Book+Chapter+Kristin

Hi, folks. Some of you have been writing in your prof letters that you wish you could see the book chapters of others to get a sense of what others are doing. I'm posting my chapter draft here if it is helpful. Of course, you are welcome to vary from this style. (Undoubtedly, yours will have less panic and anxiety in it.) You do NOT need to post yours here, as you're bringing paper copies for your reviewers, though if you want to, feel free (and drop me an email if you want me to let others know that yours is available for commenting). Feel free to add comments in the Discussion Tab.


 * View From the Front of the Room**
 * Kristin Fontichiaro**

They barely fit. The class was supposed to have eight students, all future librarians. Now here are twenty-eight. An education PhD student, another in Educational Studies. Some future teen librarians; others who see academic libraries as their future. School librarians. And what about those secondary preservice teachers? What do these folks all have in common? How do I respectfully and robustly challenge such a diverse group? And they barely fit in our classroom, which we have already changed twice as class enrollment unexpectedly tripled in the days leading up to the first day of class. I will say this again and again in the early days of SI 641 / EDCURINS 575: Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning: there //is so much diversity, and how will we tackle the concepts when we come from such different places?//

When I had taken on this class a few months prior, I knew it needed to break the molds of its past. For many years, it had been considered useful for school librarians only; indeed, the course remains the official teaching methods course for those seeking the teaching endorsement in school librarianship. A course redesign a few years prior had formally articulated that the course was suitable for all kinds of librarians and information specialists, and for two years, the course, while remaining small in enrollment and primarily taken by school library students, had shifted focus from the practicalities of teaching in K-12 environmments to a more theoretical focus on academic libraries.

The course needed to fall somewhere in the middle. To teach well, librarians would need the theoretical underpinnings both of information literacy and of educational practice, but they would also need to see how those theories are applied in the practice of good teaching and, more importantly, robust learning for their future students.

Theory wasn't enough. One needs only walk through a third grade classroom or academic library learning commons to see that students are, as a whole, not implementing librarian-taught lessons. Theory doesn't matter if it does not (or cannot) change practice. Why did we have so many students sitting politely through database instruction, only to open Facebook and do an open Web search as soon as the librarian's eyes were turned? Why were so many college papers citing introductory sources or documents of questionable authority? And, as long as we're being honest, did we have confidence that their teachers had a strong-enough command of information resources of varying levels of authority and synthesis versus merely reporting information?

Surely, a class of eight students, if seminar discussion were coupled with extensive field experience, could begin to crack the code. We are fortunate here at the School of Information to have students who are highly motivated, experienced working in the field, and deeply interested in the future of libraries and librarians. I envisioned the class, cozily sitting around a conference table, sipping lattes, debating readings, and sharing findings from their field experiences. I envisioned us collectively authoring an eBook, carefully crafting our pieces, our brows furrowed in the most academic of ways. The kind of seminar that you see in hazy footage as filmmakers remember the Goode Olde Days of Oxford. Studious. With fewer than a dozen students, completely possible.

Fast forward to the first day of class. Remember? It's crowded. I'm doing the math: 28 field experience placements, not 8. No more Oxford seminar. And yet, the code still needed to be cracked, the conversations had, and the alternatives explored. And this is exactly the diverse group needed to start decoding.

Thanks to the tenacity of the students whose voices you will read, we dove in anyway. We compensated for the large class size when some students sought out their own field placements, took regular advantage of office hours when they needed or wanted individual feedback, and engaged in small group conversations in lieu of the imagined conference table chatter. Some shared their experiences in class regularly; others used their weekly "prof letters" to me to share their insight about their readings, our class discussions, and individual field placements. These in-class activities, coupled with a Diigo social bookmarking group, which allowed any student to share a resource with the rest of the class, slowly but surely developed our assessment of the instructional landscape. It was a bit noisy, but it was working (and there were even a few lattes, coupled with a rather large quantity of Twizzlers and hurried lunches).

Field experiences for this course spanned multiple settings and multiple patron groups. School libraries, secondary classrooms, public library storytimes and activities for adults, and the campus language center. Classes in psychology, education, communications, and English (online!). Online simulations and hands-on teaching in a campus museum. Despite the diversity of placements, each student had three field requirements. First, they were to spend twenty hours in 'observation': watching a mentor teach, helping the mentor plan for teaching, perhaps co-teaching, or simply working on the many clerical tasks all teachers engage in when preparing for learning. Secondly, they had to teach two face-to-face classes, either the same class twice (with the benefit of being able to revise and rethink for the repeated session) or two distinct sessions (with the benefit of getting more planning practice and artifacts for their employment portfolio). Finally, in partnership with a mentor, they were to think about digital teaching and learning, and create an online learning module. Some created pathfinders, instructional materials for parents and teachers, learning modules, narrated PowerPoints, an information literacy online assessment, a scavenger hunt app, and more.

The essays in this chapter span those experiences. Some, like Katy Mahraj's "Iterative Instruction" or Ander Ericsson's "Looking at the Information Needs of Pre-Service Teachers," look systemically at information literacy issues. Others, like Kara Fribley's "From Black and White to Gray: Addressing Information Literacy Skills in Web Evaluation" or John Cole's "Hook," unpack small moments of a lesson. Two essays look at nefarious low-level "bird units": one from the perspective of a physics classroom (Josh Skodack), and another from a public library perspective (Caroline Mossing). Some use humor, like Kyle Tecmire's "Database-a-phobia," and others, like Emily Johnson's essay on school librarians and assessment or Curtis Lee's call to action in social studies classroom, are intensely serious. Lady Gaga makes a guest appearance in J.J. Pionke's essay on teaching synthesis, a counterpoint to Katherine McMahon and Kristel Wieneke's essays of the power of storytime and early literacy activities in children's rooms of public libraries.The stories are authentic, unvarnished, and real.

As I write this, the last day of the semester has sunset, and soon this band of adventurers will disperse. From the start, I played a hunch that the students in this class had stories to tell to that should reverberate beyond our classroom walls. In each essay, the author leaves behind a message they felt would resonate with other future or practicing librarians or educators. My takeaway? I've learned to trust that good ideas are worth investing in, that adult learners have rich past experiences that enhance their new learning, and that diversity of perspective and employment enhances rather than detracts. For those lessons, and for the delight of exploring with such a thoughtful group of learners, I am deeply grateful.

//Kristin Fontichiaro is a clinical assistant professor and coordinator of the school library media program at the University of Michigan School of Information. Her work focuses on quality instructional design relating to informational resources and technology. Contact: font [at] umich [dot] edu.//