Donald Schön coined the term "swampy lowlands" to describe messy, complex problems in professional practice that cannot be solved through technical solutions alone. Action research involves practitioners using reflection to solve immediate problems and engage in progressive problem-solving. For librarians, real-world interactions with students often involve swampy lowland situations that contrast with planned instruction. Reflective practice, including reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, can help librarians make sense of experiences and inform theory. Examples from teaching information literacy show how reflecting on unexpected student needs or search results led to improved understanding and instruction. Overall, reflection is crucial for connecting different contexts and developing situational understanding to help students navigate complex

1. L2L
Being a Librarian in
the
“Swampy Lowlands”

2. Mapping the
swamp
• Personal reflection on one of the key
emerging themes from L2L project
• Define ‘swampy lowlands’
• Define action research
• Define reflective practice
– Reflection in Action
– Reflection on Action
• Examples of swampy lowlands
• Concluding remarks

3. Swampy lowlands
"The swampy lowlands, where situations
are confusing messes incapable of
technical solution and usually involve
problems of greatest human concern“
-Donald Schön 1983
Schön developed critical reflection as a
strategy for learning from practice to
solve complex situations that require
problem solving skills and a degree of
artistry.

4. Swampy lowlands
“Schön used the term ‘swampy
lowlands’ to refer to the messy,
confusing problems of professional
practice, he was referring to those
problems that cannot be solved
through the use of research-based
theory and technique.”
-Jean McNiff

5. Action Research for
Professional Development
• Real world Research
– Action based / done by practitioners
• Views Higher Education as ‘work place’
– No distinction between academics/practitioners
• Action research solves an immediate problem or
is a reflective process of progressive problem
solving
• …led by individuals working with others in teams
or as part of a "community of practice" to
improve the way they address issues and solve
problems.

6. Theory-Practice gap
Library staff who ‘teach’ and interact with
needs of users - deal with ‘messy’
situations
Real world situations contrast with and
often throw our best laid plans into
disarray
• How is it possible to use IL strategy or
standardised curriculum in messy
situations?
• Can we inform/create theory from the
‘lowlands’ upwards to high ground of
academic theory?

7. Inverted theory
building
• Forget set curriculum or scripts
• Use threshold concepts (ACRL
Framework for Information Literacy for
Higher Education)
• Requires more class preparation
• Devising methods of reading the
classroom
– Discussions with lecturers and students,
listening…
– Using discursive techniques (Thought
experiments etc.)
• Making time for reflection on actions

8. Finding pathways in
“Swampy Lowlands”
• Action Research
Requires
• Reflective Practice

9. "By three methods we may learn wisdom:
• First, by reflection, which is noblest;
• Second, by imitation, which is easiest;
• Third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
- Confucius
"Acquire new knowledge whilst thinking over the old,
and you may become a teacher of others.“
- Confucius
Reflection

10. How does reflection help in
professional development?
• Reflection helps connect different
concepts and contexts to already
established theories
“We do not learn from experience. We learn
from reflecting on experience.” (Dewey 1933)
• Experience alone does not necessarily lead
to learning; it is the reflection that makes
sense of the experience to us and hence
makes the experience meaningful for us.

11. Reflective
Practitioner
• Reflection in action
– synthesis of knowing and doing
(difficult to quantify)
• Reflection on action
– retrospective contemplation of
practice

12. Reflection on Action
Different models to choose from

13. Reflection in Action
• Reflection in action means to think about or
reflect while you are carrying out the activity.
• Experienced educators think outward to the
needs of the students
• For the expert, not only situational
understandings spring to mind, but also
associated appropriate actions.
• (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986)

14. Tales from the
swamp

15. 2 tall tales
• In a classroom
• the search engine Google was
not enough as research tool
• its algorithm was little more
than a popularity contest, not a
consideration of quality.
• Demonstration search
• Critiqued the results page from
Google, (usually saying that
Wikipedia entry was high up in
the rankings, just because it was
the most visited page- Page
Ranking).
• But on this occasion I decided
to google the class’s actual
course title: “digital humanities”
• A student wanted the
best place to find
information on a very
local topic. (The
evolution of Rugby in a
particular locality in
Limerick)
• No sources fitted his
requirements
• After long sessions
realised that he needed
to conduct interviews
with club
• This process of
information creation was
his assignment
– Got a 1st!

16. - “Was I saying that the quality of DkIT as returned by google was not of
sufficient quality?”
- Resolved to some more research on this (through google) and discovered the TED talk by Eli
Pariser on Filter Bubbles. i.e. google algorithmic edit of search results to personalise results set.
- This led to a more nuanced critique of search engines in my classes!

17. Situational
understanding
• ‘When someone reflects-in-action, he
becomes a researcher in the practice context.
He is not dependent on the categories or
established theory and technique, but
constructs a new theory of the unique case’.
• Schön (1983)

18. Situational
understanding
• IL theory
• Experience and reflection
• Students needs (Empathy)

19. Empathy
• ..putting yourself in the shoes of
another..
• Teaching IL is an empathic transaction
• Making meaning is dialogic process:
“In IL we must not proceed as if there is
some generic rule based concept of
information but understand what
meanings students are looking for in the
linguistic community or domain in which
they are researching.(Hjørland, 2004)

20. Empathy
• Student: “Is there a single word to live my life by?”
• Confucius: “That would be empathy… perhaps.
What you do not wish for yourself, don’t do to
others.
• Confucius “Analects”
• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
• Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 7:12)

21. Concluding Remarks
• It seems that we are all in Schon’s
Swampy lowlands in educative process
• Whether you are an Academic or Non-
academic doesn’t matter to students
seeking directions out of their Swampy
lowlands

22. Thank You