From Mammals of other lands / Charles J. Cornish [and others], editors (1917)79th chat, Tuesday March 7 2017: teaching beyond the academy
6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 8pm Central / 9pm Eastern
Harlow, R. (2003). “Race Doesn’t Matter, but…”: The Effect of Race on Professors’ Experiences and Emotion Management in the Undergraduate College Classroom. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(4), 348-363. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1519834
Discussion questions:
Q1. In information literacy settings do you perceive any bias towards you or coworkers? (either in student evals or in students’ reactions in the classroom)
Q2. How does this bias affect you or a coworker personally and professionally?
Q3. What emotional management (or self-care) strategies, if any, do you employ to cope with bias?
Q4. How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your IL instruction? How do you mitigate bias?
Q5. What forms of evaluation would you like us to further embrace as a profession?
This joint chat was presented in partnership with @publibchat (a new chat dedicated to topics pertaining to public libraries). Thank you to the moderators and the librarians behind publibchat for making this chat happen!
Q1. How did/do you perceive classes related to teaching, learning, and pedagogy in library school? #critlib
Q2. How do stereotypes of teachers and librarians damage school librarianship and library instruction in general? #critlib
Q3. What kind of education or training would benefit instructional librarians in public or academic libraries? (If you have a PK-12 ed background & work in another library, what do you wish you could share with your colleagues?) #critlib
Q4. Are you aware of collaborations between school, public and/or academic librarians? How could such conversation be encouraged? #critlib
Q5. What are the barriers to PK-12/academic collaboration? How can these start to be broken? #critlib
Critical reflection: questions and techniques for writing or group discussion to examine our practices
Critical reflection is an essential tool for raising our awareness of how we put theories into practice, and for conscious improvement on an ongoing basis. It can be done through writing, or out loud with others in “critical friend” relationships. It is used in the Ignatian Catholic practice of examen to look back on each day, and often recommended as a professional development tool for practitioners in education, nursing, organizational development, and other fields.
Discussion questions:
Q1. How/when do you build in time to reflect on your own work/praxis? Frequently, sporadically, in certain settings/circumstances? #critlib
Q2. Have you found any tools, practices, habits that spur such reflection for you? Is your approach more structured or free-form? #critlib
Q3. Do you examine your work, strivings, failures in light of specific theories, models, questions? How do you engage with them? #critlib
Q4. What challenges or obstacles do you encounter in using critical reflection in practice? How do you overcome them? #critlib
Q5. Does reflection propel you to shift your thinking, to take action? By itself, or combined with other input? If not, what does? #critlib
The readings below offer a range of sample questions for reflection. You may want to try using some of these before the chat. If you’re inspired to blog about your experience with critical reflection as a practice, feel free. You may also want to keep your writing or sharing private, and vent to your heart’s content.
Not all people with disabilities feel safe disclosing their status or talking about their experiences publicly. We respect that. Therefore, we are providing a way for people to participate confidentially.
Kumbier, Alana and Julia Starkey. “Access is Not Problem Solving: Disability Justice and Libraries.” Library Trends, vol. 64, no. 3 (2016), 468-491. [PDF] https://muse.jhu.edu/article/613919/pdf
Q1. Introduce yourself, what type of library you work in, and self-describe your disability/disabilities if you are comfortable doing so.
Q2. When you think of “people with disabilities,” what stereotypes come to mind?
Q3. How do you think these stereotypes impact library accessibility for patrons and (potential) employees?
Q4. If you have disabilities, has that influenced what kind of library work you’ve pursued? (If you don’t have disabilities, have you ever thought about this possibility?)
Q5. What can we as individuals do to improve library accessibility for patrons?
Q6. What can we as individuals do to support coworkers with disabilities?
Closing question: If you could have virtual meet-ups for other library employees who have your disability/disabilities, would you like that?
