Sarah is currently a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is also currently a student at CU Denver (Anschutz Campus) pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Digital Pedagogy and New Literacies in the Learning Design & Technology program within the School of Education and Human Development. She has been teaching information literacy (IL) at the college level since the Fall of 2004. In short, her job since then has entailed planning, coordinating and providing library instruction to students, faculty and staff in a variety of settings; actively promoting IL campus-wide through various channels of outreach; and producing and maintaining online instructional guides. It has been her goal to develop and teach a credit-bearing IL course at SFCC; this goal undergirds the conception and development of this internship.
In recent years the New Mexico Higher Education Department (NMHED) set forth a common course numbering system in order "...to improve transfer and articulation of courses between New Mexico's public and tribal higher education institutions" (para. 1). By so doing, a greater degree of clarity and consistency - both in course numbering as well as Course Descriptions and Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) - has been a gamechanger, not only for students but for instructors as well. Instructors who wish to develop (or simply update) a course will find the task less daunting when consulting the various relevant documents published on the NMHED's website.
The author was aware of an Information and Digital Literacy (IADL) course but until a common course numbering system was implemented, had little specific knowledge of where and how the course was being taught. In developing her own IADL 1110 course, the author looked towards the University of New Mexico's version of the course for inspiration and as a model upon which to base a design of the same course, meant to be offered at her own institution in the future, as SFCC does not currently offer that course or anything comparable.
Sub-Goal #1: Learn about the Quality Matters (QM) Review
With financial backing from her employer the author was able to register for the IYOC workshop. Given her professional goals, this was an opportunity worth pursuing. Also advantageous was the timing; the workshop took place very early in the semester, thus placing the author in a favorable position to begin course audits in a timely manner.
Sub-Goal #2: Engage in real QM course audits
Around the same time the author registered for INTE6930, a member of SFCC's Online Teaching and Learning (OTL) department resigned. Having an intern available to conduct course QM audits (who is already a full-time employee of the college with significant experience in the online teaching environment) was a mutually beneficial opportunity to both the author and OTL.
Sub-Goal #3: Design and develop an IL course
There are no past failures (ie. "We tried this back in ____ and it didn't work") to which campus leadership, Curriculum Committee or long-time faculty can point as a cautionary tale, of sorts. The author and her colleagues have the potential advantage of a clean slate from which to design, develop and implement a successful IADL 1110 course. Additionally, the Course Goals and Student Learning Outcomes of IADL 1110 support the institutional Mission and Goals of the college.
Sub-Goal #1: Learn about the Quality Matters (QM) Review
Although my employer paid for the IYOC workshop, I was not offered a stipend for completing it as Faculty were due to my Staff status. However, the author did not consider this a serious challenge as 1. her employer paid for the workshop tuition and 2. her motivation for participating in the workshop was intrinsically linked to her desire to engage in meaningful professional development.
Sub-Goal #2: Engage in real QM course audits
Other than the author's initial lack of familiarity with course auditing procedures, there were no significant challenges on this front.
Sub-Goal #3: Design and develop an IL course
SFCC as an institution is attempting to streamline and "clean up" its course offerings in an effort to reduce institutional barriers to student success. Admirable as this action is, it has made finding a departmental "home" for IADL 1110 a challenging prospect.
This section seems the most appropriate place in which to discuss the connection between the internship work itself and the LDT Competencies most relevant to the author's track (Graduate Certificate) within the LDT Program. The first three (3) competencies - Reflective practice, Technology and Learning and instruction - will be addressed here.
Reflective practice
Professionalism and responsible use
Virtually the entire premise of the Information And Digital Literacy course the author designed is based upon modeling responsible use of information and technology; it is built into the syllabus and course design. In fact, QM Standard 4.3 explicitly addresses issues of copyright and proper citation of work; IADL 1110 easily met this Standard.
Equity and access
In Module 4 of IADL 1110 ("Authority....What Does That Even Mean?"), the author intentionally includes robust content that addresses white normative definitions of "authority" as well as the need to recognize other knowledge systems, such as Indigenous knowledge. The role of systems and institutions in perpetuating inequities is a point specifically addressed in an instructional video the author created for that Module, "Verifying Author and Publisher Credibility." This is also one of the major reasons the author has chosen to use open web resources over a potentially prohibitively expensive textbook: to help eliminate a financial, non-academic barrier to student success commonly experienced by traditionally marginalized student populations.
Critical stance
QM Standards 6 and 7 most closely relate to this sub-competency, which IADL 1110 handily met. Additionally, cybersecurity training the author has received through her employer has helped to mitigate and manage risk. The instructional and navigational design of the course and the types of activities and technologies adopted are valuable not only for their pedagogical merit but for their equity and ease of access as well; students will be challenged and stimulated by the material without the added burden of stress due to difficulty of access.
