Building tools and medieval games as the perfect pedagogical metaphors...

Librarians across the UK seem to be a very active bunch at the moment, and we were lucky enough to entice a couple of the busiest from the University of Northampton to Cambridge on Thursday to talk to us about their work. Hannah Rose and Heather McBryde-Wilding have been working on how to improve the “first-year experience”  - that is, how first years at university are introduced to the working ways of the library and how it can benefit them and their work. As a result they have improved student satisfaction by up to 11%, published their findings and methods here and have been appointed University Teaching Fellows (floppy hats, robes and all) at their institution.

The whole article is well worth a read, and it’s also worth pointing out that their model of “transitional bridging” (p.21 of the article) is being rolled out university-wide, such has been its success in the domain of information literacy. But there were two things in particular that I wanted to focus on:

Scaffolding

One of the reviewers’ criticisms of the researchers’ methodology was that increased contact with the students and more extensive materials was patronising and tantamount to spoon-feeding the students. In response, the researchers found this definition of ‘scaffolding’

Building on instruction. Picture here

"An important aspect of scaffolding instruction is that the scaffolds are temporary. As the learner’s abilities increase the scaffolding provided by the more knowledgeable other is progressively withdrawn. Finally the learner is able to complete the task or master the concepts independently."
Chang et al, 2002 cited in Van der Stuyf 2002, p.2

In short – the learner needs more help at the start because the subject is completely new, then becomes increasingly independent as their knowledge increases. This was reflected in the amount of resources listed in a first-year guide compared with a second-year guide; in the latter, new aspects were introduced but in such a way that the learner can draw on knowledge already gained in first-year to expand upon new information independently. It might seem obvious, but some academics in particular seem to forget how great the transition is between high-school and university, and how much subject-specific knowledge they take for granted, moving onto my second point of interest…

Having “tame academics” onside

Is academia like chess?  On so many levels

Without support from the academics, the librarian’s work is an uphill battle. Incomprehensible reading lists, obscure abbreviations, not to mention a lack of any clarity regarding referencing conventions leave students (and librarians, sometimes) at a complete loss. After all, as Helen Webster of CARET pointed out, teaching someone the rules of chess does not mean they have been spoon-fed all the possible combinations, outcomes and complexities of the game. But when academics do get involved, and even integrate information literacy into their course, the outcome can be drastically different in terms of the confidence of the students and the quality of their work, as Rose and McBryde-Wilding’s research showed. It certainly worked at Sheffield, where the wonderful Penny Simons, rather than giving us a “must-read” bibliography, took an hour out of each module to give us the key to all the medieval French resources you could possibly wish to read. And here is the result of her approach…

I’m in danger of becoming a broken record with my love of collaboration, but this is interesting in particular because it’s academics collaborating with librarians working in tandem with individual learners, pooling all their expertise to create better quality, stressless(ish) work. Good times.

And today's round-up...

--The UK coalition government is warned that it needs to stick to its environmental pledges by Greenpeace and RSPB amongst others

--Manchester City face Stoke City in the FA Cup Final

--Boy band Blue will be representing the UK in tonight's Eurovision competition in Düsseldorf...you're braver than I am if you try to predict the outcome!