Jessica: Welcome to episode number five of The Librarian’’s Guide to Teaching Podcast! I'm Jessica…
Amanda: And I’m Amanda. Jessica: So on today's episode we're going to be talking about classroom management and some of the different tips that we’ve used or that we might try in the future or recommend. But before we get started with our topic, how are you doing anything? Anything exciting going on? Amanda: I’m doing great! Yea, it’s week 11 in our 15 week semester so things are winding up and also winding down at the same time. I'm done with my in-class instruction for the semester but I'm doing a lot of behind-the-scenes things right now. So I previously talked about modules that are being created to be embedded into classes so all of those projects are starting to come to a close and they're really coming together. So I’m super excited about actually meeting with the faculty to share the final finished products. What about you? Jessica: Well you know, on a personal note, just prepping for Thanksgiving. It’s always crazy how that sneaks up on us. We’re not having too many people over, thank goodness. But still planning the menu and making sure...what’s everybody's bringing and stuff like that. And at the same time trying to also just simplify my evenings and weekends and you know, mindfulness is a big thing in libraries right now and I think I'm definitely trying to incorporate some of that this time of year. But the good thing is that work things are slowing down too so I think I did my last scheduled class for the semester today. So for the rest of the semester is going to be last minute classes or prepping for next semester's instruction. And we're going to be having a conversation about some of our standardized instruction and potentially updating that based on my experience as the newest instructional librarian. So that should be fun. Amanda: Absolutely! We're lucky. We're not hosting Thanksgiving this year. We're going to a family member's house. So I just have to show up and bring a dish so I'm excited for that. Jessica: Nice! What are you bringing? Amanda: I don’t even know yet. I’m not even sure. I think I'm definitely going to do a dessert and I think I might do like a green, green bean casserole. I made that a few years ago and people seemed to like it so… Jessica: Right. Amanda: That’s what we might do. Jessica: That’s a good one. Amanda: So let’s jump right into our topic today. Classroom management can be a struggle for librarians who don't have an education degree or previous experience teaching. And it can be difficult to manage at the same time as the content. It can also be a challenge since we typically don't get to develop a rhythm or rapport with the students since we most often provide one shots but we’ll mostly be talking about tips that can be used in either in person one shot or semester-long course. Because all of our experience comes from one shots there maybe addition strategies suited for full credit courses that we may not address. So now we're going to go back and forth with some common classroom management concerns and solutions. So one concern is getting and keeping them engaged. Right? We’ve all kind of struggled that before. Jessica: Yea, definitely. Amanda: So one tip or solution is telling stories. It would be much more interesting than a lecture. I love this idea. I think we sort of do it when we can think of the story but I think we should be doing it way more because we should be drawing and on our experiences from helping students when they come to the library. And I think student would appreciate that story. Jessica: Yeah I think I am good when I give examples of helping students with the same assignment and what may be topics they did but sometimes I struggle with doing it when it's about my research struggles. You know, not that I've never had research struggles but I either feel like I can't remember them in the moment and, or I feel like I feel disingenuous sometimes when I feel like it's not going to relate to them or they're not going to relate to what I'm saying. So I don't want it to fall flat. So I think I worry about trying it. So I think maybe I just need to see someone do it a couple of times and that would make me feel a little more confident at doing it. Amanda: Yea, when I was back in school when I was getting my second master's degree, I found myself talking a lot about my research experiences as a student. And I would draw from that a lot. And I was saying, “I’m a librarian. I do this for a living and I am super frustrated with the research process”. And I think that really engaged the students. And like you said, sometimes I just don't think of those examples in the moment. So I think it's such a great tool to use storytelling but I just I don't always remember it. Jessica: Yea, I think I need to do a little more reflection on, I mean, because I haven't been in school since like 2011 so I just think I need to do some reflection and tap into those experiences of what it was like or even doing the research that I have to do to prep for classes. You know, I don't have to tell them that that's what it was for. I could tell them it was for when I was in school to make it a little more relatable. So I think that's one of the next things on my to-do list is thinking