From tools to transferability: collaborations between first year writing faculty & librarians
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collaborations between first year writing faculty and librarians to develop thinking, information literacy, and writing
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From tools to transferability: collaborations between first year writing faculty & librarians
- 1. Katherine E. Tirabassi, PhD Elizabeth Dolinger, MLIS Jennifer Ditkof, MLIS Keene State College Keene, New Hampshire From Tools to Transferability: Collaborations between first-year writing faculty & librarians to develop thinking, information literacy, and writing
- 2. Keene State College • ~4,900 undergraduate, ~100 graduate, ~800 continuing ed students • SAT scores 1350-1640 • “Integrative Studies” general education
- 3. Integrative Studies Program (ISP) Conceptual Framework Incorporates the concept of Integrative Learning for a liberal arts education.a process by which students: • connect and apply knowledge/skills from multiple sources and experiences in varied settings. • utilize diverse points of view and understand issues contextually. Students are able to: • see connections in seemingly disparate information. • adapt skills learned in one situation to problems encountered in another. • demonstrate a breadth of outlook and an awareness of complex interdependencies. • judge/decide (synthesize) and take into account different dimensions of a problem, seeing it from different perspectives, making conceptual links. • connect skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences. • utilize diverse and contradictory points of view and understand contextual frames. Knowledge in both individual and multiple disciplines is the foundation upon which integrative learning builds. Integrative learning often occurs as learners put theory into practice, "making meaning" as they apply abstract concepts in practical settings.
- 4. From English 101 to Integrated Thinking and Writing (ITW) 101 English 101: 5 required essays, focused on narrative, taught by English Dept. FTTT and Adjunct faculty. ITW 101: One of two foundations courses in the ISP, focusing on a sustained, semester-long research/writing project, taught by FTTT and Adjunct faculty across the curriculum.
- 5. Core Principles for Thinking and Writing 101: • • That students’ writing ability is largely a function of their thinking ability. Generally, the better students are as thinkers, the better they are as writers. This premise is supported by years of studies on student writing development. • That the heart of academic writing is developing and supporting a complex claim or stance. In other words, it is not enough to provide information on a topic or craft a one-sided argument—academic writing requires the student to make a commitment to a stance or position while demonstrating an awareness of multiple perspectives on the issue. • That in order to learn how to write well, students need to write about a subject in depth, over time, with consistent feedback and
- 6. Core Practices for the Thinking and Writing Course Offer a clear focus or theme. Require a 15-20 page sustained writing/research project. Require students to think for themselves. Students in ITW must generate their own topics, claims, or questions and engage in independent research. Require at least three drafts of the long writing project. Students are given substantial instructor and peer feedback on each draft. Work with a library faculty collaborator and a Writing Center liaison. Teach students about academic honesty. Teach students that learning how to write for college takes time, effort, and thought..
- 7. Challenges of the current ITW 101 structure 1. The struggle between focusing on research & writing vs. "content." 2. The challenge of getting to the research/writing early in the semester. 3. The challenge of faculty across the curriculum feeling authorized to teach writing and research processes.
- 8. Addressing These Challenges Continuing to offer faculty workshops. ITW Subcommittee: Reviews course proposals. Revisits the course proposal forms/process. Reviews assessment reports and revises ITW Student Learning Outcomes.
- 9. ITW Student Learning Outcomes • Writing • Reading • Critical Thinking Information Literacy: Understand research as a multi-stage recursive process that includes finding, evaluating, reflecting on, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources.
- 10. "Library research" focus on library place & tools recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information. "Information Literacy"
- 13. Collaboration The ITW coordinator and IL Librarian work to create opportunities for librarians and ITW faculty to "develop a unique perspective on their topic, as well as a body of common knowledge, practice and approaches."
