Notes from a Bibliographic Instruction meeting.

There were four presenters at the Metro Bibliographic Instruction Special Interest Group meeting on March 12th: Elaine Maldonado from the FIT Center for Excellence in Teaching, Jennifer Yao from Gimbel Library, Darcy Gervasio from Purchase College Library, and Frederick Lopez from St. Francis College Library. Each presenter stood at a podium before the group of library professionals and gave a 20-30 minute presentation, accompanied by Powerpoint slides. The subject of the lectures was how to improve library instruction.

Elaine Maldonado started off the presentations. She pointed out what teachers should not do such as: dump a load of information on a student all at once, simply stick to the lecture model that our teachers used on us, even lightly shame a student, or lean too much on technology. She reminded us that students are often smarter than the teacher and we need to teach students the tools to learn as well as the information itself.
Ms. Maldonado then emphasized the importance of getting the students involved in the process of learning. She said that students retain more information through peer-to-peer interactions, performing a process themselves, or performing an activity. Lectures should be very short, librarians should use different strategies during each class, and assess each class with improvements in mind.

Jenny Yao offered tips and strategies that she had picked up from years of library instruction sessions. Her presentation dovetailed nicely with the earlier lecture by Ms. Maldonado, since Ms. Yao gave real world examples of some of the strategies that the earlier presenter advocated. Of particular interest to me were the activities she developed and tested. She divides the class into three teams and plays a version of Jeopardy with library categories, such as “Faq’s and “the Catalog”. The game was built in Powerpoint. She also presented a handout which asked students to go through the task of finding a journal, reading the first page, and answering a question.

Darcy Gervasio began her presentation on technological disasters with her own war story. In a presentation in library school on Refworks and Zotero, the internet went out. She reversed the order of her presentation and talked about adding citations to a bibliography first, since the demonstration bibliography was stored on her computer. She advised librarians not to panic if anything goes wrong and to think about alternatives. If the catalog goes down, use Worldcat instead. If the internet goes down, take the class on a library tour, use print sources, or ask everyone to use their smart-phone. Gervasio also advised that before the class we have a backup plan ready.

Frederick Lopez gave the last presentation, which was about how to deal with disruptive students. Many of his strategies would work better for teachers who saw students more often than once a semester. His idea of asking the students who come last to sit in the front of the class I thought was brilliant. It would get the students who may be slightly less engaged up at the front of the room without obviously penalizing their tardiness. He advised that if a student is falling asleep you can call on them to answer a question that they will probably be able to answer correctly. He also asked librarians to remember to listen to their problematic students and try to engage them in exercises.

The presenters practice what they teach. The powerpoint presentations were colorful and well illustrated. Ms. Gervasio engaged her listeners by asking for technology disaster stories. Each was careful to ask whether everyone in the class could hear her. Dividing the meeting into four short presentations broke up the time, and made it easier to concentrate and learn.

For the next class that I teach I think that I need to:

• Ask the students what they want to learn. (Maybe through the teacher before class.)
• Further limit the amount of time that I spend lecturing.
• Ask the students to go through a search for themselves.
• Ask who in the class knows the material and ask that they demonstrate.
• Think about new activities such as jeopardy.
• Come up with a plan in case technology fails me.
• Bring some print periodicals to class.
• See if I can’t record myself teaching.