about ways to be a little bit more of a storyteller. Amanda: So another solution is if it fits with your session, start your session with a pre-knowledge Kahoot. It creates an engaging atmosphere in the room that can make students open up later. Have you ever done that before? Jessica: I’ve done Poll Everywhere which I guess is kind of similar. Because one thing I struggled with when trying to a Kahoot! was it's a quiz so there has to be a kind of a correct answer. And sometimes with the theories and concepts that we're trying to teach, you know, I'm trying to be more framework based, they can be a little difficult to just be cut and dry with a correct answer. I'm trying to really get their pre-existing knowledge about how they research not necessarily about what the right and wrong answer is. But I think it could fit in certain situations. Amanda: Yea, I think it also helps you manage the room, besides the real engagement, it allows you to know what level to teach at. Depending on how you ask your questions. Jessica: Right. Amanda: Another solution would be to ask them to do the work in the demo. For example, you could say, “I have these search results. Now what do we do?” Jessica: Yea, I actually did that today. They weren't as responsive and I was hoping but you know, it's different with every group. The dynamic is different every time. But it has worked pretty well in the past. Some of them will say, “I’m going to read the title.” Some of them will say, you know, “I'm going to pick on the third one because it's the New York Times” and then we have a discussion about why they feel like that's the best one to pick. So sometimes asking them to do the work and walk me through everything is helpful. Amanda: Yeah yeah you are actually found this really great tweet about what one librarian is doing. Do you want to share that? Jessica: Yea, so her name is Laura Woods on Twitter and she was inspired to do a choose-your-own-adventure. So I don't think this would necessarily work in a class where you're teaching to an assignment but she was more just asked to come in and do a library demonstration. So she prepared give 15 minutes sets of content on topics like advanced searching, planning a literature review, evaluating your sources, etc. And she let the students pick two of those to go over and she provided them resources like tutorials or references on how to do the rest of them. And she said they were still engaged because they got to pick what they were learning and either way no matter what they picked it would be applicable to their work. So I thought that was kind of cool because you're giving them an option. And I kind of tried to do this the other day in a tiny way. Because I do a demo of two things in this one class. I do a demo of searching Google for news and then a demo of our library website. So together the whole demo is was probably like 15 minutes and then at the end they workshop it and do their own searching. But after the first Google session, I said, “So do you want to stop now and search Google or do you want me to continue and search both on your own?” And they said that they wanted me to go to the whole demo and then just do one big chunk of searching. So it was a little bit of giving them autonomy and so I think they just appreciated being able to pick. Amanda: Yea, that’s exciting. You know, many, many moons ago, I did a, like a true Choose-Your-Own PowerPoint adventure where I had the iclickers and everything. And I would to give them scenarios and I would say, “Eric is searching for such and such a topic. Where should he start?” And then all the students would vote. And then based on the most popular vote, we would go. So some of them would say Google. So then we would like, “Ok, Eric’s search results has a million results. What should he do now?” And then they would vote and then that's the direction we would go. Jessica: Oh my gosh! Amanda: And the PowerPoint was hyperlinked. So it was exciting. It was a lot of work to maintain the PowerPoint but it was fun because I think the students, you know, they were in control. Jessica: Right. Amanda: It was very scenario-based. They were in control. Now technology makes it a lot easier to do something like that. But it was like 2009. So it was advanced for its time and it was engaging. Jessica: No, that's cool. I might steal that idea [laughs] Amanda: I might even have the template, so have at it! So moving on to a few other examples. Building relationships. So in our previous episode, Romel Espinel had a suggestion to ask the students to share their names before they speak to personalize the exchange. That’s something I've never done in a class before. I mean, like sometimes I’ll ask for a name but I’ve never done it for everyone in the class. Jessica: I finally started doing that the past couple of weeks since our episode with him. Some students are just you know, they just answer the question as if I didn't ask and sometimes I get a smile and say, “Oh, my name is Jen!” And they seem to like it. I actually do like referring back to them when they answer again. Even today I did it and a girl responded a couple of times and when I referred back to what she said, I said, “okay, remember what Christina said” and it does feel so much more personal. It's really