CCLI 2018
Library Instruction by Design: Using Design Thinking to Meet Evolving Needs
University of San Francisco – Fromm Hall – 2497 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Design Thinking involves using a designer’s perspective to improve services through creative problem solving. A fundamental aspect of this process is that it is iterative, in that intermediate “solutions” are potential starting points that allow for experimentation and flexibility in piloting or revitalizing programs. Design Thinking allows for redefinition of the initial problem by stakeholders throughout all points of the design process. “The challenges facing librarians are real, complex and varied. And given the rapidly evolving information landscape, they need new answers, which requires new perspectives, new tools, and new approaches. Design thinking is one of these new approaches” (1).
(1) IDEO. (2014). Design Thinking for Libraries. http://designthinkingforlibraries.com/
Schedule (view full schedule)
9:00 – 9:30 Registration and Refreshments
9:30 – 9:40 Welcome remarks by CCLI 2017 Chair Ryne Leuzinger and Tyrone Cannon, University Library Dean (Xavier)
9:40 – 10:40 Keynote Address by Lauren Pressley, Associate Dean of University Libraries and Director, University of Washington Tacoma Library (Xavier)
This keynote addresses practical steps you can take to incorporate Design Thinking into your work. Lauren Pressley will share models and concrete examples of how Design Thinking has improved her libraries’ service and partnership to campus throughout her career, including instruction, public services, and library administration. This keynote will also include examples and resources from the field.
Lauren Pressley’s bio from her institution
10:40 – 10:45 Break
10:45 – 12:00 Breakout Sessions
Every Citation Tells a Story: Framing a Collaborative Assessment Design of Information Literacy Skills (Berman)
Dale Vidmar, Professor/Information Literacy and Assessment Librarian, Southern Oregon University Hannon Library
Sustainable instruction in today’s environment of reduced resources must be aligned with student learning outcomes and measurements. As such, the assessment of student work—in particular, the assessment of foundational goals such as information literacy along with oral and written communication and critical thinking—is paramount to a thriving information literacy and instruction program that benefits the institution and ultimately student learning.
The key is to assess what is valued in a way that is manageable and informative. At the same time, it is important to analyze actual work samples that students complete to the best of their ability—that is samples that are required to complete specific assignment or requirements for their degree. These embedded assessments could include capstone papers or course projects in order to provide a direct and more accurate picture of student achievement and program effectiveness than other measurements such as standardized testing.
On Desirability: Human Centered Approaches to Creating Successful Learning Experiences (Maraschi)
Mark Del Lima, Design Lead, IDEO and Annette Marines, UC Santa Cruz
Presentation Slide deck and Worksheet
What makes experiences desirable? Why do some products and services fail, while others thrive? How might we (HMW) use design thinking to increase adoption and improve student learning outcomes for instructional products (ie learning objects)? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore how design thinking enhances experiences by focusing on human desirability.
Reorganizing Digital Learning Objects for Student Success (Xavier)
Yi Ding,Online Instructional Design Librarian, California State University Northridge
Jamie Johnson, Reference, Instruction & Outreach Librarian, California State University Northridge
Melissa Rassibi, Reference, Instruction & Outreach Librarian, California State University Northridge
Most academic libraries have a suite of DLO’s intended to bolster information literacy concepts. The Oviatt Library has such a collection mainly in the form of videos hosted on YouTube and the library website. While most collections focus on the content to be disseminated, it became apparent to the librarians at CSUN that our collection needed to be updated and reorganized focusing instead on effecting student learning outcomes. It was important to us that students be able to find and use these tutorials to become successful at their research.
What followed was an iterative process in which content was assessed for being applicable to student learning outcomes as well as useful to users. User needs were considered by mining existing data as well as conducting user surveys, and user studies were conducted including card sorts, AB testing, and task scenarios to find out how users found and used this information. What resulted was the realization that DLO’s are not static objects that live on a website or YouTube channel ad infinitum, but that they should be dynamic, taking into account evolving user needs and should be recommended by teaching librarians, faculty from other departments, and other students.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 Lightning Talks (Xavier)
Lightning Talks – Presentation Slides
Collaboration with Faculty to Reenvision Library Instruction
Andrea Anderson, California State University Bakersfield
Librarians at the Walter W. Stiern Library at CSU Bakersfield currently work with faculty from the freshman composition program to integrate information literacy skills into their classes. Three specific issues arose this fall, which necessitated a change in the way librarians delivered instruction to this program: increased enrollment at CSU Bakersfield, anticipated growth in the course resulting from the CSU Chancellor’s recent executive order eliminating remediation, and the CSU Bakersfield’s composition director’s request for an increased library presence within the current program. As tenure-track academic librarians, research instruction to students is a high priority, yet extremely time consuming given the nature of the position that includes responsibilities to the library, campus, individual research, and subject areas.
