Missing Person

Interesting use of a facebook.com flyer...

UPDATE: Oh, internet, you continue to shock me today. After Radiohead released their new album, In Rainbows, at a name-your-own price, one of my favorite magazines is doing the same. Subscribe to Paste at your own price (minimum $1, regularly $20) and get a really great, well written, well produced magazine for a price you think is fair.

What a good marketing campaign. I did let my old subscription lapse, because I'm moving soon and didn't want to mess with changing addresses, but with this new promotion, I signed right up at $11. I'll take it! I wouldn't have subscribed otherwise.

(Thanks, Metafilter, for another great link!)

Readings: Race, School Achievement, and Educational Inequality

Wiggan, G. (2007). Race, School Achievement, and Educational Inequality: Toward a Student-Based Inquiry Perspective. Review of Educational Research 77(3), pp. 310-333.

I love the Review of Educational Research. I love review articles in general. As someone who is stepping into a new role as liaison to the College of Education and the department of Political Science, review articles provide needed summaries of the major research topics in the disciplines I am going to support.

What I love about both Education and Political Science especially is the readability of these articles. Greg Wiggan's piece was tight, succinct, and very well written, making it an easy read on the bus to work this morning.

Plot summary:

• Researchers have tried to explain the gap between white and black K-12 students in academic achievement primarily through four explanations: genetic differences across the races, the family and community environments students grow up in, the expectations teachers have for students of different races, and finally, students' opposition to the culture they encounter at school versus the culture they are embedded in at home.
• Of these four, the first three are deterministic - the students themselves are at the mercy of some external factor (genetics, society, or teachers, respectively). Only the last assumes the students themselves are agents in their own development.
• Wiggan makes a case for analyzing students' own perspectives on what achievement is, the competency of their teachers and the quality of their own education - up until this point, researchers have only been using students to confirm or refute theories - students have not had participatory power in the research process. Their voices have largely been marginalized. By placing importance in the responses students provide to questions about teacher competency, the meaning of 'achievement', and other research questions, we will be gaining a better understanding of how students interact at school, at home, in their communty, with standardized tests, and more.

Reactions:

• As mentioned in the article, it seems like achievement is something that is hard to define. I imagine many of the articles and studies Wiggan referred to define what achievement is for their own purposes, but it makes it difficult to compare studies with varying methodologies - heck, even with the SAME methodologies!
• There's a move to focus on the students themselves in research. I wonder how some of these studies analyze the interviews they conduct with the students, and what they're learning about students' own view of their achievement. Do low performing students simply believe that academic achievement isn't valuable? Does it seem unattainable?
• At the core of this article is the problem of racism and poverty; these social issues don't just affect education - they affect people's entire lives. For minority students, is academic achievement a way out of poverty? For those same students, does academic achievement SEEM like a way out, or just seem like accepting the academic culture as more valid than their own culture?

I'm going to start reading more of these articles in hopes of finding some things that spark my interest. After moving to Texas, finding a house, having a kid, I'm going to seriously think about doing a little more research (a.k.a. getting a PhD). But I want what I do to be directly applicable to practitioners - mainly, librarians, educators, parents.

Articles like these are highly accessible. It's been a while since I've read anything outside the library and information science field - this was refreshing.

Librarian with a Latte Update

So I logged into my Meebo account this morning to see if any of my friends were online, and I had three messages waiting for me upon log in! See the example below...



How do students find my IM account? They come to my course subject guides through their CTools site! On the chat page there, I have my own personal Meebo widget, but also a widget that connects them with librarians through our library's Ask Us service.

Sample Librarian with a Latte Communication

Just sent this to a COMM 101 class:

Hey!

Your COMM 101 proposal is due on Tuesday, October 30th (the week after next). By then, you'll need to have written a 1-page synopsis of what you're planning to write about **and** submit a list of six *scholarly* articles about your topic.