interesting how it changes the environment so I would encourage everybody to do that. It's a small change and it did take me a couple times to remember to ask them first when I pointed to them but it’s cool. I like it. Amanda: Yeah, I mean I've done it when a student has been very, very participatory in the class. I’ll say, “oh what was your name” Jessica: Right, right. Amanda: I’ll say, “Thank you for participating, I really appreciate it. Like that. I like the idea of the name thing . I’ll definitely have to try it next semester. Jessica: Yea, definitely. Amanda: And then the last one that we have here is you know, start out the session by saying “At the end of this session, you will come away with this skill and this information” so that they see the relevance of paying attention. Jessica: Right. Amanda: I’ve done this before. I get mixed things. You know sometimes you know once I say “This is going to help you with your assignment”, they pay attention. And then other times not so much. You know, they're just like “okay sure”, you know? Jessica: Yeah, maybe other times I feel like I have to say during the session which we'll get to later just like “okay this is THAT thing I was referring to” and then they'll pop their heads up from their laptops. Amanda: Yea, we’ll talk about that later. I have a thing I used to do. Jessica: Ok, cool. Alright, so our second set of tips is about getting them to participate. So hopefully you have them engaged at this point but that doesn't always mean that they're going to answer your questions that you have. So one thing that you can do is a think pair share activity or use an audience participation system like Poll Everywhere. So the Think Pair Shares are always helpful because you're getting them to sit and reflect. That can be really helpful for introverts who need a second to think and then if they share it with someone else they feel a little more confident in sharing with the rest of the class. I know you’ve done these a lot, right? Amanda: Yes, I did a lot of Think Pair Shares. I think when it's a large group it's a great way to get them engaged in smaller groups. Jessica: Right, exactly. And I know Poll Everywhere just recently created an extension that integrates with PowerPoint. And I started using it so you actually just, you have your own tab in PowerPoint now. You just click “insert a slide” and it creates its own PowerPoint slide with the activity right in it. It’s super helpful. Amanda: I have a weird thing about not using Poll Everywhere. I feel weird asking students to text you, know what I mean? Jessica: Mhmm. Amanda: I feel weird having them use their text messaging. I mean, I know a lot of people these days have unlimited but you know what? I don’t know. I don't want to make assumptions and I think that was my biggest thing that I didn't want to make an assumption that our students had unlimited text messaging. Jessica: Yea Amanda: That they could just text anything. So I think I've done it twice in the classroom and they’ve both been epic fails. Jessica: Really?? Well now they let students do it on the computer so they can go to a link and just do it instead of text. Amanda: Yea, that’s different. So that's a different thing but in the classroom, I rarely have the students use their phones. Jessica: Yea, that’s very true. You can just ask them for a show of hands as opposed to doing a full verbal response because it at least gets them to answer your question and you can make comparisons between who had their hands up for each answer. And it may warm them up to the idea of participating. Amanda: Do you find that you do that more or less in a nighttime class? Jessica: I don't think the time of day has mattered. I think it's more the yeah, the classroom dynamics of if they're just a non-participatory group. Amanda: I found that I’ve done that more in a night class. That I’ll do the hands thing. For example, I used to do an exercise with Boolean operators where I'd make everyone stand up. And I’d say, “oh if you're wearing jeans and you’re female remain standing” and I felt like when I did it in the night classes they didn't necessarily want to participate by standing. So I got more participation when they did raise your hands. Jessica: Right, that’s interesting. Maybe they'd already been too tired from the day and they're like “please don't make me stand.” Amanda: I think that’s exactly what it was so I saw that difference. Jessica: So our next one is just calling on a student by asking them a direct question. It can be scary but sometimes you could hit on a student who really has a good point or you could tell them if they’re not comfortable answering, they don't have to. So that's always an option though. It's just pick on someone that’s there. Ask for their name and ask what they think. Amanda: Yeah I do this a lot when I see student wants to participate but is just afraid to be like the first person to say something. I’ll say something like, “You look like you want to say something” Jessica: Right, right Amanda: And sometimes they’ll be like, yes, ok! And they’ll talk. Jessica: That’s true because then at least their peers see that they weren’t the one to volunteer but they get to say what they had to say. So the next one is to set expectations that a question is