Library:TLAC Priorities
UBC Library Strategic Plan Implementation Scope Note: Enhance Student Learning
Actively partner with faculty in curriculum design, teaching critical thinking, digital literacy and information fluency
Introduction
In the 2008/2009 academic year, UBC Library delivered more than 1,400 library instruction sessions to over 32,000 learners. The instruction that we provide takes many different forms:
- Many classes are one-shot workshops, taught in 50 minutes time slots to small groups by a subject librarian. They address various aspects of the research process and result from close collaboration with individual faculty members.
- Other instructional initiatives support large, first year classes that reach hundreds to thousands of students every year, such as APSC 150, ENGL 112, and BIOL 140. Some of these classes are taught in library labs, while others are taught in the regular classroom or completely online via WebCT Vista.
- Still other instructional efforts focus on work with a cohort group of learners who are taught a class or various classes over time by their subject librarian. Examples of this occur in many areas included but not limited to the Coordinate Arts Program, Commerce, Education, Pharmacy, and Rehab Sciences.
- And, there is a very small group of librarians who either co-teach credit courses with faculty [Shirin in Japanese bibliography course] or serve as faculty in credit courses [Sandra and Mary and legal research course].
These tremendous efforts have led to steady growth in our instructional program over the past 10 years. We’ve been doing great work! However, there are aspects of our overall program that have yet to be addressed, including an overarching public articulation of its goals, the skills it aims to develop and cultivate in learners, and our methods/approaches. We’ve been so busy doing the work that we haven’t adequately described it on our web site or in communications to the campus community. We also haven’t reviewed the data we collect about our programs and how that might improve our process of sharing our teaching and learning stories, nor grappled with how best to map out our curriculum and who is getting it when. In addition, we haven’t reviewed the Library’s instruction web site and how best to utilize it to make instructional resources accessible to our users.
In 2008, UBC Library created a new position, Teaching & Learning Librarian, based on suggestions made in the 2006 UBC Library Report of the Working Group on Teaching and Learning. The focus of the work of Teaching & Learning Librarian is to provide strategic leadership, direction and support to the Library’s information literacy instruction programs which facilitate the teaching and learning goals of the academic community. This position has been in place since March 2009.
The Library is also in the process of soliciting members for its newly created Teaching & Learning Advisory Committee, whose primary purpose is to integrate the library as a key partner in teaching critical thinking, digital literacy, and information fluency through collaboration with faculty, departments, the UBC Faculty Senate and other university bodies whose mandate includes oversight for curriculum and related issues. This committee will be a key mechanism for facilitating conversations and sharing best practices regarding library instruction, and completing the actions related to Goal #1 under Enhance Student Learning, Actively partner with faculty in curriculum design, teaching critical thinking, digital literacy and information fluency.
Year 1 Actions
The Library’s strategic direction to enhance student learning speaks to our need to meet students’ evolving needs by delivering a responsive, integrated program of services, creating exceptional learning and research environments, and equipping students with skills for lifelong success in an information-intensive world.
More specifically, the following actions are proposed as year 1 steps towards achieving goal #1 in this key strategic area – to actively partner with faculty in curriculum design, teaching critical thinking, digital literacy and information fluency. While these actions don’t directly speak to actively partnering with faculty in new ways – we will continue to engage and collaborate with them on teaching – their completion will set the stage for, and better support, doing higher level advocacy with faculties, curriculum committees, and Senate committees around greater integration of information fluency into the curriculum.
Action: Articulate the Library’s instructional program goals, methods, approaches
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons
- By: May 2010
Action: Engage in a curriculum mapping exercise for first-year and graduate instruction library-wide and provide branches with tools for curriculum mapping at all levels
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons
- By: May 2010
Action: Develop a new set of performance measures for the Library’s instructional programs and pilot new methods for collecting and reporting out this data.
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons, Assessment Librarian
- By: June 2010
Action: Present at upcoming meetings of the Senate Committee for Teaching & Learning, Library Advisory Committees, faculty/departmental curriculum committees about library’s strategic plan, and actions related to teaching and learning
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: University Librarian, Librarian Rep to Senate, Unit Heads, Liaisons
- By: Summer and Fall 2010
Action: Collaborate with faculty, TAG and OLT to develop proposal for curriculum redesign institute
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: Liaisons, Faculty, TAG, OLT
- By: Summer 2010
Action: Redesign the Library’s instruction web site to reflect above goals and provide easy access to instructional resources
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons, LSIT
- By: Sept 2010
Action: Collaborate with other library units/staff to share instructional expertise, contribute to staff training, and support instructional work.
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: Liaison, EJ Help Team, Library HR
- By: Fall 2010
Action: Develop communication plan for reporting out the Library’s instructional activities within the Library and to the campus community.
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Comm. Director
- By: Dec 2010
Action: Develop and common set of tools for developing and delivering online instructional resources and programs, identify best practices for the effective use of technological tools, and provide training in use of tools
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons, LSIT
- By: March 2010
Action: Assess training/professional develop needs of instructional librarians and develop training plan in response
- Sponsor: AUL, Public Services
- Lead: T&L Librarian
- With: TLAC, Liaisons, PSC, Library HR
- By: March 2010
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