If you’ve been following the GSLIS general forums for the last few weeks, you’ll know that the School had a town hall on April 20th. One of the issues raised was that the School needs to do a better job of creating an inclusive environment for students of color. As a follow-up, the School had moderator-led conversations and town halls on May 5th and 9th; as a result of those meetings, the School has formed multiple committees to work on areas such as curriculum, cultural competency, faculty recruitment, and support for students.

The committees are looking for volunteers – including students and alums! – to help with this work. I strongly urge you to consider volunteering. This is important work – you have an opportunity to improve the culture and curriculum of the School for future students. Although the conversation is currently focused on race, I also see an opportunity to increase awareness of other forms of diversity within our profession and our patrons – socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, etc.

In addition to making your voice heard, serving on a committee could be great professional experience. Some of the committees are dealing with issues of curriculum and pedagogy – if you are interested in instruction, this is a chance to get experience with curricular and pedagogical change. For those of you going into academic librarianship, this is a chance to get experience serving on a committee (you can put it on your vita! you can talk about it when you interview! you can learn important skills for effective committee service!).

If you have questions, I’d be happy to talk to you. If you’d like more information on the committees, please see the Town Hall forum available on the main LEEP Moodle page.

At first it seemed like the diversity of tenants was a reflection that a large mall couldn’t find enough shops to rent space, but I’ve come to really appreciate the convenience of having so much in one area, as well as how one set of tenants can drive traffic to another set of tenants. Our kids’ dentist moved in and now we’ll stop in a shop to run an errand or grab a snack after appointments (when our son got a tooth filled, I was able to go straight to the toy shop as a reward). Our kids went to preschool there for two years and I loved the convenience of being able to run an errand or grab dinner before I picked up the kids – in fact, the ease of not having to make an extra stop encouraged me to try new restaurants and stores that I otherwise would have ignored.

All of which is to say, I would love it if the library were there, too. Not only would it be convenient for me, it would be good for both the library and our local businesses. On some days, a planned trip to the library would easily result in an unplanned stop for ice cream or coffee, while other days running errands would result in a stop at the library. Now granted, I’m a regular library user already, but I do wonder about our non-users – could location be part of attracting non-users? And if so, where do we need to be in our communities?

Susanne Markgren gives us a step-by-step guide to owning our online identity, starting with “Step 1. Accept that you have an online identity, that you exist online, and that people can find information about you.”

Markgren, Susanne. “Ten simple steps to create and manage your professional online identity.” College and Research Libraries 72 (Jan. 2011); 31-5.

Highly recommended!

The Information Literacy Summit is an IL conference held in Illinois each year. It is a great one-day conference and is held at three locations, so there should be one close to you.

Scheduling Time for Forums

I spend a few hours a day on my discussion boards – all before I get to grading, course prep, making videos or actual real-time instruction. I take my forums very seriously and prioritize them as a daily activity.

The traffic on my forums stays pretty consistent throughout the semester. My Illinois ones will slow down for a few weeks around the on-campus session since I don’t require posting during that time, however that “time savings” is more than offset by two full days of travel, prepping for eight hour classes and delivering full days of instruction.

Where I do see variation is the day of the week, with patterns of heavy posting on some days and lighter posting on other days. Once I identify the pattern for the semester, I try to take this into account as I plan my work week – so if Tuesday is a heavy posting day, I ensure I have ample time to read and respond to posts on Tuesday and Wednesday. I really hate falling behind on forum reading – not only does the build-up of unread posts get overwhelming, I think I lose the “teachable moment” if there is too long of a delay in responding to students.

Ideally my courses will fall into different patterns with a heavy day for one course offset by another course’s light day. In a bad semester, two or more courses will have the same heavy days. On those days, I feel lucky if I can just keep up with all the reading and responding – all my other work gets shoved to other days of the week. To a certain extent I can control this by varying due dates, but it can still be hard to predict student behavior.

As stated above, I check my forums daily. I do try to take at least one day off on the weekend, although on those days I still check my email and skim the forums for urgent student questions.