- 14. Library/faculty collaboration 2009 From "list of tools" to a focus on skills Today Working together to model a “multi- stage, recursive process” and focus on skills
- 15. Perspectives from ITW Faculty "in this digital revolution, how does one sort through the multiple sources to separate the biased from the objective, the conventional wisdom to fact-based research and assessments. Once students practice their skills in separating the ‘wheat from the chaff’, they tend to cruise through our library’s resources with more confidence, and their research papers reflect better informed investigations." Professor Foley
- 17. Challenges • Frequently rotating ITW faculty • Determining level of IL skills and communicating need for explicit IL instruction • Providing support to ITW faculty to develop IL, writing, critical thinking • Developing common experience for students in ITW • Concerns of standardization • Assessment of Information Literacy
- 18. References Keene State College Integrative Studies Program: http://www.keene.edu/isp/Conceptual%20Framework.cfm Keene State College's Thinking and Writing 101 home page: http://thinkwritelearn.wordpress.com/ Kuhlthau, Carol C. Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. Print. Wenger, Etienne, Richard A. McDermott, and William Snyder. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press, 2002. Print.
Editor's Notes
- introduce ourselves
- Keene State College is a small public liberal arts college located in south western NH Primarily a residential college with many 1st generation college students General education program is based on the Association of American Colleges & Universities LEAP initiative = Liberal Education & America’s Promise So the gen ed program identifies information literacy & writing as 2 of 7 intellectual skills student learning outcomes
- Represented a move from specific required courses (BIO 101 or Literature requirement) to a broader approach to general education. Students take courses in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences as well as interdisciplinary courses. Two ISP courses need to be taken as upper level courses. There are also two "foundational" courses: Integrative Thinking and Writing and Integrative Quantitative Reasoning. (See Handout for the relationship between ITW 101 and the Integrative Studies Program overall).
- History of this change: Part of the general education revision to the Integrative Studies Program, implemented in 2006. Part of a series of conversations with key campus groups, especially the Task Force on Writing, an interdisciplinary group of faculty, including then Director of Writing for English 101 and the Center for Writing Director, that, in their 2004 newsletter, asked faculty to consider whether the current version of English 101 was "a good idea." While the Task Force did not advocate for particular types of writing courses across the curriculum, they offered a broad vision for writing at the College: “In order for Keene State students to learn how to use writing for a variety of purposes, they must be provided with sustained writing instruction. Writing should permeate the curriculum rather than remain relegated to English 101 and the few discipline-specific writing courses now offered.” The vision of the Task Force was to foster a campus-wide commitment to and conversation about the teaching of writing. Part of that vision was to engage the campus in a series of conversations about English 101 and these conversations as well as the general education revision, led to the move to pilot then implement the new first-year writing program.
- The course design now asks students to write about an issue of interest by focusing on a creative and complex question—investigating the question with critical analysis of readings, research and data, and using appropriate research techniques in documentation. Moreover, the course takes seriously its role in furthering the process whereby students make the transition to college. Nancy Sommers describes this purpose as follows, “In entering a live debate—a conversation in which more than one view is acceptable and for which there are no easy answers—freshmen see that something is at stake in their work, that their writing is not simply ‘academic’” (Sommers and Saltz 137). Rather than quoting from sources to compile a research report, Thinking and Writing students are asked instead to engage with the thoughts and words of others and to construct their point of view from a generative reading of their sources. Students benefit from sustaining their writing projects across the semester in multiple drafts; and faculty and students learn together the value of ongoing and constructive feedback during this process. Thinking and Writing is taught by faculty members across the three schools of the College—situating the teaching and learning of writing in genuine academic contexts.
- 1. Research/writing vs. Content: Originally, the theme-based approach to ITW 101 was pitched to faculty across the curriculum as an opportunity to teach a topic that they don't get to teach otherwise (in their majors or gen. ed. courses). As a result--faculty across the curriculum have tended to focus too much on the theme and privilege theme over teaching writing/research. In part, this is because they don't always feel equipped to teach writing/research explicitly. ITW faculty who have taught the course for several semesters talk about how they see their course theme as providing a context or as a platform rather than the focus of the course. Some have felt that their themes are too specialized for first year students to enter into without a great deal of background and they have revised their course themes to allow students to get to the research and writing more quick Professional development opportunities are available in May and August workshops, but some faculty don't attend. Originally, the program had Davis funding dedicated to implementing the new Integrative Studies Program and we could provide incentives for faculty to attend the workshops.
