The Mindful Instruction
Librarian and the “One-Shot”
Meredith Farkas
Portland Community College
Association of Christian Librarians Conference | June 13, 2016

Hi! I’m Meredith
Faculty Librarian at Portland Community College and
part-time faculty at San Jose State University’s iSchool
Previously
Head of Instructional Services, Portland State
University
Head of Instructional Initiatives, Norwich University
(VT)
Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University (VT)

What we’re going to talk about
Limitations of one-shot instruction
Extending the one-shot and infusing information literacy
into the curriculum
Meaningful assessment
Reflective practice and peer learning for instructional
improvement
The Framework for Information Literacy and its impact on
our practice

What does your instruction
program look like?

Issues with the one-shot

Time
constraints
The need to
focus on just a
few things in
the session

We don’t know
where students are
in their learning
Students don’t
know what they
don’t know

What is covered is
often out of sync
with where
students are

Students are
coming into a
foreign context
The difficulties in
building rapport

The
difficulties in
building on
anything we
do

Alternatives to the one-shot
Flipped instruction
Workshops
Sequenced, scaffolded library instruction across a course or a
series of courses
Disciplinary faculty also teach information literacy
Being embedded in a class
Co-teaching
For-credit information literacy courses

What does your instruction program look
like and what would you like it to look like?
Embedded in the curriculum or dependent on
individual instructors?
Intentional or “by request”?
Mostly one-shots? For-credit? Embedded? Scaffolded?
What does your instruction program’s assessment
work look like?

The keys to meaningful
embedment of information literacy
Build strong relationships with faculty and
departments
Get on committees, join faculty discussion
groups/communities of practice/etc.
Get involved in curriculum development/
design and review
Don’t just focus on library goals

An example at PCC: Developmental
Education and Composition/Lit
Most of our students go through the Reading/Writing
course sequence (RD 115, WR 121, WR 122)
Library activities
Participating in department meetings
Participating on Dev. Ed. redesign committees
Participating in RD/WR community of practice
Speaking at teaching and learning symposia

The results of that work
Lots of great collaborations with faculty and opportunities to try
new methods of instruction
Close embedment of information literacy in Reading 115 classes.
Working with disciplinary faculty to develop information
literacy video tutorials (more on that later)
Course outcomes for new Integrated Reading/Writing 115 class
include information literacy
We are always invited into conversations about curriculum and
pedagogy now

My experience with flipped
instruction: Web-based pre-
assignments that teach and assess

The specifics
Can be created in Google Forms or Qualtrics
(even Survey Monkey would work)
Text and video that teach skills; activities that
allow students to practice those skills
Students do authentic research on their own
research topic

The secret sauce
Pre-assignment is required (for a grade)
Instruction session is developed based on the
results of the worksheet

The results
My understanding is increased
My instruction is more tailored
I can cover more ground / less DB demoing
Students are more engaged
Students directly benefit from the assessment

The Challenges
Having enough lead time
Getting faculty on-board
Having time to analyze the results

Tutorial integration
A solution to the problem of teaching
the right things at the wrong time

Tutorials
Integrate into classes via faculty outreach
Have students watch in-class at logical points
in their learning
Have students watch as homework with an
activity that has them practice those skills
Have students watch before library session
(perhaps with a library pre-assignment)

At PCC
Grant to build video tutorials to support
Reading, Writing, and ESOL classes at the 100
and pre-100 levels
Working collaboratively with faculty to
develop learning outcomes, get feedback on
storyboards, etc.
Meant to supplement library instruction

Building Toolkits and
Training the Trainers

At Portland State university in the
Freshman Inquiry (FRINQ) program
Developed learning objects and activities that address most
important outcomes for Freshman Inquiry
Created LibGuides toolkit to support faculty and peer-mentors
in teaching information literacy beyond our one-or-two-shot
Train-the-trainer
Participated in orientations for peer mentors and faculty in-
service
Consulted with faculty and peer-mentors to create custom
lesson plans

Step 2 of PCC tutorial grant project
Build a toolkit to package tutorials with
activities, lesson plans, etc. for faculty
Work on outreach and communication for
faculty

Influencing student information
literacy through assignment design

Learning Assessment Council’s
College Writing Assessment

Advanced Design Process
Led by Center for Online Learning
instructional designers
For programs and departments, not individuals
Focused on backwards design
Library gets four hours
2 hrs. using library resources in classes
2 hrs. research assignment design

What skills do your students need to have
to successfully complete your current
assignment?
Which of those do you explicitly teach?