coming. And that it’s ok to take a second to think. So for example you can say “In a minute I'm going to ask a question so what I want you to do first is to think quietly about your answer and then I'll ask for a few volunteers to share their answer with the group” So it just sets them up to know the questions are coming and that it's okay for them to sit and think for a second. ‘Cause I think they do automatically think that they need to shoot their hand up and just know the answer. But just letting them know it’s ok to take a second. And the next one is also something we talked about with Romel was getting comfortable with silence. And I have been practicing this one a lot and gotten a lot better about it. Amanda: I'm not good at it and then I start to try to be funny about it and insert you know Ferris Bueller’s Day Off reference in there and none of them get it. And then I just move on because it’s so awkward. Jessica: Right (laughs) Alright so before we move on to the next tip, I have kind of a question/scenario and maybe we can talk about how we would handle it. So I've had this recently because I've been using Poll Everywhere. So let's say you have 18 students in the class. They’re working on an independent question that they have to answer and respond to the board. And you can count, you can see that only 10 of them are responding. Do you wait for more students respond and require everybody to answer or do you just move on? At what point do you move on? Amanda: I move on. I usually I've done this with iClickers and I usually give people to a minute to answer and then say “okay this is your last chance to participate. At the minute mark we’re moving on” and then we move on. Jessica: Yeah that's true. I like giving them the time frame. I hadn't been doing the time frame thing. I was just kind of seeing what the answers were turning out to be and if I felt like I got enough to make my argument I would kind of move on. But I kind of think giving them a countdown is good too because then at least say they might feel more encouraged if it feels competitive. I don't know. Amanda: Yea… Jessica: Alright, cool. Next section. Amanda: Yea, so I think this is something we can all relate to is engaging that distracted student. And keeping everyone on task and focused. So one thing is to read the room, right? Jessica: Mhmm. Amanda: I previously talked about a fail, where I knew that I lost my audience and I was reading that room and there were so many different conversations going on. So I think it’s important to just read the room and then try and recover. Jessica: Right. Amanda: So another solution, potential solution, is to walk around the room and have some spatial awareness. Jessica: Yeah I need to get a clicker thing for my PowerPoint slides because I don't have one yet in my new job. So I think that chains me a little bit to the podium. But when they're working on their own I'm definitely floating around a lot more but I need one of those clicker things. Amanda: Yea, that definitely gives you a lot of freedom, for sure. Another one that I’ve personally never done is make a sweeping statement to put phones away. Have you done that before? Jessica: No I haven't. And especially now, when I go in, it's like it's always a workshop based thing so they all had their laptops out and I feel like that does distract them a little bit. Like today I had a session like that and about 10-15 minutes into the session even though the beginning was very interactive with Poll Everywhere, you know, 5 minutes after the Poll Everywhere was over we're doing a Google search together and even though I’m asking them questions to participate, 75% of their eyes were on their screens. And it was just difficult to try to get them back and part of it was just a classroom dynamic and stuff like that but it can be difficult . Because you can’t just ask them to put their laptops away because they’re going to need them in 5 minutes or 2 minutes. So that’s tough. Amanda: Yea, definitely. So another thing is to collaborate with the faculty member in advance and ask them to assist with the classroom management. As you know it does impact on the room environment if they chime in and said “hey guys, let's pay attention” or something along the lines of “Oh, this is really important or interesting. I didn't even know this.” Things like that I think that makes the difference. And then another one, the last one, is to make the note that this is a key point you will need to know. Hopefully to snap people back to attention. Jessica: And sometimes it just doesn't work. Like I tried that today. Still didn’t work. I was trying to show them how to use the citation function in the database and you know, I was making jokes about citations and how annoying they are and this and that. And that just fell flat. And maybe we’ll talk about humor in the future as a potential thing that could fall flat. But I tried the joke and said “you really are going to want to know this” and still eyes were stuck on their screens. So it doesn't always work. Amanda: Yeah I used to do an activity where I used to say to them, “okay everybody take out a piece of paper and divide it into four quadrants.” And I would tell them what to label each box and it would be like “Databases”, “Websites”, Search