In response to this, a small taskforce of librarians was created to collaborate with faculty, evaluate current and past instruction provided, and develop supplemental methods to librarian instruction. These alternatives to instruction will be piloted with three classes in the Spring of 2018. CSU Bakersfield library instruction coordinator, Andrea Anderson, will discuss the first steps taken to redesign and revitalize a program that has largely depended on individual librarians’ ability to develop research orientations while balancing an ever-increasing teaching load. Attendees can expect to hear how collaboration, flexibility, and a willingness to evolve were key components to one library’s instruction redesign.
Dancing with the Framework: Letting the Frames Lead us to Learning Outcomes
April Cunningham, Palomar College
In 2014 and 2015, the presenter led a group of librarians and other educators from across the country in an iterative process to develop information literacy outcomes and objectives in order to develop a new standardized test. The process was inspired by the knowledge practices and dispositions defined in the IL Framework. This presentation will briefly describe the process, what others can learn from it for their own practice, and how they can access the outcomes and objectives that the group developed in order to use them to inform their own ongoing local conversations about IL.
Transformative Learning through Powerful Assignments
Sarah Cooper, Samford University
Samford University Library is currently navigating through an exciting time of dynamic change in its information literacy instruction as it participates in the new campus Quality Enhancement Plan – Level Up: Transformative Learning through Powerful Assignments.
Faculty librarians are partnering with teaching faculty in the University’s Core program to enhance classroom assignments with information literacy proficiencies. Collaborations see librarians and teaching faculty:
- selecting the assignment for enhancement,
- selecting the Frame(s) with which to align the assignment,
- delivering targeted library instruction to the students, and
- collaboratively assessing the assignments utilizing a Samford University-designed Level Up rubric built upon AAC&U VALUE rubrics.
Student retention of IL proficiencies will be measured through collaborative assignment assessment and through campus-wide IL assessment using nationally recognized instruments.
Library and teaching faculty partners are in the first semester of the project and are actively learning what works well and what will be considered for adjustment in future semesters. At the time of presentation, presenting librarians will have concluded two full semesters’ worth of the project and will have valuable insights to share regarding the initiative and its future course.
Redesigning Research Instruction
Robin Gluck
As librarians we often instruct students on the stages of the research writing process. We teach students to brainstorm topic ideas, explore and evaluate sources, develop and support theses and plan and outline their papers. We encourage students to think of these steps as iterative, not linear, and we want students to be flexible and ready to pivot when they need to. In practice many students struggle with research and often are discouraged by the process.
Design thinking and the mindsets that are foundational to that process can be effectively applied to students’ research paper writing process to address the challenges students face. Radical collaboration, experimentation and communicating for clarity when practiced in the classroom work to sharpen students focus on sources, thesis development and outlining. By adapting design thinking to research, students have more tools to support a fail forward approach to research.
This lightning talk highlights three examples of using design thinking practices to improve the research process in 12th graders who are working on senior thesis at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. Each example will explain the effectiveness of the design thinking mindset as it is applied to research.
“This is honestly a disaster:” How librarians respond to a changed ILS
Jonathan Grunert
What if, instead of teaching a library system out of the box, we changed the box? A year ago, we moved to an ILS that lacked some of the functionality of our old discovery layer. When we went live, we learned that students and faculty alike could not figure out how to use the new system. In classroom instruction and in the library, we identified specific issues and recommended fixes that would make the system more intuitive and efficient. In essence, we made the ILS an instrument—rather than an object—of library pedagogy.
1:00 – 2:00 Breakout Sessions
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Critique (Maraschi)
Rachel Ivy Clarke, Assistant Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Critique is often a scary word, calling to mind memories of harsh, negative criticism, perhaps in front of a large peer group, like reading a poem aloud in a creative writing class only to have the instructor and classmates rip it to shreds. Such experiences are often the extent of knowledge about critique for non-designers. However, although some similarities exist (such as classroom and peer settings), well-executed design critique is not simply subjective negativity: it systematically articulates a framework for evaluation and then compares the work against that framework in the form of an ongoing, interactive conversation.
Quality critique does not come from thin air—it is a learned skill. In this session, librarians will be introduced to both giving and receiving critique before practicing those skills in a safe, low-stakes exercise. First, participants will learn how critique pertains to design and how it differs from other forms of evaluation. The process of design critique—specifically the “crit session”—will be described. A staple of design education, “crit” sessions provide budding designers with direct feedback on the project at hand, prepare them to give and receive constructive feedback, and construct frameworks for evaluation. Specific techniques for critique will be demonstrated, moving beyond the simple “I like it” vs. “I don’t like it” to the ability to see what users need and how well or poorly any given design may address those needs. Participants will then practice giving and receiving critique in a mock crit session before concluding with reflections and specific connections to instructional design and the importance of critique in librarianship at large.