After the Advanced Design
Workshops
Quarterly library workshops on assignment
design for faculty
Hampered by low attendance
Discussions with GenEd Writing Coordinator
to create a FRINQ Model Research/Writing
Assignment Repository

Discussion
Where do you see opportunities at
your institution for doing some of this
work and going beyond the one-shot?
What would it take to make it happen?

Assessment and the
One-Shot

Assessment fallacies
Assessment must objectively measure student
information literacy skills (iSkills, etc.)
Assessment is a measure of how well we did as
instructors
We can isolate the librarian’s/library's contribution
to student information literacy
Assessment must happen during the one-shot to be
useful

Types of assessment
Self-assessment
Satisfaction survey
Reflection
Tests / quizzes
Analyzing student work (papers, portfolios, bibliographies, etc.)
Classroom assessment techniques / performance assessment
Action research

Assessment in the one-shot
Formative assessments / pre-assignments
Self-assessment
Satisfaction survey
Reflection
One-minute papers
Performance assessments

Assessment beyond the one-shot
Self-assessment throughout the course
Reflection at the end of the term
Assessing student work
Action research

Building a culture of instructional
assessment
Start small, where the light is good; build short-term wins
Start from a place of curiosity
Don’t make it about individual results or judgment
People need time to learn about assessment, experiment
with assessment, analyze results, and learn from
assessment
Learn together, share results

Reflective Practice and Peer
Learning for Instructional
Improvement

What do you do after you teach a
class?

Take the time to reflect!
What went well?
What didn’t?
What made you feel uncomfortable?
What made you feel great?
What would you like to do differently next time?
What do you want to remember for the next time you
work with that instructor?

Learning and reflection are
amplified in a learning
community

Ways to learn together
Instructional observation
Reflective Peer Coaching
Community of Practice
Which is best and how these are structured
depend on your setting/culture.

Instructional observation
Colleagues watch each other teach
Can involve pre-session discussion, debrief,
and/or constructive suggestions or not

Reflective Peer Coaching
“Examines intentions prior to teaching and reflections afterwards.”
- Dale Vidmar
Pairs meet once before a session to discuss goals
Pairs meet after the session to debrief
Focused on reflection and questioning, not suggesting or advising
Vidmar’s model includes an observer who makes sure that the pair
is focused on questioning, not suggesting or advising and makes
note of interesting comments
Vidmar, Dale J. “Reflective peer coaching: Crafting collaborative self-assessment in teaching.” Research Strategies 20.3
(2005): 135-148.

Community of Practice
“We need others to complement and develop our own expertise.”
- Etienne Wenger
Focused on learning, not work
Purposes
Workshop instructional ideas/problems/sessions
Journal club
Discuss information literacy issues
Etc.

The Framework for Information
Literacy for Higher Education

-Information Literacy Competency Standards for
Higher Education
“Information literacy is a set of
abilities requiring individuals to
‘recognize when information is
needed and have the ability to locate,
evaluate, and use effectively the
needed information.’”

The InfoLit Competency Standards
Defined what an information literate student looked like
through outcomes — things they could do
Examples:
“Explores general information sources to increase familiarity with the
topic”
“Identifies keywords, synonyms and related terms for the information
needed”
“Recognizes prejudice, deception, or manipulation”
“Selects an appropriate documentation style and uses it consistently to
cite sources”

Is information literacy just a set of mechanical
skills that students can quickly learn?
Does it include dispositions, affect, and habits
of mind?
What about curiosity? Help-seeking? Persistence?

-Learning the Ropes: How Freshmen Conduct Course
Research Once They Enter College
“It was daunting to conduct online
searches for academic literature.
Nearly three-fourths of the sample
(74%) said they struggled with
selecting keywords and formulating
efficient search queries.”

Framework for Information
Literacy for Higher Education
“ Two added elements illustrate important
learning goals related to those concepts:
knowledge practices, which are demonstrations
of ways in which learners can increase their
understanding of these information literacy
concepts, and dispositions, which describe
ways in which to address the affective,
attitudinal, or valuing dimension of learning. ”

Examples of “dispositions” from
the Framework
“develop and maintain an open mind when encountering varied and
sometimes conflicting perspectives”
“value intellectual curiosity in developing questions and learning new
investigative methods”
“value persistence, adaptability, and flexibility and recognize that
ambiguity can benefit the research process”
“seek appropriate help when needed”
“exhibit mental flexibility and creativity”
“understand that first attempts at searching do not always produce
adequate results”

The Framework is structured
around “Threshold Concepts”
“Core ideas and processes that define the ways of thinking and practicing for
a discipline, but are so ingrained that they often go unspoken or
unrecognized by practitioners.”
Characteristics
Transformative
Troublesome
Irreversible
Integrative
Bounded
Townsend, L., Brunetti, K., & Hofer, A. R. (2011). Threshold concepts and information literacy. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 11(3), 853-869.