strategies”, “Notes”. And I would have them write notes down for every section. I said “You need to fill these boxes as we’re going through the workshop because there's going to be a test at the end.” And then I would also use “You should write this down in this box” and that worked. I mean it didn’t always work but they all took out a piece of paper because they had no idea why I was asking them to take out a piece of paper. So they just did it. So it did help somewhat with their level of engagement Jessica: Yea that’s a good one. Amanda: Okay next section. Jessica: So the next one is one that, thankfully, I haven't had to deal with too much but sometimes we do have to deal with difficult situations with students. So for example if a student is openly disrespectful. We hope that the faculty would step in and that they're there but there are certain scenarios where maybe the faculty can't be there. We hope that they would be there most of the time. And I think I've only had this once before and I was really just firm and respectful that they can choose to not pay attention if they’d like but that I was there to provide this information to all of the students and that they shouldn't take away from the other students' experiences. Have you had to deal with that before? Amanda: Yes and no. So I’ve had chatty students before and I've learned that silence is the way to get them back without having to be super confrontational about it. Because I think they remember those types of experiences. Like, “That was that librarian that was rude to me in class. I’m never going to go to her for help again.” So I try not to do some of those “calling people out” things. I mean obviously I've never really had to but like I found that just stop - stop talking - and they get the message because they're doing this extra thing but they also realized something else is going on and once they realize that that other thing isn’t going on any more, they stop talking. Jessica: Right, and I guess it depends on what level of activity of disrespect are we talking about? Are they talking over you? Are they just on their laptop trying to show someone else something while you're trying to talk? Or did they raise their hand and say “This is useless”. Amanda: I've never had that before. (sounds shocked) Jessica: Yea, thank god, I haven't either but I guess that would be one end of a spectrum of disrespect would be openly saying something rude to you as the professor in the moment. So thank gosh we haven't had to deal with that but it is something that some librarians may have to deal with. Amanda: I think if I was ever in that situation, I would just flip it and say, “Alright, if this is completely useless, let’s do a sample search together.” And just call them out and say “Let’s do this. Show me what you know.” Jessica: Right, yea. That’s true. Get them engaged in it. Another one could be sleeping students. I’ve really changed my tune on this. I think in the beginning I saw it as, not a disrespect thing but just as a “this is your class time - why would you want to be asleep during it”.And I think I've become a lot more empathetic about it. I think I've also really done some reflection and kind of checked my own privilege a little bit and realized that you know what I went to school, I was always really self-motivated and loved being there and had a strong support system at home. I never went to school hungry. I didn't have to work through college. Like I wasn't tired but I know that now from getting to know when building relationships with our students that not everyone has that experience. And sometimes people just worked a full-time job and now they're coming to class and I just really need to let them be where they are in that moment. So yea, I’ve really changed my tune on that and I probably wouldn't say anything. And I've had it happen and I don't. I kind of just let student be and I try to engage who can be there in the moment. But make sure that the student has my information because I don't want to just leave them hanging. I do want to make sure that they get the help that they need, right? Amanda: Yea, absolutely. I kind of feel like I'm in the same boat as you. I've never addressed it. I've always just kind of let it lie. Originally, when I was younger my attitude was “Well if they want to pay attention they will. Clearly this isn’t important to them.” But as I’ve matured I've kind of taken that empathy perspective as well. I was that college student working two full-time jobs and taking 21 credits so I can't even say to you that I wasn't one of those students that had fallen asleep in a class once because I’m sure I had. I think it's like you have to pick your moments and for me a sleeping student is not the time I'm going to take a stand on making it sound like it's a disrespectful thing. Jessica: Right, exactly. Amanda: So another problem that a lot of librarians might face in the classroom is technical difficulties interruptions, such as you know, databases aren't working, or your PowerPoint slides are not properly in order or not progressing the way you want them to or flat out - the internet. So here are some potential solutions. Use humor! So don’t be too self-depecating but you could use humor to defuse a situation. Jessica: Yeah I had