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Item Collaborating for Success: A Case Study on Mentoring, Partnering, and Teaching(Collaborative Librarianship, 2017-01) Kellner, Megan N.; Tchangalova, Nedelina; Gammons, Rachel W.; Carroll, Alexander J.; Payne-Sturges, Devon C.Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduates seeking employment in academic libraries are often expected to possess user instruction and public service skills. However, it is difficult for students to achieve this experience through coursework alone. To address this disconnect, librarians at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park Libraries created a Research and Teaching Fellowship to allow MLIS students at UMD to gain practical instruction experience. The authors present the experience of one MLIS student in collaboration with a subject librarian and a faculty member to plan, implement, and assess an information literacy instruction session for an undergraduate course in public health. The article discusses the benefits of mentoring for the MLIS student and subject liaison librarian, and the impact on the undergraduate student learning. This article addresses a gap in the literature on opportunities for MLIS students to gain instruction, collaboration, and assessment experience by presenting a successful model in place at UMD.Item Using Canvas and PechaKucha to Facilitate Undergraduate Peer Teaching of Evidence Based Practice(2015-10-19) Carroll, Alexander J.; Tchangalova, Nedelina; Harrington, Eileen G.PURPOSE: While most early career undergraduates receive instruction in the core competencies of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Standards, recent studies suggest that such general instruction programs do not provide students with enough exposure or guided practice for these concepts to be retained sufficiently. This paper describes a pilot flipped information literacy program designed that sought to improve upper-level undergraduate health science students’ abilities to find and select appropriate evidence for research assignments. PARTICIPANTS: Faculty and undergraduate students in public health and animal sciences departments at a large research university. Participants in this project were compensated with gift cards, paid for in part by a MAC-MLA Research & Assessment Grant. METHODOLOGY: During the 2014-2015 academic year, the authors piloted a flipped information literacy program. Students completed online modules within the university’s learning management system that addressed a number of information literacy topics. During subsequent in-class sessions, the librarians adopted the role of facilitators while students led the session as peer educators, working in teams to develop and deliver brief presentations on an assigned module. The outcomes of this pilot program were evaluated using several methods of assessment. The authors designed rubrics for evaluating student performance on pretests, posttests, as well as on significant research assignments. The investigators also conducted semi-structured interviews with faculty participants to assess their perceptions of the program. RESULTS: Early results indicate that while student participants learned information literacy concepts, they did not consistently nor effectively apply them throughout the research process. However, this instructional method was developed in close collaboration with disciplinary faculty, which created stronger partnerships between librarians and teaching faculty and allowed for further curricular collaborations. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Based on final results, the paper will explore the challenges and successes in designing, implementing, and evaluating a flipped information literacy program.Item Champagne Information Literacy Workshops on a Beer Budget(The Innovative Library Classroom 2015, 2015-03-12) Corlett-Rivera, Kelsey; Carroll, Alexander J.; Macri, LindaThe University of Maryland Libraries offer drop-in information literacy workshops, which historically have been poorly attended. Previous efforts to increase attendance have focused on marketing, but a lack of time and funding for large-scale advertising hampered those efforts. One creative approach was a partnership between the UMD Libraries and the Graduate School Writing Center to offer Research and Writing Bootcamps, to leverage their respective audiences. Based on those experiences and the needs students expressed during research and writing consultations, this collaboration expanded to include a workshop on researching and writing literature reviews. Despite not launching a formal marketing campaign for that workshop, or conducting a lengthy needs assessment, twenty-four hours after opening registration, we had 165 students registered for two workshops in a 35 seat instruction room. This talk will suggest affordable ways to identify high priority topics to develop information literacy workshops that teach what students want to learn.Item Librarians as Action Researchers: A Practical Framework for Evidence-Based Information Literacy Instruction(LOEX, 2015-05-01) Klipfel, Kevin Michael; Carroll, Alexander J.This presentation proposes a framework for evidence-based practice for instructional librarianship drawn from discourse in education regarding the role of evidence in professional practice. We propose a framework for librarians to conceive of themselves as "action researchers": professional practitioners who (1) adhere to the best available evidence about teaching and learning; (2) methodologically test their assumptions about their practice by conducting research in their local environments; and (3) apply these learnings in their own research and instruction practices. This definition differs from the current library literature on evidence-based practice in two main ways: it provides librarians with an