Non-Punitive Approaches to Plagiarism: Intentional Design for Citations (Berman)
Marisa Méndez-Brady, Librarian for English and History, UCLA Library
Simon Lee, Collections Coordinator (College Library), UCLA Library
While plagiarism workshops are a staple at UCLA, and are common on university campuses nation-wide, what about foundational approaches to teaching citations? Even when citation workshops are offered, so often it comes in the form of citation management tools that often ignore the communicative aspects of citations in a globally connected network of scholars. In order for learners to have a firm grasp of why citations are important in the first place, these two librarians have used design centered thinking to focus on instructional approaches that strip back digital tools to focus on the mechanisms underlying citations as a form of scholarly communications.
Part of this approach is moving away from assumptions about what a student may already know about citations and towards intentional design that positions students as scholars who are just beginning to gain entry into a discipline. Using the ACRL frame “Scholarship as Conversation”, game-based techniques, and various instructional design cycles, two librarians from different UCLA Library branches will discuss how they teach citations as communication. Additionally, they will discuss what they learned about the perception of students’ role in the academe, overcoming challenges in creating buy-in for iterative approaches to citations, and the role of sociocultural issues in designing for citations.
Ultimately, citations create authority structures within disciplines, and teaching students about the role of citations helps students understand issues around plagiarism. The presenters seek to seed a conversation with the audience about the design process when taking non-punitive approaches to plagiarism.
2:00 – 2:30 Networking Break
2:30 – 3:30 Breakout Sessions
Blending Design Thinking with Design-Based Research (Berman)
Donna Harp Ziegenfuss, Associate Librarian in Graduate and Undergraduate Services, University of Utah J Willard Marriott Library
This session will focus on helping participants make the connection between using the design thinking process to identify and brainstorm creative solutions to instructional problems, and then use the practice and strategies of Design-Based Research (DBR) to create a plan for measuring change after solution implementation. Design-based research is an educational research methodology often used to study classroom and learning problems, and helps to connect pedagogical theory and teaching practice (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012). This method is used to study learning experiences and contexts, as well as, technology implementation projects. The value of blending Design Thinking and DBR is that both methodologies are grounded in the identification of areas for instructional improvement and then the implementation of a plan to solve a problem within a complex instructional context.
This session will first demonstrate an example of blending design thinking and design-based research and then engage the participants in the process of brainstorming possible solutions to common instructional problems. A research plan process will be presented and participants will have an opportunity to begin the research planning process. How to use qualitative research methods to collect data, as part of the design-based research plan, will also be discussed. Participants will have an opportunity to share problems, proposed solutions, data collection ideas and strategies, as well as evolving research plans. The purpose of this session is to present a process that librarians can use to identify problems in a variety of instructional contexts and then strategize solutions while they begin to write a plan to take action to improve library instruction.
Chasing Outcomes: an exploration of barriers to progress in designing and assessing library instruction program learning outcomes ((Maraschi)
Caitlin Plovnick, Coordinator of Teaching and Learning, Seattle University – Lemieux Library
The wish list of qualities for an ideal instruction program assessment plan is long and somewhat contradictory: it should be iterative and flexible enough to facilitate continual learning and adapt to change, sturdy enough to demonstrate progress and growth over time, aligned with institutional goals and informed by professional standards, on top of which it would be nice if there were some tangible outcomes for participants to keep them invested in doing work for a process that is never-ending by design. To meet these criteria, it can be tempting to tinker endlessly with perfecting a plan’s design without ever getting around to implementation. What’s an instruction coordinator to do?
This session will showcase the design methods attempted and lessons learned from a year-long project to establish new learning objectives and an assessment plan for a library instruction program, paying particular attention to everything that went wrong along the way. Using this experience as a case study, participants will be prompted to explore their own experiences and collaborate on flexible strategies for dealing with such issues as how to get buy-in, respond appropriately to concerns, negotiate tensions between institutional standards and unique library instruction contexts, and avoid wordsmithing documents into alphabet soup. We will further discuss the results of the project, and how stepping back to thoughtfully examine and address roadblocks led to a positive shift in focus that enabled us to stop planning and start doing.
Reducing Drag: Instruction Collaboration in a Senior Capstone Laboratory Course
Amber Janssen, Instruction & Assessment Librarian, California State University, Maritime Academy
Dr. William Tsai, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, California State University, Maritime Academy
Finding the time and space to promote information literacy can be difficult in upper division STEM courses. This presentation will model the process of a collaboration between an instruction librarian and mechanical engineering professor. This collaboration led to the inspiration for a redesign of a senior capstone laboratory assignment. The ideation came to life with an experiment where the students examine different drag reduction techniques on heavy vehicles. This new lab assignment was created in order to motivate students to seek out information sources beyond their textbook. In addition, in-class information literacy instruction was offered during the lab class session. In order to measure success of the redesign, two quantitative methods were employed. First, a rubric was used to assess the final reports for quality of sources and ethical use of information. Secondly, students completed surveys to self-report their understanding and perception of information fluency. This process of redesigning a single assignment within a senior-level course provided valuable insights that can be shared and replicated in other laboratory-based learning environments.