that happen a couple of weeks ago. We had a power outage and it came right back - the power came right back on but the wifi went down and that took 15 minutes to come back up. So it was just trying to laugh about it and be like, “Oh my god, can you believe this is happening?” and and all that. Amanda: Yea, I always say this when technology isn't working - “Technology is great when it works, right?” And that always gets a chuckle. I have a funny story about technology failing. It’s not even funny, it was awful. I had to go do an intro session one time in a computer lab and I never it never happened because the teacher computer was a Mac. Jessica: Oh, jeez! Amanda: I could not get it to work. The iClicker software would not work on a Mac. And I was trying and trying and trying and I couldn't. I couldn't even get my PowerPoint loaded because of, I don’t know. I've never used a Mac before - I have no idea. So I just felt so awkward and so embarrassed and it ended up not happening. I left the classroom without having to do the session and I've never worked with that professor again. Jessica: Oh my gosh! Amanda: I know. Total fail. Jessica: But again, out of your control when nobody let you know. Amanda: So yea another potential solution is getting students to talk during any down time. Jessica: Yea so I could have done that with my internet disruption problem but I feel like I - in the moment I couldn't think of anything fun to talk about. It was a night class, I was exhausted. So I need to have some like fun ice-breaker questions ready for that. Amanda: Yea, that would be an interesting idea. I’ve never done that myself unless it was tied to an activity. Yea that's something to think about. Jessica: And maybe also, you know, being prepared with paper things because if you're let's say your Poll Everywhere doesn't work and then you still want them to answer the questions, a paper handout that has the question on it could be a helpful backup. Amanda: I'm so anti-paper. Jessica: I know. I usually am, too. Amanda: But I think I agree with you. If it was really important for you to collect that data then, yea, paper is the way to go but I’m just so anti-paper. Jessica: I know. I’ve changed everything into forms. (Both laughing) Amanda: So those were our five categories. We hope you found some of those solutions helpful. We do have a few other ideas. Some that I haven't tried and I don't think you tried yet, is play music as we wait for the class to start. And making quizzes a competition with candy prizes. Have you ever used the music before? Jessica: No, I haven't but I think it could be fun just to give them - it kind of gives them an introduction to you as a person, you know, if you pick a fun song and then everybody's kind of like, “wow this is cool. I like how this is going to start.” It’s a good first impression. Amanda: Yea, I think that's interesting, too. I’ve never done that either. I’ve done the quiz as competition thing before. But I stopped and I don't know why. But I used to do a lot of game show like quizzes. I did a Jeopardy where the quiz was in the form of Jeopardy. I also created my own called “the hot seat challenge” where it was two groups divided and they each picked one person from their group to be in “the hot seat” and they would have to answer questions about the lesson. Then whoever could answer the question fast enough in the hot seat would win that point. I also used to do - I don't know if you remember that TV game show - 1 vs. 100? Jessica: No (sounds interested) Amanda: So it’s this game show where like they used to be up against a hundred people and their goal was to eliminate those people by answering pop culture questions. And so I did that with a quiz and what I would do is I would have one student volunteer and then the rest of the class would respond using the audio response system. And they would respond first and then the one person would respond. And then the people who got the answer wrong were eliminated and I kept track and we would reduce it and then like there's fun things where they could poll the audience. So like I said I kind of just stopped doing it after a while. I just kind of fell out of love with it but it was, it was fun. Jessica: Yea, that’s cool! Amanda: And then another one was using pop culture examples. Jessica: I can never pick the right one. I always feel like the ones I pick are like outdated or it doesn't really work properly. I don't know why. I don't know why that has never worked for me (laughs). But I see other people do it really well. Amanda: Yea, I use a lot of current news to talk about topics, not necessarily pop culture. I guess the one that I’ve used the most is when we talk about copyright infringement. I used to use Vanilla Ice but it’s so outdated. So now I use, oh what’s his name? Jessica: The Blurred Lines one? Amanda: Yea, I use the Blurred Lines song. Jessica: The only one I use for pop culture words was, I had kind of a hook question. We were talking about whether or not - how historians or music theorists in the future will look back on music of today. And so I used like Drake and Cardi B but it’s not like any of them were really super engaged just by the question but I'm guessing it might have caused some of them to pay a little more attention? But