2023 Program

Presentations

Let’s Make a Podcast: Moving from Information Literacy to Creative Fluency 

Sarah Kantor | University of Tennessee Chattanooga 

It seems like everyone wants to make a podcast, and for good reason. Podcasts, as well as other forms of digital media ranging from infographics to videos, combine the research and evaluation skills necessary for information literacy with multimodal rhetoric and media creation. Multimedia assignments are not new to the college classroom, having grown out of High Impact Practices. As access to creative technology has grown over the past several years, multimedia assignments have become more common across disciplines. Librarians are in a unique position to help students move from uncritical consumers of information to critical creators. Sarah Kantor has spent years developing lessons and working with faculty to move students beyond information literacy and into creative fluency. In this presentation, she will impart the lessons she learned in moving from an instruction librarian to a creative technology librarian and offer tools and resources that will aid librarians who are looking to incorporate creative technology into their work.

Tech Tools for Library Instruction: Using Canva, Mentimeter, & Jamboard to Engage Students

Ginelle Baskin | Middle Tennessee State University 

Is your library instruction feeling boring and stale? Are you looking for a fresh approach that gets students more engaged with your material? In this presentation, I will demonstrate how I use three tech tools (Mentimeter, Canva, and Google Jamboard) to incorporate more interaction and engagement in my library lessons. We'll discuss using Mentimeter to create interactive polls, using Canva to create appealing slide decks, tutorials, and posters, and using Google Jamboard to facilitate discussions and make connections. We’ll also look at the pros and cons of using free versus paid versions of these tools.

Outreach Outside the Classroom: Library Partnerships with Living Learning Communities 

Katherine Howell, Dr Sara McCaslin | Western Kentucky University

Living Learning Communities (LLCs) are first-year student residence groups based on a shared academic focus, interest, or social identity. Key to LLC success is co-curricular engagement, which can be greatly aided by library involvement. The authors will discuss the results of a survey intended to collect data on the current landscape library outreach to LLCs, including the prevalence of library/LLC partnerships, the ways in which libraries perform outreach or offer programming to LLCs, the factors that contribute to the success of LLC outreach and programming, and the challenges associated with such outreach. After discussing the survey results, the presentation will provide attendees with actionable recommendations for outreach to LLCs in their own settings. The presenters will also discuss their own experience with forming a library/LLC partnership at their institution, including outreach strategies as well as specific programming and events.

Practicing Slow Librarianship During Class Instruction With The Curated Browsing Technique

Karyn Hinkle | University of Kentucky 

Have the thoughtful, intentional, and people-centered principles of “slow librarianship” begun to inform and/or continue to transform your teaching? I think they have for me! 

In this presentation, we will explore the connections between slow librarianship and the “curated browsing” teaching technique. I’ve been using curated browsing in the context of an arts administration class about emotional intelligence, in which the students visit the fine arts library for an opportunity to explore photo books depicting human relationships. Browsing this carefully pre-selected collection tends to foster idea generation, reflection, and imagination among the students – but it can be an intimidating process to begin.

This session aims to show how concepts related to slow librarianship, such as metacognition, co-creation, and agency, can inspire both library instructors and students to enjoy the feeling of abundance and the research benefits that curated browsing provides. I will discuss the theoretical ideas about slow librarianship’s connection to curated browsing, and also share some practical takeaways from teaching the exercise with students, providing attendees with strategies for incorporating the concepts into their own library teaching and instruction.

Join an exploration of how curated browsing with photo books can help student researchers slow down and cultivate reflection and imagination in the library classroom.

Trauma-informed Pedagogy: Using the Framework for Digital Literacy Instruction Programs 

Rebecca Tolley | East Tennessee State University

Understand how to implement principles of the trauma-informed framework within your pedagogy.  Learn the six pillars of trauma informed care. Comprehend the potential that trauma-informed / trauma-responsive pedagogy promises for your students / community. Apply the 6 pillars to your one-shot or semester/quarter-long credit course.

Teaching Identities and You: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Finding Your Teacher Voice

Jenni Jacobs | Texas Tech University; Sarah Kantor | University of Tennessee Chattanooga; LaTiffany Davis | University of Tennessee Knoxville

In this interactive workshop, we will examine the importance of developing a teacher identity, especially for new instruction librarians. We will be discussing our experiences in learning how to teach as well as how we developed our professional teaching identities. This workshop will give attendees the opportunity to share their journey in discovering their teaching identity. Due to a lack of pedagogical preparation in graduate school, many early-career librarians experience imposter syndrome, especially in the classroom. Developing a professional identity as a teacher is one way of overcoming imposter syndrome and becoming a more confident teacher. Throughout the workshop, we’ll discuss what walls and challenges we have faced during our teaching and how we overcame them. The workshop will use collaborative documents to  provide encouragement, advice and resources to attendees who may face their own imposter voice while learning to become a teaching librarian. Attendees will leave with tools and techniques for getting in touch with one’s teacher identity and becoming more comfortable in the classroom. 

