Ask the Masses: Professor Says Students Need It but Won't Use It Later

We are posting a few of the questions from the Solution or Sympathy portion of the IL Interest Group session held during the spring 2015 IPAL Conference. There were several wonderful questions that were submitted but, unfortunately, we ran out of time to discuss them all. Leave your solution or sympathy response in the comments and help keep the great sharing going!

Criminal justice professor asking for a “primary/secondary” sources lesson when he’s not sure why. Just that they “must” know it without the department ever using those terms. (Language/vocabulary prof. is using not matching what they’ll need in the future.)

Share your ideas in the comments!

Building Your Instruction Toolkit ILA/ACRL 2015

The Activity
Pair off and share an instruction strategy, technique or lesson plan with each other. Find another pair and share again.

The Recap

Please share  your ideas in the iLOVE Ongoing Repository (info. here: http://bit.ly/ipalinstructionswap) or email bcanovan@dbq.edu any details, manipulatives, or resources to add to our Evernote instruction database. 

The Activity

How do you brainstorm your instruction? What do you consider first? How do you balance faculty

expectations and the realities of time & student skill development?

The Recap

Did I miss something or do you have something to add to the conversation? Share it in the comments below!

Circuit Training IPAL 2015

The Activity
Explore your choice of 5 different stations, then switch to another area of interest when the bell rings. Stations included:

• Instruction - Getting to "Go!:" brainstorm teaching ideas, discuss where you get your inspiration, and how you get past instruction "writer's block"
• Instruction - Bells & Whistles: discuss manipulatives/learning objects for inspiration, flipped classrooms and other strategies & activities
• Computers vs. Non-Computers: when is it best to walk away from computers? How do you work when you're not in a computer lab?
• Potpourri: just like on Jeopardy, it's a little bit of everything from assessment to accreditation, formal/informal ideas, great tools & technology, closing the gap, sharing information with students or instructors, and anything else you happen to think of!
• Beyond Instruction: brainstorming professional development for librarians and ways to provide development for faculty, workshop offerings, sharing scholarship, and strategies for reflection and improvement

The Recap
There were several wonderful ideas that were shared during the Circuit Training session; you can find the notes from the various stations in the embedded document below. Did I miss something or do you have something to add to the conversation? Share it in the comments below!

Solution or Sympathy IPAL & ILA/ACRL 2015

The Activity

Write down (or share) instruction/library-related questions or concerns. Share the questions anonymously to see if the group has experienced something similar. Offer up possible solutions, or sympathize, and let the person who submitted the question know that at least they're not alone. 

The Recap
I'm so glad we were able to try out the Solution or Sympathy activity this year! It's wonderful sharing ideas and visiting about struggles and successes. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion! After Thursday's discussions, we thought utilizing the unconference time during Friday's ILA/ACRL conference to continue the conversation would be helpful, and it was so nice to have that extra time to share and discuss. You can find notes from both days below -- Did I miss something or do you have something to add to the conversation? Add it in the comments below!

There were several wonderful questions that were submitted during the Thursday morning IPAL session but, unfortunately, we ran out of time to discuss them all. We are sharing those as Ask the Masses posts over the next several weeks, so check back in regularly (or follow the blog in your RSS) and comment with your ideas.

IPAL IL Interest Group Solution or Sympathy

ILA/ACRL Unconference Solution or Sympathy