I only did that lesson like twice so...But I mean maybe I’m not as bad at it as I think. Amanda: Yea! Jessica: So, we had asked on Twitter if anybody had successful classroom management techniques what did we have as our responses? Amanda: We actually got a tweet from the host of The Overthrowing Education podcast. She said, “One issue I had was calming my students down at the beginning of the class so I read from a subject related novel or told a continuing story for 5 minutes at the beginning of each class.” She said, “they were calmer and more engaged the whole period”. So to me it sounds like it's probably middle school or high school as the students that she’s talking about but I think that goes back to what we were originally talking about which was that storytelling. And the importance of how a story can really engage someone rather than a demo. Jessica: Yea, exactly. Amanda: Alright! So we're going to move on to our Work Triumph/Work Fail segment. I’m going to start with a fail. I am the Honors librarian for one of our sections in White Plains and I feel like I failed them. They just submitted their annotated bibliographies and I feel like I don't know I feel like I failed them because none of them came to me for support. No one came to me and shared their rough drafts even though I emailed them every week and told them, “I'm going to be on your campus this day for the next 3 weeks. Please come see me.” And not a single one of them did. And I feel like I'm just failing as a personal librarian right now. Jessica: Awww! Amanda: Yea, obviously email is not their speed so I’ve got to try something. But it’s hard because it’s a night class so it’s not that easy for me to just pop into that class and show my face. Jessica: Do you have a work triumph to go with that one at least? Amanda: No, not particularly with the Honors but I would say a triumph from this week was that I had a professor follow up with me that I didn't think she was going to follow up with me. So a few weeks ago, I attended a school of professional studies department meeting and the one professor said, “oh I'm going to reach out to you. I really want to work at the library.” And I was excited but I didn’t write down her name so I couldn't follow up with her myself. But I was surprised that she followed up with me and said, “I’d still like to collaborate with you”. And on top of that I threw it out there at the last minute and said “Do you want an in-person module or online or blended?” And she agreed to blended! So we're going to be creating a blended information literacy opportunity that’s going to be standardized across multiple sections of a course. Jessica: Oh that's cool! Amanda: Yea so that’s kind of fun. What about you? Jessica: So yea, mine was actually multiple fails in a row that I finally resolved. But it was technology. So like I said, I’ve been using this Poll Everywhere extension for PowerPoint but because I teach in different classrooms and the extension needs to be installed on the computer for you to use it properly, I couldn't use my flash drives and when I was logging in remotely to my office computer it was zooming into the Poll Everywhere slides so I can only see the top left quadrant of the slide and the activate button is all the way on the right side so I couldn’t get it to work. It took me about three classes of trying it and having that problem until I started playing with it and figured out there was a button on the bottom of PowerPoint to optimize your experience. And that’s all it was. So that was a pain in the butt but now that it works it works fantastically so I'm glad I figured that out. But for my work triumph, we met with the writing center today. They have a new director and so we have two citing workshops that we're going to do with them in the next month and then we have a disinformation workshop planned for the spring which is still kind of up in the air about exactly what we're going to do but she's on board with all these different partnership ideas so I'm really jazzed about that. Amanda: That’s great! So that wraps up our fifth episode. Here’s where you can find us. You can find Jessica @LibraryGeek611. You can find me @HistoryBuff820 and you can also find this podcast @Librarian_Guide. We are also now available on iTunes so be sure to find us there and subscribe to our podcast. We’re also now available on a lot of other platforms like Spotify and Overcast. Google has their own so we’re also available on their Google platform as well. Jessica: Yea, and don’t forget to send us an email at InfoLitTeachingPodcast@Gmail.com or tweet us to share your questions, ideas for potential discussions, or even your triumphs and fails in the classroom and we can read them on an upcoming episode. We want your feedback, your questions and we encourage you to share your thoughts with us to be read on an upcoming episode! Amanda: Alright, thanks so much! We’ll talk to you soon.
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About the podcast:The LGT podcast is hosted by two instruction librarians interested in sharing their experiences teaching information literacy, discussing current trends, and having meaningful conversations about librarianship. Archives
May 2021
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