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Becoming a librarian who teaches well (not just who teaches)
This post is inspired by an article from my favourite quilting magazine, Mark Lipinski’s Quilter’s Home. Issue September/October 2008, page 13, entitled Think about being a… Quilting teacher. Hopefully, they don’t mind I used their article as an inspiration and take it for the compliment that it is!
- Be superior than. For most of us teaching librarians, we only get about an hour with an Instructor and her class to do our schtick. Do yourself a favour, be more of an expert than either the Instructor or the students on what you’re teaching. But don’t just stop there. It seems like it will never stop, having to justify our jobs teaching and the only thing that we can do is be the best teacher that those students, and their Instructor, has ever seen. Yes, that’s right, strive to be a better teacher for that hour than the course Instructor. Take the risk.
- Know better than. Be more prepared than anyone would for a semester long course for “just” an hour of teaching! I’m serious. Write your lesson plan. Write out the expectations you have for your partner, the course Instructor (I even put mine on the library’s website). Practice your approach with a neutral audience, like your library coworkers, before using it with a class. Have several ideas of what to do if things aren’t going well for your class and blow them away when you show how you can improvise. Basically, push the envelope of you what you consider a “normal” level of preparation to be ready for anything.
- Giggle louder than. There’s enough stereotypes of librarians out there of us being b****es, please don’t add to that. Believe me, if you’re not having a good time, no one else will. Remember that you may be the only contact these students, and their Instructor, has with a member of the library staff. You are representing everyone for that hour. Smile your butt off and make sure it’s sincere or find another job.
- Extra creative than. Find something new to teach. I find it hard to believe that any teaching librarian out there believes that there’s nothing new left to teach. They must not actually be using their own products because how could they miss how rapidly those databases and catalogue companies are changing things? If it’s mind-boggling to us, just imagine what the non-librarian people are thinking. Find anything new, no matter how small, and teach it. If you want those Instructors to come back year after to year with their classes, you have to show them why!
- Go farther than. Don’t just lecture, hit ‘em at every level. Write new webpages. Design fun, new handouts. Give out your business cards. Regularly redecorate your bulletin boards. Make your own posters. Distribute sticky note pads. Make fun streaming videos and post them online. Make online tutorials. Come up with a new logo. Make the signature in your email say something important. Leave the “boring” lectures with the “boring” handouts and the “boring” readings for the course Instructors. As a teaching librarian, you have the freedom to do things that they can never do, take advantage of the situation.
- Give more than. As the article that inspired this post said “In TV land [there is this saying]: Viewers will watch anything that is timely, topical, or free.” What better way to describe library instruction? We deliver it just when they’re about to start their papers. We can focus the instruction to a specific topic area and use examples to model the process. And we’re probably the only instruction in our institutions that is free. Take advantage of this perfect triumvirate and watch what happens.
Good luck in the new school year!!
Posted by Laurie on August 27th, 2008 under Laurie speaks!Search:
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