The Process

1. Open the spreadsheet where I track student participation. I only track mandatory participation, but all my courses have some kind of required forum participation around leading or contributing to discussions of course topics.
2. Navigate the course management system to the first set of forums. I start with the “questions” forum, since I want to resolve any problems as soon as possible, then move on to the topical forums.
3. Read the first unread post. I make a note next to the student’s name in my spreadsheet (or assign a grade, depending on how the course is structured). Next, I read all the replies from other students, making notes about participation as needed.
4. At that point, I may add my own comments to the discussion. If a student’s question was answered adequately by peers, I may not respond at all. And if a discussion is just starting, I may hang back for a few days to let the conversation develop before I jump in. When I do respond, I try to either share my expertise or pose questions to prompt further thought and discussion.
5. Then I go to the next unread thread and repeat the entire process until I’ve worked my way through all my courses.
6. A few times a week, I review the entire spreadsheet to keep an eye on who is on track and who is not participating. If I see a problem, such as not participating for a few weeks, I will email the student to inquire.

The Little Stuff

I almost always start my day by reading forums. I have a little routine where I boot up my laptop, check email, check Facebook, and then read all my forums. Once I’ve read the forums, I’m better able to concentrate on the rest of my work because I’ve accomplished one important task for the day.

The ideal start to my day is to drink my morning coffee while I read and respond to forums. Most days I have to take my kids to school first, so it is a big treat if my husband has the day off and can take the kids (like today, when I was online and reading forums before my kids even left for school).

I listen to music while I read forums, although I usually select more mellow music than when I grade. Hmm, I wonder why that is?

Scheduling Grading

Yes, I schedule time to grade. One of the potential pitfalls of online teaching is that my classes are always “meeting” – even if I work all day answering emails, grading assignments and responding to forum posts, by that evening, there will be more emails, assignments and forum posts that require my attention. In order to set some boundaries between my work and personal lives, I try to do the work for a course only once a day – so if I read forums and grade assignments for my instruction course in the morning, I usually won’t work on that class again in the evening (although I might be working on another course during that time, since I devote time to each course almost every day).

I also set boundaries by scheduling time off from work. I try to take one day off each weekend to do things I enjoy and I reserve weekday afternoons and early evenings to focus on my family. Both of these practices prevent burnout and contribute to a good quality of life for me and my family. But, they also mean I’m not necessarily grading assignments as soon as they are submitted.

Finally, my days can be very uneven, with some days providing long hours of uninterrupted work time and other days providing much less time due to family and volunteer commitments. Smaller assignments may not take as much time to grade and as a result, I usually tackle them every day to stay on top of what is coming in. However, larger assignments can take 20-30 minutes each to grade and require more sustained concentration. As a result, I schedule time a 3-5 days a week to grade large assignments.

Like ProfHacker, if I have a lot of grading, I will set a daily quota for myself – this helps me be realistic about how much I need to accomplish and gives me a manageable goal for the day. At the end of the semester when I have a lot to grade, I grade all the assignments in one course before moving on to the next course. This allows me to concentrate on the course content, rather than trying to switch gears to a different set of assignments every few hours.

The Process

The process for larger assignments like LibGuides and Instruction Design Projects:

1. Create or locate the folder on my laptop where I save all the assignment feedback for that particular course.
2. Locate the assignment sheet and make a clean copy of the rubric. Save this rubric in the appropriate feedback folder with a generic heading like “LibGuide Rubic.”
3. Navigate the course management system to locate ungraded assignments. Open the next ungraded assignment. Open the rubric and resave it under the student’s name (e.g., “IDP Rubric – Sally Smith”).
4. As I read the assignment, I’ll make notes in the appropriate section of the rubric. Once I’ve read the entire assignment, I’ll revise those notes into full sentences and paragraphs of comments. I typically reread all or part of the assignment as I’m making comments, in order to verify that I correctly understood the student’s work. The larger the assignment the more back and forth I might need to do. I generally write all my comments on the rubric, although if there are a lot of problems or I want to respond to very specific sections, I might save a copy and put additional comments directly in the assignment.
5. Rubrics and experience with a particular assignment generally help me stay consistent in grading, but I will go back and review other students’ rubrics to see how many points I deducted for a particular error or problem. If I’m grading a brand new assignment, I will read a bunch of assignments to get a feel for student work before I start any formal grading.
6. Next I assign a grade, recording it on both the rubric and in the course management system.
7. Finally, I send the grade and rubric back to the student, along with a general comment like “I’ve attached a rubric with a grade; if you have questions please feel free to contact me.” In addition to entering the message, I need to upload the rubric – sometimes a multi-step process that needs to be performed in a specific order (for example, in Moodle I work from the bottom of the screen up since I need to attach the rubric before writing the message or the attachment process will erase any message and grade that have been entered).
8. Once I’ve graded all the assignments, I review the grades in the course management system to ensure I haven’t skipped anyone or neglected to upload a rubric. I also check to be sure everyone turned in the assignment and if an assignment is missing, contact the student to inquire.

