Professional Development

Hi, another busy day in Charm City!

I’ll just try to hit some high-lights of the sessions I attended.

The Reference Question — Where has Reference Been? Where is Reference Going?

• The Librarian is no longer the “locus of control” in the research process
• Overheard: ‘Don’t need the library because we have EBSCO’ — must let them know they have EBSCO because of us
• In the mind of users “stuff on Internet” is the same as scholarly, vetted info
• The role of a profession/professional is to establish a practice and try to improve it
• We are too close to our profession
• must step back and look at watershed changes
• not selfishly, but for how they impact our users
• Take a look at the Vikings who immigrated to
• Greenland — didn’t adapt and died out
• Iceland — adapted and thrived
• Must go to where users are: Facebook, Myspace, Second Life
• try this stuff — if it fails, it fails — go on to something else

Where Neurosciences and Pedagogy Intersect to Support Student Learning, Or, Learning, Emotion and Their Application for Teaching

• Overall, higher education is changing drastically and libraries are needed
• humans are programmed for learning
• always ask students to compare before contrasting
• having students consider an issue from different angles is important — cognitive flexiblity
• humans compare new information against previous knowledge — which can be “extremely wrong”
• humans need to have a logical explanation of observable phenomena
• humans make up connecting pieces when information is missing (not always correct information)
• learning actually changes the brain
• lecturing is NOT the way to teach
• learning occurs when senses, emotions are involved
• group learning, collaborative activities are best
• discussion promotes problem solving, retention, better understanding
• students must do the work
• people have limits in their ability to pay attention
• sleep is important to long-term memory creation (what happens when Wake the Library students cram?)
• Students are excellent judges of whether you care about them, their learning
• If they think you are on their side, pulling for them, opening doors for them, they will learn more

Designing a Library Environment that Promotes Learning/Build it and What?: Measuring the Implementaition and Outcomes of an Information Commons

• Again, best learning occurs when senses and emotions are involved
• Flexible common spaces are key — flexible so that users can rearrange furniture
• Check out Designing a Library Environment that Promotes Learning
• RIT Java Wally’s
• Idea Factory
• UA Tucson Information Commons

Get Blended: Injecting Instructional Desing and Technology Skills into Academic Library Jobs

see
The Blended Librarian

I’ll try to add more tomorrow to the blended librarian idea. Right now I’ve got to get some dinner and some sleep so I can be ready for my 7am breakfast meeting tomorrow!