Emerging trends
At the risk of sounding cliché, it bears repeating that the pandemic has only served, if nothing else, to hasten existing and emerging trends in education, particularly in instructional design and equity of digital access (Osario & Droog, 2021). Embedded librarianship, in which a librarian is digitally present in one or more online courses and can interact with students, has been a standard practice for many years; the author herself has been an "embedded" librarian for over a decade. However, the pandemic has ushered in not only a greater sense of urgency for embracing embedded librarianship even among the last "holdouts" within the profession, but along with it, a greater interest among academic librarians in implementing instructional design into online teaching (Neuman et al., 2020). This has certainly been the case for the author. The emerging (no, already-emerged!) trends of both asynchronous (e.g. pre-recorded video or audio) and synchronous instruction (e.g. Zoom or Teams meetings) are two core facets of online teaching. Delivering these methods of instruction requires more than a passing familiarity with the online teaching environment. The work the author has engaged in during this internship (and even long before) demonstrates that she recognizes, embraces and engages in the practice of incorporating these trends into her professional daily practice.
More broadly, across society the all-too-familiar and singularly disturbing trend of mis-, dis- and malinformation creation, dispersal and consumption has increased with alarming frequency and far-reaching consequences. This presents to teachers and scholars at all levels of education a fundamental challenge - both pedagogical and practical - which demands a uniquely focused sense of urgency. If not met, this challenge, on a microscopic level, has implications that can negatively impact student success (e.g. a student's poor research skills resulting in low-quality sources on assignments, resulting in poor grades). However, on a macroscopic level, failing to meet that challenge carries with it implications that are far more profound and wide-ranging. A robust and egalitarian democracy cannot function when its people are ill-equipped to discern fact from opinion, truth from lies. Put simply, Scott Pelley said it best: "The greatest threat to democracy is poisoning the information" (2019). Therefore, in terms of recommended actions it is imperative that educators remain open to exploring the ways in which digital pedagogy and new literacies can further their institutions' goals of promoting lifelong learning and civic engagement among its students. An integral component of that open-mindedness is embracing (read: becoming more than just 'proficient' with) online instruction.
Technology
The author has extensive experience in the online teaching environment, even if only in a more peripheral role, as opposed to, say, a full-time instructional role teaching multiple semester-long, credit-bearing courses. However, given the above-referenced need for embracing online teaching, the author recognized, even pre-pandemic, that her practical experience could be further strengthened and supported by gaining a more solid pedagogical foundation. Thus began her exploration into online graduate certificate programs in the field of online education and instructional design in order to supplement and complement her Master's Degree in Library and Information Science which has, admittedly, aged somewhat.
As an instructional librarian for nearly twenty years, the author has proactively sought out and gained experience with various aspects of technology hardware and software, including, most recently, setting up remote classrooms and facilitating remote online discussions, both synchronous and asynchronous. For years, she used various technologies to produce instructional content; the pandemic simply served to hone and further sharpen those skills.
Focusing on the internship however, the author would posit that the creation of the IADL 1110 course - and having put into actual practice the QM Review process and what its Standards entail - could be considered in itself testimony of having learned the skills outlined in this particular competency. Put simply, if one can score a 98% percent on the QM Review Rubric as the author did, that necessitates a robust understanding of this competency and its sub-categories. A specific example of a video production/editing tool the author gained more practice and familiarity with during the internship is Panopto. Multiple Panopto-made videos are present in the IADL 1110 course.
Learning and instruction
Sub-categories of this competency bear striking resemblances to certain key Standards of the QM Review Rubric. For that reason, the author will, when appropriate, reference each sub-category to its corresponding QM Standard(s).
Design process = Standards 2.1-2.5; 3.1-3.5; 4.1-4.6; 5.1-5.4; 6.1-6.5
Alignment = Standards 2.1-2.5; 3.1-3.5; 4.1-4.6; 5.1-5.2
Grounding = Bloom's Cognitive Domain (Fresno State, 2016) was the foundation upon which the course was designed. This is evidenced in the Course Goals (CG) and Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) (See course Syllabus). Every activity and piece of instructional content references its corresponding CG and SLO to establish a solid pedagogical rationale.
Tool selection = Standards 6.1-6.5; 7.1-7.4; 8.1-8.4
Anecdotally speaking, courses designated as one-credit electives tend not "make" and therefore often meet an early demise by being removed from the institution's course offerings via Curriculum Committee. Bearing this in mind, it was the intent of the author and her Library Director to have IADL 1110 designated as both a 3-credit course and a course that would satisfy a degree requirement. Accomplishing this would necessitate first identifying an academic department in which the course would reside; English, within the School of Liberal Arts, seemed to make the most sense for this purpose. However, at the time of this writing, the author's Library Director has not met with success in this endeavor. The explanation provided was that the institution is attempting to, in fact, streamline course offerings, not add. Although disappointed, we remain undeterred; our next step is to approach the Biology and Psychology departments.
Conversations with faculty leadership in Biology and Psychology are currently underway regarding potential degree requirements and what the IADL 1110 course might look like, particularly in terms of academic rigor. A summer project the author has set for herself is to create a second iteration of the course - this time with a STEM focus - that would reflect the desired level of academic rigor.