"Instructional Design Essentials" Week 1

Hello everyone! I'm the social sciences librarian at the CSB/SJU Libraries. I'm using this blog to reflect upon experiences in my "Instructional Design Essentials"  ALA Editions eCourse. This is what I'll be working on this week:

BLOG POST (Due by September 21): Your first post will be briefly establishing your focus for this course, choose what works best for your goals whether it's instruction you will do in the future, instruction you have done previously, or if you have neither of those options available to you, make up a teaching scenario that you would like to use. Read pages 1-6 of  Fink's Guide and use your blog to complete the worksheet on page 7. Then read pages 8-10 and use your blog to complete the questions on pages 11-12 to begin parsing out goals for your instruction.

So, without further ado:

Fink's Guide, p7 ("Situational Factors to Consider")

1. Specific Context of the Teaching/Learning Situation
How many students are in the class? Is the course lower division, upper division, or graduate level? How long and frequent are the class meetings? How will the course be delivered: live, online, or in a classroom or lab? What physical elements of the learning environment will affect the class?

I'm going to focus on instruction to one of my First Year Seminar (FYS) classes. Each librarian at my institution is paired with about 8-10 sections of this year-long class; we meet with each section a couple of times each semester (so it's like a one-shot-plus). The course is capped at 16 students. Classes are either MWF for 55 minutes each or TTh for 80 minutes each. Courses are taught in person in our library's training lab, which has computer stations for each student.

2. General Context of the Learning Situation
What learning expectations are placed on this course or curriculum by: the university, college and/or department? the profession? society?

The FYS Course Learning Goals include the following: 
"Discover and practice sound principles of information literacy and effective use of information technology by becoming familiar with library resources and staff."

Our Library Goals for FYS follow the basic know/access/evaluate/use/use ethically model. We also state on our library's website that our FYS instruction sessions will help students to analyze and evaluate research sources; understand scholarly vs. non-scholarly publications; develop search strategies for specific assignments; use of the catalog and online periodical indexes; find specialized resources relevant to the discipline; understand the basics on conducting research (e.g. topic narrowing, using primary sources, citation, etc.).

3. Nature of the Subject Is this subject primarily theoretical, practical, or a combination? Is the subject primarily convergent or divergent? Are there important changes or controversies occurring within the field?

Each section of FYS has a different topical focus, and each instructor develops their own syllabi and assignments, so library instruction isn't always consistent from one section to the next. Past instruction sessions have often been heavily focused on teaching tools like our library catalog, specific databases, or citation management software. I would like to spend less time lecturing and demo-ing in front of the class and instead foster more active learning and nuanced evaluation.

4. Characteristics of the Learners
What is the life situation of the learners (e.g., working, family, professional goals)? What prior knowledge, experiences, and initial feelings do students usually have about this subject? What are their learning goals, expectations, and preferred learning styles?

Most of our FYS students are traditional first-year undergraduates at our small, residential, liberal arts institution. Their existing library research experience varies a lot.   

5. Characteristics of the Teacher
What beliefs and values does the teacher have about teaching and learning? What is his/her attitude toward: the subject? students? What level of knowledge or familiarity does s/he have with this subject? What are his/her strengths in teaching?

The teacher (I assume this means me as the librarian teaching the instruction session, and not their FYS teacher!) thinks working with students is the best part of her job! I also feel pressed for time and a little "stuck" with how I structure my sessions. I want to be able to help students learn the skills they'll need to really thrive in college (and to be lifelong learners, critical thinkers, and intellectually curious types, etc. etc.). I was all about Paolo Freire and critical pedagogy and getting past the banking model of education in grad school, but have found it hard to apply these concepts in my own one-shot instruction sessions.