instructional role

March 23rd, 2011 • 1 comment library
Tags: comics, copyright, failure, instruction, language, lesson, lesson plan, libr535, mlis, oral english, performing, photocopying, pingouink, prezi, prosentient, public, refdesk, school, slais, teaching

When I taught English in China, I wasn’t a very good teacher. I did it though. It was a good experience, doing something I knew I was bad at, trying to get better, but not really knowing how. Me blundering along through failure for a couple of years was great for everyone. Except my students. And my self-esteem. Erm.

The thing is that when I got back to Canada and especially when I started working at a library reference desk I realized I’m not too shabby at one-on-one/small group instruction, especially when everyone is speaking the same language. It was teaching people to talk I was terrible at. But I still didn’t have a good handle on how to teach better or how to develop a lesson plan or anything like that.

So for me, my hands-down most useful class in my MLIS has been LIBR535: The Instructional Role of the Information Professional. The past couple of weeks we’ve been doing our short lessons and with actual guidance on how to do this stuff (simple guidance like “plan your lesson backwards from its objectives” and “making people physically do stuff is good because…”) I felt really good about it. And man oh man does it ever help when you’re teaching something you find interesting.
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first months of school recap

October 21st, 2010 • 1 comment library
Tags: afghanistan, assignment, canada afghanistan solidarity committee, censorship, faceted classification, google instant, librarians without borders, lwb@ubc, mlis, news, observation, powerpoint, refdesk, school, seminar, slais

Library school is going well. We’re over halfway through the term and I’ve done a few assignments and they’ve gone okay. I’m taking the “what I’ve learned is more important than the mark” approach so as not to stress out about things too badly, and it’s working out pretty well.

So far, I’ve done a news article review thingy about how Google Instant is an inconsistent censor (PDF link), an observation of reference interviews (PDF link), a seminar on censorship based on assigned readings (PDF link), a faceted classification of the performing arts (PDF link), and a PowerPoint presentation about nerd games. (I’m sorry if that last link doesn’t work for you; We had to do them in Office 2010. Here’s the page full of everyone’s not really library related presentations, if that makes it up to you.)

This weekend is going to be spent doing a bunch more stuff, but if you’re interested in what first-term MLIS assignments look like, there you go.

Also, in school related things, I’m the co-secretary of the UBC student chapter of Librarians Without Borders. Next week we’ve got a speaker coming in talking about a Library Initiative in Afghanistan, sponsored by the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee and we’ve had speakers talking about open access to data as well as building education centres in Nicaragua. I think it’s neat stuff.