Learning to Teach

You probably don’t think of librarians as teachers, but many of us are. I first taught what we then called “BI” (bibliographic instruction) as an academic librarian. Nowadays we call it “information literacy.” I learned to talk to the students about the things the library offered, specifically the things that would help them with that specific course, or even better, a specific assignment.

But there are times that librarians of all types may teach their users about the library. And in some ways, many of us have never really “learned to teach.” So the article How do Librarians Learn to Teach? (Hack Library School) resonates with me.

Now I’m teaching practicing librarians and staff, in the continuing education courses, and library graduate students, in the two graduate courses I’m teaching for the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS). These are courses I’m teaching online. Next year I may be teaching one of them in person. I don’t want to teach it the same way I taught those BI sessions all those years ago, standing in front of them and lecturing them (at least not the entire time!) so I’m studying up on active learning and pedagogy, for starters.

For now, though, I’ve got to get back to those online courses I’m teaching right now. Stay tuned.