how to draw them
  out. And I felt like I had somehow screwed up
  entirely. By the end of the class I would feel so
  miserable because Id think, I didnt get my
  point across, I dont feel like I was prepared
  because I got flustered by everything that was
  going wrongI was really hard on myself.
  (Shelley)
• I got a little bored, actually. (Amy)
• Classes sometimes can be very unresponsive. Or
  they just sit there and look at you. I try to ask
  questionsto sort of get some input. But if
  theyre not responding at all, then I just give
  up on that. And I just revert to the lecture
  styleso I just kind of back off. (Carole)

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Experience of teaching role

• Specific expressions of teaching act
• so the class generally consists of me
  spewingits very much me regurgitating onto them
  students. (Curt)
• Its a weird fitI integrated instructional
  work into my professional identityas soon as it
  got printed on my business card laughter. There
  was no way around it. (Curt)
• I think instructional work is a side issue
  (Anna)
• I found myself in instruction partly because it
  was an expectation, partly because I discovered I
  actually loved teaching, and so for me it was a
  great opportunity, and thirdly, it was something
  that I could do that broke ranks with what one
  thinks of as traditional librarianship. (John)
• Its really on the sidelines. It really isits
  way over there. It kind of gets fit in whenits
  just so far down the listfor my day to day
  experience I dont even think of myself as
  someone who delivers bibliographic instructionit
  doesnt really come into my mental profile going
  in as a librarian, its a real peripheral thing
  that I do. (Michael, public library)

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Expectations of teaching

• It never occurred to me that it is not part of
  my job. (Glen)
• To me teaching was just a givenI considered it
  part of my job before I startedI had recognized
  tat being a librarian was an educational
  profession...this is very fulfilling for me to
  find a place where I can teach, but have to bea
  teacher. (Janet, B.Ed., M.L.I.S.)
• Not at all. No, no. Its...still not my number
  one choice of what Id like to be doingwhen I
  went to Library School, I never though I would
  end of being a teacher, you know, it certainly
  never occurred to me. (Curt, MLIS 2000)
• In library school instructional work was
  almost like a dirty little secret they didnt
  talk about. (Curt)
• I didnt see it really as part of my role. (Amy)

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Do staff feel prepared to teach?

• Perhaps not
• No, noits one day of training a year, so you
  know, you pick up what you can. (Curt)
• No. But it didnt occur to me to that there was
  a lot to learn until I got into it. And then, of
  course, as I got better, I understood how much
  there was to doing it properly. (Joan)
• I dont think I lacked in confidence when I
  started, but I certainly was mindful of the fact
  that I didnt have a lot of experience. And I
  thought it was kind of fun going by the seat of
  my pants. (John)
• I think when I started, I wasnt prepared. I was
  not a public speakerI never expected that I
  would be enjoying it, but I do like it. So I do
  feel prepared now and I think Im a pretty good
  teacher. (Charlotte)
• Its more about thinking on my feet than being
  prepared to enter something that was clearly
  defined. (Michael)
• I did have teacher instruction, so I was a
  teacher in a former lifenot that youre ever
  really comfortableand probably you never should
  be. (Lorne)

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Do staff feel prepared to teach?

• Probably
• I feel comfortable. I think some of it is a
  personality thing. Im pretty comfortable with
  groups. Im pretty comfortable as long as I have
  sort of a script to work fromIm not a huge
  preparer for anything15 minutes, Im good to
  go. (Anna)
• I attended a four day instructional skills
  training programthat was really useful because
  you think about design, how do you design a
  class, how do you achieve student engagement,
  different kinds of active learningall those
  things about the different levels of cognitive
  learning. (Amy)
• I made my career this type of work.its a
  decision I consciously made, to focus on
  instructionI feel extremely prepared. Library
  school did not prepare me for my jobtheres
  workshopsin the library fieldand professional
  associations, but honestly, most of them are
  lame. Theyre not very goodThey lack that very
  strong foundation on what it means to be an
  educator. In my mind, librarians are teachers.
  And its often neglected, or its kind of
  something on the side that you do. But it is a
  huge part of what you do. (Heather, M.L.I.S.,
  M.Ed.)

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Next steps

• Phase 2 ongoing diaries with library staff
  doing instructional work, exploring their
  experiences and feelings
• Phase 3 national on-line survey to check
  findings from interviews and diaries

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Possible implications

• Understanding how library staff experience
  instructional work roles can identify openings
  for improving instructional outcomes
• What are the implications for training of library
  staff?
• What are the implications for resourcing
  instructional work?
• What are the implications for management of staff
  doing instruction?

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What about outcomes?

• Would we provide reference service or do
  cataloguing after observing others for two shifts?

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Acknowledgments

• Thanks to Jennifer Pecoskie, interviewer
  extraordinaire
• Thanks to transcribers Lesley Kok, Uju Mollel,
  and Melanie Rutherford
• Funding SSHRC SRG 410-2006-0002