- The student learning outcomes for ITW are reviewed and revised based on yearly assessment
- at the start of ITW, sessions were "library-centric" focusing on specific "library" tools and resources and library tours, database demonstrations, etc. The teaching practice was based in bibliographic instruction focusing on resources. design of the curriculum and sessions was not grounded in theory: so sessions were not necessarily appropriately scaffolded throughout the semester to meet the students point of need or to facilitate the inquiry process that ITW was working to foster for example, introducing web evaluation late in the semester, "because we don't want them to use web sources" (as if that was going to prevent students from searching the web) but rather what we know is that this approach does not contribute to the development of students' abilities to critically evaluate information Information literacy, on the other hand, places emphasis on the whole of the research process and aims to develop the transferable skills, and knowledge, to use information to solve problems, make decisions, and generate new knowledge WHEREVER THAT INFO IS COMING FROM. Information literacy facilitates the critical inquiry and writing at the core of the ITW course. Moving toward an integrated curriculum that develops information literacy was, in part, facilitated by this history of "library instruction" in ITW (the collaboration was there), is reflective of changes in the information field overall moving away from tools based instruction, but it's also really reflective of the progression of the course as a whole... focusing more on the processes of inquiry and writing than on the thematic content of the courses.
- To support and facilitate the process of sustained inquiry that ITW is designed to engage students in, I looked to a model of scaffolding information literacy that emphasizes that two processes are occurring simultaneously: the process of information-seeking and the process of constructing meaning Carol Collier Kuhlthau's Information Search Process (Book SEEKING MEANING) based on 20 years of empirical research (first on grade school students, through experienced learners then into the workplace) , a six stage model of the experience in the process of information seeking. Kuhlthau identifies three realms of experience: the affective (feelings), the cognitive (thoughts) and the physical (actions) common to each stage. identifies "zones of intervention" based on Vygotsky's theory of proximal development: helping to identify the points at which students are most in need of and most likely to accept guidance Using the Information Search Process model as a guide for the design of integrating information literacy development in a sustained research and writing course helps identify the information literacy skills and timing of the sessions so they are embedded at the point of need helps faculty and librarians to communicate and focus on the development of skills that facilitate critical thinking about information, rather than the specific tools or creation of long bibliographic lists of resources
- Using this model, what developed is a 2 session curriculum, with a mid assignment and suggested pre assignment: (see outline handout) Session 1 is EXPLORATORY students may or may not have settled on a topic or idea. If they have it's broad. They likely don't know very much about their topic so asking questions about it is possible, but challenging. The goals of the session are for students to explore their ideas, gain skills of evaluation of web sources and appropriate use of encyclopedias, including wikipedia, to gather keywords and lead to more sources. See MID-ASSIGNMENT handout: This assignment is used to transfer the work from session 1 into session 2. We find it an essential bridge to carry over some of the skills from session 1, particularly gathering keywords, which are needed for session 2. Session 2 is more FOCUSED. Students ideas are more specific, they know more about their topic/concept that they are researching. They've done some reading, they've noted keywords and important concepts. They can see that a scholarly research article, that is very specific/that provides a specific example of what they are researching, is actually relevant. This session is typically focused on developing skills to differentiate between types of articles and engaging in searching the databases. If this session is done too early in the process, often students become frustrated because they don't see the relevance of specific scholarly research articles to their ideas... (and in those cases, this turns into a "database demo" and students find it irrelevant and frustrating) NOTE: it is only 2 face to face sessions because that is the number of sessions our current number of librarians can sustainably provide. So we have to work with faculty to provide support to fill in the gaps of what we don't cover, to provide reinforcement of what we do cover.
- Collaborating to develop a community of practice: So myself and Kate, as ITW Coordinator collaborate to develop a community of practice among and between the ITW faculty and the librarians. A community of practice, is described in the book Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge as “a group of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” In moving the conversation from "library instruction" to "information literacy" there is a shared responsibility reflected the requires collaboration The focus is directed at helping students to succeed in a sustained writing project through a series of meetings and workshops, the message of what Information Literacy is and what the research sessions are designed to facilitate is communicated in an effort to overcome pre-conceived notions and expectations of librarians and "library sessions" the core principles and practices of ITW are communicated and discussed shared challenges are discussed (ITW faculty support ITW faculty, librarians support librarians, ITW faculty support librarians, librarians support ITW faculty, etc.,) there's a professional development element and sharing of a body of knowledge and expertise between faculty IL librarian sits on ITW Curriculum Committee which has helped to communicate to librarians the core principles of ITW the process of designing the IL curriculum facilitated the development of a community of practice among librarians and helped librarians move from teaching tools to outcomes based teaching that develops skills.
