Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 2: Instructional Tool 2

Chapter 2: Instructional Tool 2

Sure, chapter two.

In my first couple of years working here, I was also creating workshops, library workshops for our patrons, sometimes for students, sometimes for faculty and staff. 

At the time, I was working with a colleague who's very experienced in web development.

I learned that they have been using [Instructional tool 2] quite a bit for developing web related content. 

[Instructional tool 2] was pretty new to me.

This is something I had to learn from pretty much scratch.

I was mostly using [Instructional tool 2]to create workshop materials.

So, for a typical workshop, I will design the content, sometimes put them on a web page. 

And so, using [Instructional tool 2] I have to learn [specific programming language], and then usually I deliver the workshop either in person or online, or hybrid.

If the website is already created for the learners, then they can reference it after the workshop, and also have the whole workshop session recorded in the video as well. 

They will be able to...this is kind of related to universal design for learning... they have multiple means of access to the content.

So for some people who enjoy watching a video recording, some people will enjoy following the guideline, following the step by step, this is how you do this, this is how you do that, or just watching the whole workshop video from start to finish if that's what they prefer to do. 

And so, I was using [Instructional tool 2] for quite a bit of my workshops and for some of the classes I was teaching. We can get into this a little bit now, if we want. 

In addition to [ instructional technology and design], so they also, I also do library reference, I'm also the liaison to our [other academic department] and also oversee our [institution’s instructional technology related area]. 

When I was teaching [other academic department] students, we were, just like a lot of other liaisons.

The instructors request instruction, we come in and give them a one-shot instruction. 

So just one time a semester, this is a lot different from like first year experience team where they come in several times throughout the semester to teach the same class, and I was thinking...I was looking at what my colleagues were doing to, because I was brand new to instruction, I had no instruction related experiences prior to working here. 

I was looking at what my other colleagues were doing to prepare for their instruction. A lot of them have a course guide which is very similar to what we call instructional technology and design. 

I forgot the exact term...like a teacher's guide or handout sheet that you give to the instructor.

So, in the trainer scenario, they know exactly what to do, what to teach and how to facilitate the interaction and the class activities. 

My colleagues were working on that and they also sometimes have a group activity or an instruction sheet.

So, they have everything written out on those handouts and the class activity...they print off the class activity sheets and then give them to each student or maybe a group of students, if they are working with several groups of students.

I thought that was one approach to engage with students, and what I thought would also be helpful was to create some content that students can not only access just by looking at that piece of paper, but they can also access online.

Because at the time, it was still pretty much a lot of hybrid learning.

There were some students in class.

There were students tuning in online, sometimes from a different location. 

Everyone was wearing a mask, then these instructors sometimes had to record their entire class and send it to them afterwards for those who couldn't make it or for those who want to reinforce their learning so that they can watch it again after the class is concluded. 

There were also sometimes completely asynchronous online classes.

There was no face-to-face instruction, so I decided to use my skills I learned from [Instructional tool 2].

I created some learning content related to that specific class, typically related to what they need to do for their assignments.

Sometimes they need to look for resources related to their research assignments. 

Sometimes they were putting together a PowerPoint or things like that.

I was using [Instructional tool 2] a lot for a lot of my instruction that I was doing at the time. Let's see, trying to think if there's anything else related to [Instructional tool 2] that I think I covered most of it.