Instruction Committee Meeting: July 29, 2014

CARLI Office, Champaign, 10:00am-2:30pm

Members Present: Molly Beestrum (phone), Frances Brady, Michelle Guittar, Beth Mandell (phone), Laura Mondt, Lora Smallman, Chelsea Van Riper, Aimee Walker (phone), Frances Whaley, Anne Zald

CARLI Staff: Debbie Campbell, Lorna Engels

Guests: Susan Singleton, CARLI Executive Director

Decisions:

• Minutes will be taken in order starting with Laura Mondt and looping around the list. (see below for schedule)
• Meetings will be held on the third Friday of each month from 10:00-11:30. (see below for schedule)
• Meetings will be held by phone (or Adobe Connect if needed).
• Blog post topics will be discussed at each phone meeting. Potential topics will be sent out to the Instruction Interest Group listerv to see what sparks conversation. Interested members may volunteer to write on a topic of interest.  Members may also collaborate on a post.
• Meeting minutes will be sent out via the Instruction Committee listserv. Committee members will have one week to approve the minutes via e-mail.
• The committee will host another Instruction Showcase next year, likely in June 2015.
• The overarching theme for the year will be Partnerships.  The details of how we will study this still need to be fleshed out but faculty-librarian partnerships will be a large component.

Announcements:

• Susan Singleton welcomed the committee and discussed the importance of committee membership.
• Debbie and Lorna went over the committee membership, charges, and the Guidelines for CARLI Committee Chairs and Members document.
• Debbie demonstrated the Instruction Committee space on the CARLI website.
• The “white paper” requirement from last year has been changed to an annual project. This loosens the structure.  Final products should be “deliverable” results from a survey, reports on successful training series, etc.  The idea is to deliver something that is valuable to the membership as a whole.  This will be due late May 2015.
• The annual report will encompass all of the activities the committee did during the year.  It will be drafted by the co-chairs and approved by the committee.

Tasks assigned:

• Committee members were asked to think over the discussion and have an idea of what they want to work on for the annual project by the next meeting.
• Frances Whaley will contact NILRC information literacy committee members and invite them to attend our next meeting to discuss the possibility of collaborating on an event or research.

Discussions:

• Event planning
  • Need to plan events four months in advance and six months in advance for paid speakers. The Committee could apply to the program planning committee for money for a speaker to help with the costs.
  • Need to consider places with low facility rental rates and free parking.
  • Beth offered Rend Lake College as a possibility for the next Instruction Showcase.
• Possible themes for the 2014-2015 year:
  • ACRL Instruction Framework
    • Very timely, but will hold off due to uncertainty of approval.
  • Threshold concepts and information literacy
    • Idea from education theory that there is for each discipline a threshold for different skills; after the skill is surpassed, you don’t remember when you didn’t have the skills before. The paradigm shift, “Ah-Ha” moment. Core ideas & ways of thinking and practicing that are important but that students find difficult to grasp.
    • Examples: “Scholarship as a conversation,” “Format as Process”
  • Program Review- How do you tell you instruction program’s story?
    • A lot of libraries are trying to figure this out. The HLC doesn’t have a particular format for writing a self-review.
    • What components need to be included?
  • Faculty relationships
    • Adjunct faculty- building relationships when they may be short-term/transient.
    • Library orientation for adjuncts- here’s what we can do for you with contact information
    • Working with faculty to redesign assignments
    • Use for “bonus feature of instruction showcase” as potential lightning rounds
  • Curriculum mapping – strategic approach to instruction and relationship building.
  • Articulation- the transfer from high school, to 2 year schools, to 4 year schools or employer, to grad school.
    • This may be something of interest to NILRC.
    • Michelle mentioned McHenry County College did a project on this topic and other committee members see this as a topic of interest at their own institutions.
• Other ideas:
  • Open Houses?
  • Videos or webinars
  • How school size and culture influences how you teach
  • How does culture affect instruction programs?
  • How does class size/format (lecture, hands on, etc) influence how you teach?

Dates and Meeting Times

• Next Meeting: August 22, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
• Meeting Schedule:
  • Tuesday, July 29, 2014, CARLI Office/phone, 10:00-2:30
  • Friday, August 22, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, September 19, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, October 17, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, November 21, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, December 19, 2014, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, January 16, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, February 20, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, March 20, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, April 17, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, May 15, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
  • Friday, June 19, 2015, phone, 10:00-11:30
• Minutes Schedule:
  • July 2014- Laura Mondt
  • August 2014- Lora Smallman
  • September 2014- Chelsea Van Riper
  • October 2014- Aimee Walker
  • November 2014- Frances Whaley
  • December 2014- Anne Zald
  • January 2015- Molly Beestrum
  • February 2015- Frances Brady
  • March 2015- Michelle Guittar
  • April 2015- Beth Mandrell
  • May 2015- Laura Mondt
  • June 2015- Lora Smallman