Be Mine: Facilitating Instructional Relationships through Syllabus Mining 

Amber Willenborg | University of Louisville 

As instruction requests continue to decline in the wake of the pandemic, librarians must consider new ways of identifying courses with research components for targeted outreach to faculty. To that end, librarians at the University of Louisville gained access to the institution’s syllabus repository and began mining syllabi across disciplines to identify potential instructional relationships. In this session, attendees will learn about the syllabus information literacy miner, created by librarians at Baylor University, and how UofL librarians are using this tool for targeted instructional outreach. The presenter will share the successes and failures of using the miner with subject liaisons, and discuss other ways that liaisons have used the tool beyond identifying research courses. 

In an Online World, Should Libraries Still Have a Physical Reference Desk? 

Kayla Davidson, Greg Engstrom, Clay Howard, Brad Marcum, Maggie Park | Eastern Kentucky University 

Reference statistics have been decreasing in recent years and have not had the same uptick as other services have seen post-pandemic.  A work group in the library set out to discover why: Where are the reference questions?  Through the use of a literature review, surveys of library employees, benchmark institutions, EKU students, and in-house statistics, we are working toward an answer.  Join us for a presentation and panel discussion of the methods, results, and what this could mean for the future of the reference desk, other reference services, and even our instruction. 

Creating an Academic Honesty Workshop

Kelly Bilz, Nathan Hartman | Thomas More University 

Drawing on the Integrity Seminar’s approach of building self-reflection into a workshop about academic honesty, plagiarism, and copyright, Benedictine Library created an asynchronous course using Canvas for students who had plagiarized. The course was split into two steps: first, for accidental or first-time incidents, and second for repeat occurrences of plagiarism.

The Integrity Seminar uses Simon Sinek’s Start With Why approach, focusing on the why of trust and integrity, rather than the typical informative content about citation styles and paraphrasing best practices. In this session, the course creators explain their approach of organizing modules based on trust, copyright (called creators’ rights), and real-world case studies of both plagiarism and examples of broader dishonesty.

Redesigning Online IL Instruction to Increase Student Engagement

Cindy Judd, Clay Howard | Eastern Kentucky University 

Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Libraries has a very close partnership with EKU’s English department and library instruction is a required component of the ENG 102 (Research, Writing, and Rhetoric) curriculum.  We have developed a set of information literacy activities, for use in both in-person and online courses, that align with the student learning outcomes of the English department and the ACRL Framework. After using the same approach for a few years, we decided to rethink our lesson plan for the asynchronous online sections of the course. We wanted to create an experience for online students that more closely aligned with their face-to-face counterparts, namely by increasing engagement through a shared learning experience. We will discuss how we redesigned our “searching as strategic exploration” activity using Jamboard and will share some of the interesting feedback from students as a result of this new lesson.

TILTing it: Using Transparency and Clarity in Instruction Planning and Practice 

Kayla Davidson, Sarah Hazelmyer, Kelly Smith | Eastern Kentucky University

This presentation explores the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) pedagogical method developed by M.A. Winklemes.  TILT takes a metacognitive approach to learning, emphasizing transparency and clarity to help learners understand why the assignments or tasks they are asked to do will benefit them and how they might translate the skills practiced in the assignment to their scholarship, teaching, and/or future careers. A great benefit of TILT is that by focusing on making small, ongoing changes to the design of individual assignments, it is easy to iterate over time to continually hone and improve classes in a manageable way. The presenters will describe two different cases in an academic library context: 

(1) revising one-shot library instruction lesson plans to incorporate TILT principles and increase student learning outcomes; and 

(2) revising a Professional Learning Community curriculum with TILT in mind in order to sharpen learning goals and increase faculty engagement. 

The presenters will discuss the basic principles of TILT and ways to apply these principles when planning and executing an instruction session or lesson plan. Participants will then be asked to “TILT” an example lesson plan during the session to get hands-on practice and feedback.

Lightning Talks

Using Life Coaching to Define Core Beliefs: The Journey to Developing Better Researchers

Dr. Whitney Taylor | University of the Cumberlands 

This session aims to discuss how life coaching can be used to help Instructional Librarians evaluate their core beliefs and apply them in the classroom. This can extend to helping librarians find their teaching style and connecting librarians to the best leadership style for their environment, reflecting those core beliefs. 