- When i started in 2009 the list of sources "curriculum"... student learning outcomes were task based meeting with ITW instructors, getting to know the content of the course, Pressure surrounding covering the list from the tenured library faculty, assessment not tied to task based outcomes today Still meet individually with the ITW instructors i am assigned to work with to collaborate on the content and goals of the session, but we discuss student learning outcomes rather than the content of the course. I ask, "what information literacy skills do you want your students to leave ITW with?" rather than, "What library resources do you want to cover?" The classroom faculty member makes connections between the classroom material and the material covered in the research session, contributes to discussion, plays an active role in classroom management, answers questions about the assignment as they arise, and re-iterates and highlights an important aspect of what the librarian is teaching when appropriate. Information Literacy skills are reinforced throughout the semester, i do not feel a sense of ownership over info lit The guide of course-specific resources (LibGuide) is linked within Blackboard and promoted by the classroom faculty member. I get to know the content of the course by looking at the session one assessment. This helps with the information literacy session 2.
- I appreciated the librarian's "attention to the fact that at the beginning of the process students really need to open up their minds to the kinds of research questions they could be asking, so that they are not narrowing down their searches at this point, but rather opening them up. This really helped students to get a better sense of the range of possibilities that might exist for them to explore. The sessions "focused on the research process, gaining familiarity with databases and how to use them, evaluating sources, and differentiating between various kinds of sources available in print or online." T. Schreiber "I think the approach this year worked very well and helped to better connect the entire research process with searching for sources " M. Dintino
- "How to search for scholarly articles, and tell the difference between scholarly and popular articles. I can use this to find articles that I know will be able to help me with my research paper, and that I know are reliable." "I learned how to refine my searches. I can apply it by typing in better keywords or learning from what the results come up as." "I learned how to narrow down my search options to help me find more credible information for my essay.It will help me have better information for my paper." "How to determine if a source is credible. I can apply it by using these tools while continuing on in my paper and future research assignments" "Most of the information of the second session was about identifying different sources and I can apply this because it will help me identify sources that are better for my paper." "I learned to tell the difference between scholarly, trade, and popular articles so that I know what is most reliable of my sources." "The most important thing I learned was how to look for scholarly articles and how to decide which ones would be useful for my specific topic. I can apply it to my assignment by using the search techniques taught in the class to find scholarly articles to use for my paper." "The research skills that I learned that will be most helpful to me in the future are how to find a good quality scholarly article and how to minimize my search so that I may find more articles related to my topic."
- Frequently rotating ITW faculty communicating changes to curriculum, core practices, and continuously overcoming through education pre-conceived notions of librarians and "library sessions" Determining level of IL skills and communicating need for explicit IL instruction Developing a pre-test for basic IL skills to help determine and communicate IL instruction need and focus Providing support to ITW faculty to develop IL, writing, critical thinking Developing online tutorials to provide support to ITW faculty teaching IL creating a bank of ITW lesson plans, worksheets, etc., for faculty to share Providing incentive for ITW faculty to engage in professional development opportunities (with no continued Davis funding, professional development funds are not as readily available). Developing common experience for students in ITW creating the bank of ITW lesson plans, worksheets, etc current qualitative assessment project has focus groups that will include a discussion on library collaboration--to gather perspectives from faculty, students and staff about the course. using core principles and practices to share core message Concerns of standardization the sessions were actually more standardized before focusing on information literacy because librarians were expected to cover the use of a long list of specific tools. Now, the tools might vary based on the information needs of the course. however, while the tools might vary across the sections, the skills the students need are common across all sections. SEE HANDOUT. Assessment of information literacy is challenging because it's largely about a process and there is no necessary "right way" development of basic pre and post test qualitative assessment of a sample of students' search processes integrating assessment of Information Literacy into the ITW program rubric