Teaching Skills: Peer Support Course - Day 1

During the introduction on day 1, we emphasized the peer support element of the course. We felt it was important that participants learnt from each other.  Alongside this we asked that everyone contributed in order to get the most out of the program.

very confident----------------little confidence

Before starting we wanted to gauge participants experience in delivering teaching sessions and more importantly their confidence in teaching. as we wanted to measure their confidence after the course and 3-6 months later to see if there was a longitudinal improvement. We measured both experience and confidence using "string theory"; literally a long piece of string placed along the floor, one end being very experienced/confident and the other end being little experience/confidence.  We then asked participants to position themselves along the line and to write their name on a post it note, which we then collected up in order.

Our first session used a story technique developed by the English Faculty Library to identify who are students were, what their skills were and what we should teach them. The skills were then linked to ANCIL Information Literacy strands. There wasn't time to cover Information Literacy in depth but links were given to the main theories, such as ANCIL, SCONUL 7 Pillars, InformAll, etc, for participants to look at in their own time.

We then discussed the importance of learning styles in relation to the students learning and the way in which we choose to deliver our teaching sessions, as our own preferred learning style may have a bearing on our teaching.  We found out our own learning styles by using an activity example from Gravells, thinking about how you learned to use a new mobile phone.  This was a very quick and dirty method of demonstrating Honey & Mumford's learning styles: activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist and I felt it worked really well without taking up too much time. We also looked at what exercises went best with each style and that it was best to use a mixture whilst delivering our sessions, to ensure we included all the students.

The rest of the first day's content looked at lesson planning, smart objectives, teaching methods and session evaluation.  The importance of having a session plan was discussed in order to give structure and confidence by ensuring that all the elements of a session were thought about in advance. Catherine also mentioned that creating one standard plan and re-using it saved time overall.  Key elements to this were the the learning aims and objectives.  Aims should state the purpose of the session and the learning need being met.  Objectives show the students the knowledge they should be able to take away at the end of the session.  These should be:

SMART objectives

are they clearly defined?

how will you know they've been met?

can they be met by your participants?

do they relate to the aim and needs of the participant?

can they be achieved in the time available?






The merits of different types of teaching method, such as lectures, demonstrations, discussions and assorted practical activities were discussed among the participants as an interactive activity. Participants were asked to think of advantages and disadvantages of  using each one from both the teacher and learner perspective.

Assessment methods were also talked about, as its important to know how you will assess the learners knowledge.  This is sometimes something which is perhaps left out when designing library sessions due to time practicalities, so choosing something suitable is vital.  Practical activities, quizzes, discussions, question & answer and group work can all be done during the session with time given for feedback and explanations of the answers.  Online assessment, peer assessment and learner presentations take longer as preparation time is needed by either the teacher or learner.  However once set up, this type of assessment can give more useful feedback on how the learner has processed the information given.

We finally introduced the idea of reflective practice by asking the participants to reflect on the sessions they'd seen and the different speakers. We deliberately used a variety a speakers throughout the course, so participants were able to see different delivery styles and methods. We wanted participants to see that each person has their own unique presentation style and that it was possible to get ideas for teaching from watching other presentations and presenters.

The participants evaluation of the first day was very positive which we were pleased about, especially the fact that they had liked the variety of speakers.  The Story technique was also very popular, one participant said "it was inspiring and interesting".  The planning team felt this was a great interactive session which was different to the usual lecture style of delivery and we are hoping to use it again this summer if we re-run the course.

The things to improve we took away to work on for day 2 were; an activity audit of what was already being done within Cambridge, the use of too many post it notes and the positioning of the projector which meant we had to stand in front of the screen.  However these are all things which the participants in turn will need to think about when delivering their own sessions.  Handouts and whether to give them before or after a session seemed to be split into the yes and no camp.  I don't think there is any right or wrong answers, it just depends on the individuals taking your course on that particular day.


References
Gravells, 2013, The award in education and training, Sage.

Honey & Mumford, 2006, Learning Styles questionnaire: 40 item version, Peter Honey Publishing.

Teaching Skills: Peer Support Course - Introduction

The idea for the Teaching Skills: Peer Support course came about after I attended LILAC 2012.  I remember listening to one presentation about the teaching identity and how their library staff had a support group, where they read and discussed articles on teaching to help their development as teachers.  I realised that whilst we do have a support group for librarians within Cambridge through our Brown Bag lunches, where articles on a variety of topics are discussed, we didn't specifically have anything for teaching.  As more and more librarians are now being asked to teach information literacy sessions to students, teaching is quickly becoming associated with a librarians role, especially for subject librarians and departmental staff who demonstrate electronic resources to students.  Even inductions and library tours need a certain degree of confidence and teaching or public speaking ability in order to impart information on your library to students and visitors, etc.  However it's fair to say that although some librarians undertake brief teaching skills course organised by libraries, CILIP and CPD groups, teaching is not taught in depth at library school.  More and more librarians are undertaking a postgraduate diploma or MA course in Teaching and Learning, have a PGCE or B.Ed degree or undertake a teaching qualification at regional colleges.  There are also a number of librarians who do not have teaching qualifications. Therefore Librarians can find themselves adrift when faced with delivering inductions and teaching sessions on a variety of subjects, such as, information skills, search techniques or referencing software.

Being the Chair of the Librarians in Training Group at Cambridge also gave me an insight into what training our librarians requested.  Top of the list was always teaching skills, how to teach and presentation skills.  I thought that with all the expertise and experience in Cambridge we could put on a teaching skills course in-house.  The planning team was formed of both college and departmental librarians (Ryan Cronin, St Johns College; Isla Kuhn, Medical Library; Catherine Reid, Lucy Cavendish College (now Clare College) and myself, Kirstie Preest, Murray Edwards College), with some assistance from 3 guest speakers, also from within Cambridge libraries.

The course itself took a lot of organising and planning but this didn't seem too onerous with four team members.  The team members all had something different to contribute in light of their experience; academic, NHS, & schools and in the different skills we had, for example, advertising, writing, presenting, etc.  We envisaged the course as a pilot project upon which we could build further after the first year, so were keen to ensure that the course was fully evaluated by ourselves and the participants.  We also demonstrated this aspect in practice by evaluating each day ourselves and by asking participants to do the same. This enabled us to change the course as we went along, taking into account any feedback received.  We felt it was important to demonstrate the fluidity, flexibility and a requirement "to think on your feet" which is sometimes required during a teaching session, when things don't always go to plan.

Activity Audit of Information Literacy Sessions

Another example of this flexibility is that we had not planned on discovering what teaching already existed in Cambridge libraries, rather just concentrate on the teaching skills itself.  However our first day's feedback showed that participants wanted this information to see if any overlap occurred.  So armed with this knowledge Isla and I changed the format of day two and included a "teaching activity audit".  Not only did this allow us to show that changing your session with limited time was feasible, it also allowed us to gain some useful data on what teaching already existed.  The image shown, details some of the data collected.

The main aims of the program were to:

• Build confidence and skills for librarians involved in teaching
• Cover the whole process of a teaching session from planning through to evaluation and reflection
• Establish teaching peer support within Cambridge for librarians 

For a reflection on each day of the course please see the other blog posts in the series.