Image
Abstract: PANEL: Value, Shmalue: Measuring Meaning through True Tales of Teaching
Teaching is integral to the mission and purpose of academic libraries, but in our professional organizations (ALA, ACRL, ARL) the story of our teaching is often reduced to numbers: How many sessions? How many hours? How many students? Within this framework quantity dictates success, with more classes, time, and students meaning more impact. Yet as teaching librarians, we know that the story of our work doesn’t begin and end in the classroom. There is the time and mental labor spent on planning our classes, facilitating interactions with learners both in and out of the classroom, and determining how to explain tricky concepts in a way that leads to lightbulb moments. We meet with faculty to learn more about their students and coursework, developing targeted ways to address student needs; pivot while teaching when new needs are revealed; and take time to reflect on and improve our teaching. Thinking, reflecting, planning, and relationship building are not easily quantified or analyzed and therefore are often left out of traditional library instruction assessment and program evaluation.
Within higher education, assessment is a practice of power (Accardi, 2010; Reynolds & Trehan, 2000), dictating what is valued, resourced, and financed. It’s important for us to critically examine what we choose to assess in our teaching and how we do it. As Wall, Hursh, and Rodgers write, “what is measured has value, or becomes valued as it is measured” (2014, p. 9). So what do we value as teachers and librarians in academia, and how do those values inform the story of our work?
When considering how best to tell the stories of our instruction and its influence on ourselves and our students, we realized that a documented reflective practice on particular parts of the teaching process was crucial to help us understand our work and its impact. In this spirit, Natalia Kapacinskas, Erica Lopez, and Veronica Arellano Douglas created a Reflection Toolkit for evaluating our Libraries’ instruction program. This toolkit structures a two year process: one year focused on reflective teaching and the second focused on student learning. As the first year began, institutional transitions led to Mea Warren taking leadership of this process with the Teaching and Learning department. In this session, we will share our reflection toolkit and how it is currently being implemented. Participants will have the opportunity to examine and discuss their methods for evaluating their teaching program as well as brainstorm more meaningful ways to tell the story of their teaching.
Within higher education, assessment is a practice of power (Accardi, 2010; Reynolds & Trehan, 2000), dictating what is valued, resourced, and financed. It’s important for us to critically examine what we choose to assess in our teaching and how we do it. As Wall, Hursh, and Rodgers write, “what is measured has value, or becomes valued as it is measured” (2014, p. 9). So what do we value as teachers and librarians in academia, and how do those values inform the story of our work?
When considering how best to tell the stories of our instruction and its influence on ourselves and our students, we realized that a documented reflective practice on particular parts of the teaching process was crucial to help us understand our work and its impact. In this spirit, Natalia Kapacinskas, Erica Lopez, and Veronica Arellano Douglas created a Reflection Toolkit for evaluating our Libraries’ instruction program. This toolkit structures a two year process: one year focused on reflective teaching and the second focused on student learning. As the first year began, institutional transitions led to Mea Warren taking leadership of this process with the Teaching and Learning department. In this session, we will share our reflection toolkit and how it is currently being implemented. Participants will have the opportunity to examine and discuss their methods for evaluating their teaching program as well as brainstorm more meaningful ways to tell the story of their teaching.