Week 10 Reflections

Last week we split into groups to do our one shot workshops. Overall they were very interesting. Everyone chose great topics. I particularly appreciated the one on copyright in libraries because this is important for librarians and I know nothing about it. Also, Andrea and Eden had cupcakes so that helped too. I think my workshop went ok, but not as well as the book club. When we were planning it didn't seem like an uneven balance between straight lecturing and discussion. However, when we actually did the workshop it felt like we talked forever and that the discussion was short and a little unenthusiastic. I'm not sure if this was just because the other groups were much more interactive so we seemed off in comparison or if it was actually a problem. Regardless, I think it went fairly well and definitely was not worth getting super nervous about.

The chapter from How People Learn discussed specific examples of great history, math, and science teachers. Some of the examples were really cool. The teachers that were described gave me a warm fuzzy feeling about schools and teaching. They all were clearly very passionate about what they were teaching and were also very creative. The main point was that good teachers need more than just expertise on the subject matter itself. They also need to have pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge about how the subject is structured, what about it is important, what parts confuse students...). The chapter stressed that there is no one method for teaching that can be transferred to all subject areas. Each one requires different knowledge and strategies. What this seems to say to me is that a good history teacher would necessarily make a good math teacher or science teacher. This then makes me wonder about elementary school where one teacher teaches all subjects for a particular grade. This makes sense to me, but based on the readings I wonder if it is a good idea. The teacher could be wonderful at teaching certain things and not others and where would that leave the kids? I don't know. Changing that would probably throw elementary school into chaos.

I really enjoyed the Matos, Matsuoka-Motley and Mayer article about embedded librarians. I'm not interested in being an academic librarian but if I was I would totally want to be an embedded librarian, specifically the traditional kind. I loved the description of the music librarian who initially had trouble getting faculty and students to accept her but then changed her location and became very involved, included, accepted, and helpful. I know SI has a specific librarian who we are supposed to go to for help and everything. She seems very nice, but I have never felt like contacting her. I might if she actually had an office in North Quad. Or maybe it wouldn't make a difference. I'm not sure. I know the situation is different then with the music librarian in the article because the music library itself was separate from the rest of the library. I suppose the hybrid embedded librarian would be more practical for SI.

The virtual embedded librarian was also an interesting idea (from the Montgomery article) and I understand the need for them. I just don't think I would enjoy that type of librarian-patron interaction very much. Also, I like the idea of webinars for certain things, like learning about library issues (or as a way to learn about new ideas in any profession). It is relatively easy and cost effective. I have not yet watched a sample webinar for class tomorrow (I will before class starts - promise!) but I did watch one about comic books and graphic novels last semester. It was really interesting and informative. However, I'm not sure how I feel about it as an actual teaching tool in colleges and other schools. I know webinars are interactive, but I just can't picture the college kids actually taking advantage of the features. I think they would just go through the motions and not get anything out of it at all. I'm pretty sure that's what I would have done. I guess I might be a little pessimistic about it. It is an interesting idea and it could work.