Topics Covered include: 

• Leadership styles 

• Leadership styles in libraries

• Defining Core Beliefs: what are they, why it is important, and identifying your individual core beliefs

• Classroom Implementation: Personal account, class modeling, and achieving faculty buy-in to form a stronger relationship with librarians

• Establishing core beliefs in instruction sessions

• Impact assessment: Personal account

Share your Go-To InfoLit Resource Using KYVL

Esther French | Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College 

Find out how you can share your go-to information literacy lessons and activities in the KYVL InfoLit Gallery, a repository of freely shareable materials for standards-based information literacy instruction featuring KYVL resources for K-12 and postsecondary librarians across the state. Participants will discover the value add of this resource and be able to schedule follow-up sessions for assistance with submitting to the Gallery. The KYVL InfoLit Workgroup exists to elevate information literacy in the Commonwealth by leveraging KYVL resources and the expertise and reach of KYVL member libraries. The more we share, the greater our impact!

Metaliteracy: Unlocking the Labyrinth 

Jamie Collins | University of Kentucky 

A labyrinth is not a maze or a puzzle to be solved, but a path of meaning to be experienced. Its path is circular and convoluted, but it has no dead ends.  Metaliteracy is an interactive set of information literacy tools and behaviors that empowers students and adults to evaluate and use information with ease and confidence, know when to creep ahead cautiously, and when there is a need to stop and reflect.  Reflective, adaptable, and civic-minded students will produce meaningful content as authors, collaborators, and researchers. This presentation will define metaliterate learning domains, characteristics, and roles, and explore how they correlate with existing ACRL Framework dispositions.  Attendees will leave the session with ideas, prompts, and exercises to incorporate metaliteracy concepts into their own instruction session.  To be successful, students and adults require strong information literacy skills in their personal, academic, and professional lives.  By incorporating metaliteracy ideals into information literacy learning and training, students are imparted with cognitive skills to maneuver through the labyrinth of life.

Resource 1   Resource 2

A first try at best practices on using ChatGPT

Ashley Orehek-Rossi | Western Kentucky University

In Spring 2023, I was asked to create an instruction session about ChatGPT and how to use it. To prepare, I worked with two colleagues to describe it, develop initial best practices for using it, and create a real-world example, highlighting the do’s and don'ts. In this lightning talk, I will briefly cover our development steps and share the final presentation given.

Collaborative Creation: Empowering Student Colleagues to Author Asynchronous Training Modules 

Amanda Peach, Isaac Sexton | Berea College 

This conference session will explore the benefits of empowering student colleagues to author asynchronous training modules. By giving students agency in creating these modules, they bring a unique perspective to the material and can translate complex concepts into a more accessible language for their peers. The session will highlight opportunities available in the LibWizard tutorial platform, which allows for creating interactive and customizable tutorials. We will discuss the importance of giving students a voice in designing and implementing training modules, and how this approach can lead to more effective and engaging learning experiences for everyone involved. 

Healthy Productivity 

Julie Howe | Somerset Community College Learning Commons 

Come bring your best productivity hacks and learn about how you can be productive without the pressure of internalized capitalism!

Lunchtime Discussions

Appreciative Teaching: Growing Teachers with a Peer Observation Program 

Andrea Brooks | Northern Kentucky University 

This conversation hour will focus on the topic of peer observations in the information literacy classroom. The presenter will briefly share the Appreciative Teaching approach that librarians at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) have adopted. The program is designed to learn and draw inspiration from the strengths that each teaching librarian brings to the library’s education and outreach team. Upon reflection, Appreciative Teaching, or a variation of it, could be extended and practiced with teaching librarians across the state. NKU’s teaching librarians have a range of experience levels, though all have at least a few years of experience in the library classroom. While the team found value in the Appreciative approach, the idea of observing librarians beyond NKU is appealing because it invites opportunities to consider other approaches to IL instruction and invigorate teaching practices. Additionally, the prevalence of video conferencing tools provides the ability to extend observations beyond one’s own institution. This session aims to start a conversation with Kentucky’s teaching librarians about a statewide peer observation program and brainstorm how Kentucky librarians might share their expertise with one another.

ChatGPT in the Classroom: Menace or Phantom Menace for Library Instruction

John Ernst | Thomas More University

The goal of this session is to facilitate discussion and leverage peer expertise and insights to better understand ChatGPT in the classroom from the point of view of library instruction. Participants should leave the session with knowledge related to helping students successfully find, analyze, and use information provided through interactions with ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence. The format of this session is strategic guidance through facilitated discussion. After a brief introduction to ChatGPT along with recently gathered insights on faculty concerns about generative AI, the facilitator will use session polling to gauge attendee interest in a specific set of questions related to ChatGPT. Example questions could include: 

• If an instructor says students in their classroom are not allowed to use ChatGPT, what should we say if a student asks about it? 

• Do you have to cite ChatGPT or is it like a calculator or Grammarly? 

The facilitator then will lead group discussion on the questions of most interest to the participants. Attendees will be asked to give peer guidance, advice, and insights for library instruction strategies on the poll-selected questions related to ChatGPT in the classroom. The session will close with time for general discussion on the topic.