So, to help you get your six (and maybe more!), I'll be at Espresso Royale on SOUTH UNIVERSITY (the one by the arch, not the one on State) during these times to help:

Tuesday next week, October 23rd, 1 - 3pm
Thursday next week, October 25th, 6:30 - 8:30pm
Sunday next week, October 28th, 5 - 7pm

I'll have a laptop, and we can sit down, talk about what your topic is, and find articles for it. If we don't find much, we can work on revising your topic.

Too freaking good to be true, right? Well, for one, I don't buy your coffee. So forget about it. :)

Second, it does get kinda crowded. Because of that, e-mail me at efrierso@umich.edu and let me know which date you're coming, and what time you think you might show. I might ask that you come a little later if it sounds like a lot of people are going to be there.

Appointments are *not* required, you can just show up - but if I'm busy with someone, I can't guarantee I'll be able to help everyone.

Eric (the COMM Studies Librarian)

I'll post and let you know how it turns out. Last semester, for this same group, I have over 30 show up all at the same time to the session. There are some differences this semester:

• The communication comes directly from me, not the instructor.
• There are 3 scheduled sessions, not 1.
• I ask for them to let me know when they're coming, so I can prevent overcrowding and do more individualized reference.

I hope it rocks their socks off!

E

I Heart CMS's

You know what would make me a more pro-active, effective librarian? If I had access to the syllabi, assignments and reading lists of the classes in the Communication Studies department. You know what would be even cooler? If I had the ability to e-mail all the students in a class to let them know I was available to help. If I could put a link to a course-specific subject guide specially made for them into their Blackboard/WebCT/CTools site.

Wouldn't it be great if I had all that access? If I had that kind of access, I wouldn't need to rely on faculty to pass along messages from me or add links to library resources...

Oh wait. I do have the access!

This semester, CTools (an implementation of Sakai) unveiled the 'Librarian' role. If a faculty member adds me to their CTools site in this role, I have the permissions to edit the class site I need to connect students with the help and resources they need for their classes.

Every COMM class has a CTools site - each of those sites has at minimum the syllabus, and most have all of the assignments and readings students are required to do right there. Here's what I can do:

• I can read the syllabus to get an idea of what each class covers.
• I can see all the assignments my students are going to be graded on.

How does this help?

• I can create course-specific subject guides (example, example, example) that identify the best resources for a class's focus, scope and subject matter.
• I can plan librarian with a latte sessions that fall in the days before assignment deadlines.

I also have access to edit the CTools site. How does this help?

• I can put a link to the aforementioned subject guides in the CTools site (see screenshot).
• I can put in a link to our library's chat reference service.
• I can e-mail students when a librarian with a latte session happens.

If your institution lets you do this kind of thing, do it! I'm wondering what my new institution's course management system is, and if I'll be able to do the same things...

Lesson Study in Libraries

Did I post about Lesson Study yet? Even if I did, I have to post about it again, because it's *freakin awesome*. Marija Freeland, the Education librarian here at UM, brought it up at a meeting about a year ago, and since then, we've used Lesson Study to write, revise, and perfect a couple of modules teaching librarians can use when they go out to do library instruction (or b.i., or whatever).

Here's how it works:

• We form a group of people (any title, any affiliation) with an interest in instruction in libraries.
• We pick a topic (so far at UM, we've done "Incorporating RefWorks instruction into typical library instruction", "Making sense of Search Tools, a 30-minute module", and this semester we're doing "Critical evaluation of sources.")
• We meet once to brainstorm ideas about the topic... How long it should be, what knowledge/skills we want students to walk away with, and a very, very rough outline for the lesson plan.
• One person volunteers to write up the first lesson plan using the discussion at the lesson study meeting as a guideline. The same person then teaches the lesson to a class of students.
• The class is told that the lesson is still being worked on, and after the session, they're asked to provide feedback: what worked, what didn't?
• The other members of the Lesson Study group observe the class and the students. Their goal is not to critique the instructor, but the structure of the lesson plan.
• The group meets again, reviews student feedback and observations, and work together to revise and improve the lesson plan.
• Someone NEW teaches the lesson the next time to another group of students while other members observe and students provide feedback.
• Repeat until satisfied with the lesson plan.

