flipped classroom

Embedding, Flipping, and More at LOEX 2014

I was fortunate to be able to attend the LOEX Conference this year, which took place May 8-10 in Grand Rapids, MI. I have only ever heard great things about this conference, and accordingly, I had a great experience.

This was my first time attending the LOEX Conference and I only became aware of it recently (within the past year). Many readers here will likely be familiar with LOEX, but for those who aren’t, LOEX stands for Library Orientation Exchange and it is a “self-supporting, non-profit educational clearinghouse for library instruction and information literacy information.” The annual conference has earned a reputation for being particularly relevant and exciting for instruction and information literacy librarians, as attested by the many people I met who were either multiple-time attendees, or thrilled to finally get to go to the conference.

I went into the conference with high expectations, which were met and exceeded. The two days were full of presentations and workshops that are extremely relevant to my work, and with ideas I can incorporate by making small changes. I love coming away with new ideas that are practical, so I can actually implement them myself. Here are some things that the LOEX Conference got me thinking about:

Embedding

A few presentations focused on embedded librarianship in one way or another. “Embedded” often refers to being embedded in an online course, but these conversations also brought up ways to extend the library’s presence beyond the one-shot, without necessarily being embedded online. For example, librarians can collaborate with faculty to redesign a course or a central assignment. That sounds like it can be a huge task (to me, at least), but some possibilities for integrating information literacy outside of the one-shot could be having students do a reflection paper about their research process, introducing concept mapping to develop literature reviews, or discussing with faculty how information literacy fits in with their own disciplinary content and pedagogical goals.

Another opportunity to be more embedded comes as a solution to a common problem – when you receive a request for instruction at the very beginning of the semester, clearly not at the point-of-need. Of course, try to schedule the instruction session at a time when students will benefit more from the information, but you could also visit the classroom at the initial request for a short 5-10 minute introduction of yourself and the library. This would increase students’ familiarity with a librarian and allow you to build a relationship with students prior to the one-shot session, an important connection which I think can go a long way. If the initial classroom visit gets too time-intensive, it could be replaced by a re-usable introduction video.

Flipping

During the interactive session on the flipped classroom, my group ended up talking about student buy-in and accountability: what do you do when students come to class having not done the pre-assignment or reading? One answer is to plan ahead with faculty so that the pre-assignment can be added to their syllabus, thus adding more accountability. My first reaction to this idea was that there is no way I can have instruction sessions planned out far enough in advance to be added to a syllabus. However, I now think this could take the form of a more general statement, for example: “At least one class session will be led by a librarian to introduce you to library resources and assist with research skills. This may require a pre-assignment.” This leads to another point that the presenters stressed as important for a successful flipped classroom: identifying faculty who will be supportive. It’s less likely that students will see value where their instructor doesn’t.

That session also served as a great reminder for me that flipping the class should not be an opportunity to cram in more information, but an opportunity to cover a topic more in depth through the use of a pre-assignment and in-class active learning. I realized that the one time I somewhat-flipped the classroom, it was because I didn’t have time to cover everything I wanted to. I sent a video tutorial for them to watch ahead of time, and it was just an add-on, rather than an enhancement.

And More

These are really just a few things that I came away with after LOEX, and it’s already my longest post here yet. Some other useful ideas I picked up had to do with active learning assessment, design recommendations for online tutorials, and reflecting on and improving teaching strategies.

I constantly had a tough time deciding which session to attend, because they all looked good. By scrolling through the conference hashtag (#loex2014) on Twitter, I could tell that was the case. One thing I didn’t expect was how much I enjoyed the interactive sessions. Although I didn’t think I would want to interact very much, I ended up loving how they facilitated conversation and sharing of ideas with new people.

It was great to attend a conference for academic librarians that was so focused on instruction and information literacy, and I definitely hope to go to the LOEX Conference again sometime.

Flipping Out: Preflip Planning

One of my current professional goals is to experiment with new ways to improve my library instruction sessions and grow as an instructor. So when our residency librarian decided to lead a group of instruction librarians to test the “flipped classroom” in library instruction, I welcomed the opportunity to discover how “flipping” might transform my classes. Given the previous interest in “flipping” here at ACRLog, I’ve also decided to share a bit of my planning, implementation, and reflection to continue the discussion about “flipping out” in the library world.

At first, re-envisioning my instruction sessions was a bit overwhelming – although I am still a newbie library instructor, I spent a great amount of time last semester crafting lessons and developing my own teaching style. I can only image how daunting this may seem to more experienced instructors who have honed their own lessons and style over several years of teaching!

Although I’ve used different lesson planning methods during graduate school classes and in my first semester of teaching, (e.g., Backward Design and Madeline Hunter’s model), I had trouble using these methods to plan my flip. Pretty soon, I found myself falling back to the “5 W’s” – Who, What, When, and Why – to organize my thoughts. My considerations for each question are below.

Photo: By Ted Hood (Courtesy of State Library of New South Wales)

WHO: Who are the students in my flipped class? Who is the professor? Which class will lead to the most successful flipped experience?