And by the time all that is done, it is generally time to start the process over with another assignment in another course.

The Little Stuff

I do play music when I grade, usually a variety of tunes from my iPod. Rock and hip hop are favorites – I need upbeat music to keep me going.

I usually sit in my bedroom since it gets a lot of sun. If I need a break and as the sun moves during the day, I will move to the dining room or living room.

I tend to complain about my grading on Facebook where my faculty colleagues will commiserate and say encouraging things. I also give myself little rewards when I have a lot of grading – like allowing myself to check email or get a snack if I grade two more assignments.

So there it is! I’m interested in hearing from my students – is it helpful to see the process I go through? Mildly amusing? Humanizing?

RUSQ is already one of my favorite journals – it is full of well written articles on a range of reference topics. But, this fall’s issue is spectacularly jam packed with awesomeness:

• An annotated bibliography of books, articles and resources for reader’s advisory. This is now the go-to source if you want to learn more about reader’s advisory or beef up your collection of resources.
• A biography of notable librarian Helen Haines.
• The previously mentioned “Best Free Reference Websites: 12^th Annual List.”
• The annual “Best Historical Materials” list.
• Four substantial, practical articles:
  • Using wikis to create a ready reference tool for information sharing at the reference desk.
  • Factors that influence people to pursue librarianship. Fellow professionals take note – there’s a lot we can do to encourage promising young (and not so young) people to enter librarianship!
  • Reaching college students through residence halls. This one not only discusses reasons to do outreach in the halls, it gives tons of practical ideas for doing so.
  • Developing guidelines for the use of social software.
• Updated RUSA “Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services.”

All that and the usual book reviews, too!

A number of my students have attended this one day IL conference and found it very helpful. The conference isn’t until April (but keep your eyes open for registration in the spring), however there’s a call for proposals out and one of the coordinators specifically asked me to share it with students. So, it looks like this could be a good opportunity to lead a breakout session at a conference (and note the call is for proposals around creativity, so you could bring in previous work experience in another field).

10th Annual Information Literacy Summit
Inspiring Creativity

DATES & LOCATIONS

Monday, April 18, 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Illinois State University (Normal, IL)

Tuesday, April 19, 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills)

Wednesday, April 20, 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
John A. Logan College (Carterville)

———————————-

Creativity—designing, planning, producing, etc.— is the highest level of thinking on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. This year’s Summit asks us to connect creativity with information literacy and instruction.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We’re seeking volunteers to lead interesting and interactive discussions relating to information literacy or library instruction. You can volunteer for one or more sessions at any of the three Summit locations. Each has its own breakout sessions.  You can also recommend someone else who may be a good breakout session presenter. Please consider recommending people from outside libraries.  We encourage all types of libraries, schools and other organizations  to participate.  For the Summit to be most effective, we need many perspectives.

Session topics may focus on anything related to information seeking and use. Special consideration will be given to topics related to this year’s theme of “Inspiring Creativity.”  Breakout sessions will be 50 minutes long and should include audience interaction or discussion.  Panels are encouraged.  Because of the limited amount of time, we encourage panels to be limited to three people.  Having more than three presenters limits the time for attendee interaction and questions. Sessions typically have 20-40 participants.

To propose a breakout session: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE9PbDItOVBWSjhXYkttSW9qOVY2WlE6MA#gid=0

DEADLINE to submit proposals:  Friday, January 7, 2011

Not sure about your idea? Feel free to contact a Summit Coordinator for inspiration or help in refining your proposal.

Some ideas to get you thinking …

• Youth or young adult programs that encourage creative use of information
• Inquiry-based learning
• Infusing creativity and curiosity in information literacy
• Assessing the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Librarians’ role in ACRL Standard 4 (“The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.”)

———————————-

COORDINATORS

John A. Logan College
Coordinator: Judy Vineyard, Associate Dean of Library Services, judyvineyard@jalc.edu, 618-985-3741 x8404

Moraine Valley Community College
Coordinators: Barb Rys, Library Access Services Specialist, Rys@morainevalley.edu, 708-974-5467;
Leslie Warren, Information Literacy Librarian,
warren@morainevalley.edu, 708-974-5734

Illinois State University
Coordinator: Dane Ward, Associate Dean of University Libraries, Public Service, dmward@ilstu.edu, (309) 438-3481