established theoretical framework for becoming evidence-based instructors in practice and it elevates data about student learning, rather than professional intuition or faculty perceptions, as the driving force behind our decision making as teacher-librarians. We will next discuss the major practical benefits of this framework. First, it offers librarians a practical model that can be used to professionalize their teaching. Second, this increased professionalization as educators can help librarians more successfully meet the institutional priorities of higher education, the facilitation and assessment of student learning on campus. Lastly, by seriously engaging with the craft of teaching, teacher-librarians are better equipped to become genuine co-collaborators with faculty across campus. The implications of this shift in professional ethos may be considerable; such paradigm shifts do not often occur within a community of practice quickly or without some resistance. Consequently, we will conclude our talk by noting potential challenges and offering concrete recommendations for success for instruction librarians and library leaders seeking to foster an evidence-based community of practice in their own libraries.Item “Scholarship is a Conversation”: Discourse, Attribution, and Twitter’s Role in Information Literacy Instruction(The Journal of Creative Library Practice, 2015-03-11) Carroll, Alexander J.; Dasler, RobinWhen addressing scholarly attribution, citation, and plagiarism in one-shot instruction sessions, librarians often fail to present these issues in a manner that has relevance for students. Librarians often focus on intellectual honesty and the potential ramifications of plagiarism, both individual pursuits, rather than explaining that by creating an academic work, students are participating in academic discourse. Within Pluralizing Plagiarism, Anson argues that scholarly attribution instruction that emphasizes “policy, detection, and punishment” is antithetical to the mission of institutions of higher learning – the education of students (Anson, 2008). One of the major deficiencies of this compliance-based instruction is that it presents students with a false dichotomy that does not align with their authentic life experiences; plagiarism is demonstrated as a black and white issue, rather than existing in shades of gray. Students who have come of age within a twenty-first century information ecosystem rife with remix and parody culture will likely find teaching that presents the re-use of source material as a non-nuanced issue unconvincing. Because students respond positively to instruction that aligns with their authentic experiences, this suggests that librarians need to develop new methods for teaching attribution and scholarly discourse that not only recognize the nuance inherent to these topics, but also presents these concepts within a familiar framework (Klipfel, 2014). As a familiar platform for social interaction with multiple avenues for giving credit and a shorter timescale, Twitter presents an opportunity to place attribution, plagiarism, and integrity into a humanizing, real world context that models how discourse unfolds in an authentic manner for learners. By embedding attribution instruction into a meaningful context, librarians and other educators can make substantial and much needed improvements to traditional compliance-based instruction, which is often built upon the slow, rigid, and unfamiliar patterns of how to cite scholarly works.Item A Booster Shot for Health Science Librarianship : Using Canvas and PechaKucha to Flip the Library Classroom(2014-10-21) Carroll, Alexander J.; Tchangalova, Nedelina; Harrington, Eileen G.PURPOSE: Most early career undergraduates receive instruction in the core competencies of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Standards. Recent studies suggest that such general instruction programs do not provide students with enough exposure or guided practice for these concepts to be retained sufficiently, requiring librarians to review many of these concepts with upper-level undergraduates. This paper will describe a pilot flipped information literacy program that will be implemented to improve the development and application of information literacy skills in upper-level undergraduates, while fostering closer collaboration between librarians and faculty. PARTICIPANTS: Faculty and students in the University of Maryland (UMD) Professional Writing Program, School of Public Health, Biological Sciences Department, and the Animal and Avian Sciences Department. METHODOLOGY: In the fall semester, the authors will pilot a flipped information literacy program. Prior to meeting for an in-person library instruction session, students will be required to complete online modules on topics related to information literacy. During the library session, students will work in teams to develop and deliver PechaKucha presentations on an assigned module. Instead of the traditional role of lecturer and database demonstrator, the librarians will adopt the role of facilitators. The program will be evaluated using a variety of tools at different levels: (1) Online quizzes for each module; (2) Peer assessment of the PechaKucha presentations; (3) Semi-structured interviews with faculty participants; (4) Analysis of bibliographies of students’ final projects. RESULTS: Expected results include improved retention and implementation of information literacy skills by upper-level undergraduates, an improvement in faculty-librarian collaborations in teaching information literacy skills, and an increase in the number of faculty using new pedagogical techniques in their classes. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Based on our results, the discussion will explore the challenges and successes in designing, implementing and evaluating a flipped information literacy program.