Embedded Files
My years in technical writing have given me extensive familiarity with collaboration strategies, relationship management techniques, technologies, and obstacles within a business setting. Technical writers routinely work with content experts to develop communications adapted for a variety of audiences, situations, and technical platforms.
My work at my local public middle school and my coursework at San José State University has given me the opportunity to observe the impact of professional learning communities, the relative roles of the instruction librarian and faculty members in developing information literacy instruction, and the importance of effective mentorship programs.
In my observations, I have been struck by the parallels between technical writing and co-teaching. In education, the role of content / subject matter expert is filled by the teacher, while the librarian contributes appropriate information resources, supportive technologies, and instruction design skills, much like I had done as the technical writer for my teams earlier in my career.
Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay
I have also been intrigued by the opportunities posed by cross-institutional collaborations, such as the Bridging the Gap program at Utah State University, in which academic librarians collaborate with local high school librarians to equip incoming freshmen with the information literacy skills they need to feel at home in an academic library (Landgraf, 2023). Designed to reduce the risk that students will experience library anxiety in their first undergraduate years, this sort of pre-collegiate training is particularly important for first-generation college students and English language learners.
Ralph Vazquez-Concepcion and I explored what this sort of instruction might look like in a modern high school in our unit plan, "Think Like a College Student Film/Podcast Project."
References cited on this page
Landgraf, G. (2023, June 25). Library collaboration to improve information literacy: Different types of libraries working together can provide unified services. American Libraries. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/library-collaboration-improve-info rmation-literacy/
Additional resources informing this philosophy can be found on the References page.
Page updated
Report abuse