Framework for Information
Literacy for Higher Education
Defines six threshold concepts central to information literacy
Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
Information Creation as a Process
Information Has Value
Research as Inquiry
Scholarship as Conversation
Searching as Strategic Exploration

The Framework is flexible
“Neither the knowledge practices nor the
dispositions that support each concept are intended
to prescribe what local institutions should do in
using the Framework; each library and its partners
on campus will need to deploy these frames to best
fit their own situation, including designing learning
outcomes. For the same reason, these lists should not
be considered exhaustive.”

This is a big shift for some,
not so big for others

We can’t do this alone and the
Framework sees information literacy
instruction as a partnership

How do we know they are information
literate? Student reflection is critical

Threshold Concepts Golden
Line Activity

Choose one of the concepts from
the Framework
Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
Information Creation as a Process
Information Has Value
Research as Inquiry
Scholarship as Conversation
Searching as Strategic Exploration

After a close reading, select
at least one phrase that
speaks to you.

How can the framework
inform our teaching?

Let’s Assess!
1. Something useful you learned or thought
more about today
2. Something you wish was covered in
more depth or at all

Questions? Comments?
Challenges?
Meredith Farkas
meredith.farkas [at] pcc.edu
Blog: meredith.wolfwater.com
Twitter: librarianmer
Slides available at

Selected Readings
The entire 7.2 (2013) and especially 9.2 (2015) issues of Communications in Information Literacy.
Brasley, Stephanie Sterling. “Effective librarian and discipline faculty collaboration models for
integrating information literacy into the fabric of an academic institution.” New Directions for Teaching
and Learning 2008.114 (2008): 71-88.
Bravender, Patricia, McClure, Hazel, and Schaub, Gayle. Teaching Information Literacy Threshold
Concepts : Lesson Plans for Librarians. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries,
A Division of the American Library Association, 2015.
Dempsey, Paula R., and Heather Jagman. "“I Felt Like Such a Freshman”: First-Year Students Crossing
the Library Threshold." portal: Libraries and the Academy 16.1 (2016): 89-107.
Fister, Barbara. “Fostering information literacy through faculty development.” Library Issues: Briefings
for Faculty and Administrators 29.4 (2009).
Head, Alison J. "Learning the ropes: How freshmen conduct course research once they enter college."
Project Information Literacy (2013).
Hofer, Amy R., Lori Townsend, and Korey Brunetti. "Troublesome concepts and information literacy:
Investigating threshold concepts for IL instruction." portal: Libraries and the Academy 12.4 (2012): 387-405.

Selected Readings (cont’d)
Kvenild, Cassandra, and Kaijsa Calkins, Ed. Embedded Librarians: Moving Beyond One-Shot Instruction. Chicago:
Association of College and Research Libraries, 2011.
Oakleaf, Megan. "A roadmap for assessing student learning using the new framework for information literacy for
higher education." The Journal of Academic Librarianship 5.40 (2014): 510-514.
Oakleaf, Megan, and Neal Kaske. "Guiding questions for assessing information literacy in higher education." portal:
Libraries and the Academy 9.2 (2009): 273-286.
Oakleaf, Megan, Michelle S. Millet, and Leah Kraus. "All together now: getting faculty, administrators, and staff
engaged in information literacy assessment." portal: Libraries and the Academy 11.3 (2011): 831-852.
Olivares, Olivia. 2010. The sufficiently embedded librarian: Defining and establishing productive librarian-faculty
partnerships in academic libraries. Public Services Quarterly 6 : 140.
Swanson, Troy A., and Jagman, Heather. Not Just Where to Click : Teaching Students How to Think about
Information. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries, a Division of the American Library
Association, 2015. Print. ACRL Publications in Librarianship ; No. 68.
Townsend, Lori, Korey Brunetti, and Amy R. Hofer. "Threshold concepts and information literacy." portal: Libraries
and the Academy 11.3 (2011): 853-869.
Vidmar, Dale J. "Reflective peer coaching: Crafting collaborative self-assessment in teaching." Research Strategies 20.3
(2005): 135-148.

Image credits
Clock https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/14272872595/
Arthur Samuel Atkinson https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
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Time https://www.flickr.com/photos/darthmauldds/16423793317/
Woolworth Building under construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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Girl child fish reflection https://pixabay.com/en/girl-child-fish-reflection-953408/
Mad Men http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2015_04_01_archive.html
Question mark cloud https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsi-r/4767700249