Benefits:

• An AWESOME lesson plan that's been tried and tested and worked on by many minds with many perspectives.
• Creating the lesson plan is a shared responsibility - when you volunteer to write and teach a version of the plan, you're not under the microscope: the lesson plan we all create together is. This takes the pressure of doing all the work yourself and being judged away.
• We get to share perspectives and experiences - since we all come from different backgrounds, we may have a different view of the topics we're trying to teach... The strength in the diversity of our own group is that we'll create a lesson plan that addresses a wide array of experiences and backgrounds. This, in the end, benefits our diverse student population.

Marija, Shevon Desai, and I wrote a piece for C&RL News last May about it. We've also developed a website to post our results.

Upcoming is a Lesson Study on the critical evaluation of sources. I'm excited about this one - we're not teaching any specific tool like we have in the past; instead, we're teaching an idea. Should make for an interesting lesson plan.

Oh, and FYI, I'm leaving UM in December. Stacey, my spouse, is graduating from the School of Social Work here, and two days later, we're in a Penske truck heading back to Texas. I'll be the new Education & Political Science librarian at the University of Texas Arlington library.

(p.s. i didn't want to start off this post with 'sorry i haven't written in a while', but sorry i haven't written in a while. you know how septembers go.)

a working definition (snicker)

i was responding to brian's comment when i realized i hadn't posted in a while. then my response got longer than a 'comment' should be, so i've posted it in full here. You know, to fill my blogging quota for the week. I'm such a slacker.

read brian's comment on third spaces: libraries.

the way i read "work" here was the place you go to earn money or do a job, not college homework. i consider my public library my third space -- when i get tired of being at home, and i'm not at work, i prefer to leave those two spaces and go somewhere else to surf the web, have a coffee, work on a website.. there's that word again: work. Not $$$ work, but doing stuff work.

In that scenario, I think you might be thinking of the library in the same way I am. "libraries are where the work gets done" -- unless you're suggesting that all students are employed by the library, then I think we're in agreement here.

being social doesn't mean no work can happen either. in fact, in my opinion, social interactions ARE how people learn. in addition, by providing spaces that don't require heavy thinking all the time, we define ourselves as a multipurpose place. Students don't have to be explicitly thinking about doing an assignment or research to come to the library. They could be interested in finding a travel guide for their spring break destination. They could go just to use the computers for Facebooking, hoping to run into real-life friends. They could be fiending for caffeine and choose the library over a coffee shop because there are computer terminals, and they've got to start on their assignment anyway.

I guess another big argument comes from this: how much space do we need anymore? I look at Texas - they've gutted all books from their Undergraduate Library. More stacks are being cleared for study spaces. Would it be inconceivable to put some of that space to use doing these kinds of things?

It all depends on your campus, I guess, and the types of students you have. If they never socialize while they do classwork, or prefer to work in quiet, scholarly spaces when they work, then sure, I agree, keep the cafe away. But that's not how I work. I like buzz around me. I like to sit in coffee shops to do my blogging (what I consider non-$$$ work, I guess. as close as I get to a class assignment). At the same time, I would love to be interrupted by friends just to chat. Maybe chatter will turn into a conversation about what I'm blogging about, then my work is better because of this chance encounter. The coffee shop as third space is the reason this interaction happened.

i don't think libraries should just be big video game arcades. nor do i think that we should ditch the quiet study spaces or all of our collections. but there's value in casual interaction, in thinking of the library as a destination to "just do it" - to just hang out - but I don't think that this kind of space precludes doing assignments. i think it encourages it by bringing people together who are all doing assignments.

Meet for coffee? Ok! Oh, did you finish that paper? Where'd you find your resources?

Do the library's video game tournament? Right on, I'm there. --- then later, "How do I find a scholarly article? I'll ask that librarian who did DDR the other night." (link: so embarrassing. i obviously have never done DDR before. can you tell? thanks josh morse for recording.)