If considering only learning outcomes and session materials, nearly any of my instruction sessions could be flipped. However, since the professor for my assigned freshman seminar class is equally interested in trying out new instruction techniques, I decided his class would be a good match for the trial flipped sessions. Due to his support and investment in the process, I feel confident he will actually distribute pre-class materials to students and will motivate students to complete the assigned pre-class work. (As an added bonus, I also have three, 75-minute instruction sessions with this class, which leaves a cushion to “catch-up” if for some reason the entire flipped experience falls apart.)

WHAT: What are the student learning outcomes? What will students learn through pre-class materials? What activities will students complete during class to cement learning?

Answering these questions has been the most difficult part of planning my flipped classroom. During my “regular” classes, I already try to involve students with hands-on, active learning experiences whenever possible. The challenge with the “flip” has been to make those activities more complex, pushing students to deeper levels of learning, as well as to identify what types of pre-class background students need to successfully complete those activities. Our residency librarian presented this as “What are the basics students should come to class knowing? What are the complexities that in-class sessions will address?”

Like many of the librarians in our “flipping” group, I am using the library’s existing collection of online tutorials as the basis of my flipped materials. I decided to give students 2-3 short videos to watch before class to cover basic skills, like the “click-by-click” mechanics of searching a database and the beginnings of constructing a search. Then, in-class activities will challenge them to apply those skills to their group research project at increasingly challenging levels.

WHERE: How will flipped materials be organized and delivered to students?

I’m already a big fan of using Google Forms to collect student feedback at the end of instruction sessions. Since I wanted to pair the pre-class videos with a measure of how many students completed the activities and how well they understood the material, Google Forms once again turned out to be an easy solution. For each flipped session, I created a Google form with links to videos along with quiz questions, and the course professor will distribute the form to students before our session.

WHEN: When should students complete pre-class activities?

The week before our in-class session, students will have access to the pre-class materials. Any earlier and I worry the connection between pre-class videos and in-class activities would be lost. This decision was fairly easy to nail down, and getting the date on my calendar is a good reminder finish materials with enough time to review the plan with the professor, distribute to students, etc.

WHY: Why is “flipping” an method I want to try for library instruction?

Although “flipping” is one way I’m fulfilling my goal to explore new instructional techniques, the deeper I dig into planning, the more I think it’s a model that can be useful in library instruction. Most of the librarians I work with or have observed are already moving away from lectures and database demonstrations. But it’s hard to jump into more complex applications and exploratory activities during a traditional 50 or 60 minute class if students don’t have a basic foundation on which to build advanced skills. Off-loading the procedural instructions, like how to navigate the library’s website or basic catalog searching, to pre-class activities can free up in-class time for librarians to help students work through more complex activities.

My flipped experiment is also allowing me to carve out a chunk of in-class time to address additional material, including brainstorming and concept mapping. Last semester, I noticed students in the seminar struggling to craft a manageable research question, which later affected their ability to construct effective searches and to evaluate information for it’s relevancy to their topic. This semester, since I’m providing some of the procedural instruction outside of class, I can accommodate more hands-on experiences into the class and set students up for better guided learning.

Ready, Set, Go!

The first round of pre-class materials is going out to students this week, and our first in-class session is next week! I am excited for student responses to the pre-class material to start coming in and to dive into the full flipped experience. I’m planning to report back in March with my thoughts about how the flip unfolds!

Do you have experience with the flipped classroom? What considerations do you think are vital when planning “the flip?”

Can We Flip the Library Classroom?

Recently there have been lots of articles in my feedreader about “flipping” the classroom. This pedagogical strategy aims to reverse the order of operations in traditional lecture-based classes. Instead of the professor lecturing during class and the students completing homework in between sessions, proponents of flipped classrooms move problem-solving into the classroom, and often assign video captures of lectures as homework. Students may be given the chance to work in groups as they complete their assignments, and the instructor can circulate throughout the class in “guide on the side” style, providing individual attention to each student and working through questions and uncertainties during class time.

As an instructor who is not a fan of teaching lecture classes, the flipped model sounds good to me. Much of the discussion I’ve seen lately has raised interesting points about the place of technology, pointing out that while lecture videos may be useful, they’re not necessarily a required component of a flipped pedagogy. I will admit to one big lingering question (also raised in the blog post mentioned above): how can the flipped model be applied to discussion classes? In those courses students are typically expected to have completed assigned readings before coming to class, and class time is used to discuss issues raised by the readings and to review any points of confusion. I’ve heard many faculty lament their difficulty in convincing students to do their readings, which is a challenge that I’m not sure flipping the class can solve.

Can we flip the library classroom? With the move toward active learning in library instruction classes and away from more traditional, lecture-like demonstrations of research tools and strategies, in some ways we already have. But what about asking students to do some work before they join us in the library classroom? I’m sure many of us ask students to come to their library instruction sessions with a research topic in mind, especially for one-shots. We could ask them to view or read tutorials or research guides about the library catalog and databases before their one-shot, so they can jump right in once they get to the library. But will they do it? And are there other ways that we can take advantage of the flipped model to help students get more out of library instruction?

With so much of our library instruction dependent on one-shots for a variety of reasons, it seems like anything we can do to help students get more out of that single session is worth a try. I’m interested to hear about what’s happening with the flipped classroom model at academic libraries — are you using any flipped techniques in your instruction?