education

image via Jarret Callahan on Flickr

I recently read the new draft of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and really liked some of the threshold concepts. They felt more holistic than simply trying to teach skills piecemeal. I also was teaching a brand new class last week that wasn’t completely coming together for me — that is, until I tried using a threshold concept to frame the lesson. This seemed to make it click.

I was preparing for an information literacy lesson for sophomores on ethnographic research that our teaching librarians team worked on as a group and that my colleague Lindsey Rae was instrumental in leading and designing. It was a solid lesson that involved a significant amount of active learning, but I felt like I wanted to make a few adjustments to make it work for me. I had a copy of the draft Framework sitting on my desk at the time and realized that this lesson fit in perfectly with the threshold concept Research as Inquiry.

This semester as a part of our information literacy curriculum we are looking at the theme “research strategies” and are discussing different strategies in different classes such as: mindmapping, developing keywords, doing interviews/ethnographic research, etc. And I realized that these are all methods of inquiry. They are ways of developing, formulating, restating, improving, and answering questions. And when I was able to frame the lesson in terms of the research process as inquiry it all came together.

I set up the lesson by saying that research is about asking and trying to answer questions and that ethnographic research was another way of doing that. They had already done textual research using books and articles and this was yet another way of getting answers that had different a different value proposition than reading texts. After practicing doing a little background research and interviewing their classmates I asked them what worked well and what didn’t and they enumerated a number of best practices for interviewing (including things like asking open-ended questions, being polite and respectful, and withholding judgment). I then asked about what the value of ethnographic research in comparison to reading a text and they gave a number of excellent answers including:

You get a personal perspective
You can see how beliefs work in practice
You can ask followup questions and have a conversation
You get a richer picture and come across anecdotes and stories that you might not in texts

This was a sampling of the responses, but this was a class that I merely facilitated — students drove the lesson and supplied all the answers. I wrapped it up by reframing the lesson in terms of inquiry and compared that research process to a room in which the lights slowly come on. At first you see very little and then you see some shapes and outlines. As you try different methods, explore more, and ask better and better questions, you begin to see colors and rich detail and really understand what the room looks like.

Using these threshold concepts may not work for everyone, but I can see them being exceedingly helpful to frame lessons and curricula. They help you focus on what is really important as opposed to getting stuck in what you think you are supposed to be teaching. Instead of just teaching a lesson about doing ethnographic research I taught a lesson about inquiry and asking increasingly sophisticated questions. An ethnography is just one lens and one method for doing that.

Image via Squiggle on Flickr

I’ve almost finished the book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath and one of my new favorite words that they define and discuss in the book is “ooch.” Ooching is the opposite of jumping in headfirst into something. Ooching is conducting “small experiments to test one’s hypothesis.” I know that I have fallen into the trap of debating at length the merits of some idea or initiative without getting anywhere. It’s also easy to think in terms of finished products and having to meticulously plan to get things perfect. And planning is extremely important, but what if you are planning for the wrong things? What if you are planning a service or initiative that people don’t actually understand or use?

One really important area where I would recommend ooching is in library school (and probably before). Before paying money for graduate school classes, try working or volunteering in a library. Shadow or spend some time with a librarian to see if it is actually something you’d want as a career. While in graduate school, internships, practicums, and work experience are great ways to test out different types of libraries and library work to understand what you will actually enjoy.

This idea of experimentation is extremely helpful in technology innovation in the library. Often we don’t know how effective technologies will be or how they will be useful until we try them. Whether it’s a new social media technology or a tool to enhance learning in the classroom, an attitude of experimentation and a sense of playfulness are essential for understanding their value. The same mindset is also present in good teachers. They never see their classes as a finished product but as a constant work in progress. They regularly try out new lessons, technologies, and teaching methods to find the most effective ways of facilitating learning.

Ooching reminds me of the philosophies behind ideas such as design thinking and the Lean Startup Methodology. In all of them there is a curiosity and desire to learn paired with a bias towards action. In the Lean Startup Methodology you create a minimum viable product (MVP), test it, and repeat. In design thinking there is ideation and planning involved, but the process moves past that into piloting and prototyping. We can often get stalled and spend a great deal of time and energy in the planning phase without much result. It’s not possible to ooch into every every decision you are trying to make, but it can be helpful in moving forward. Perhaps the next time you get stuck in a meeting or while thinking about an idea could you ask questions like: “can we run a pilot,” “can we test this and see what happens,” “is there a way we can ooch into this?”

What are successful pilots, experiments, or ooches, that you have conducted?

Threshold Concepts In Practice: An Example From The Classroom

Ooching: Cultivating An Attitude Of Experimentation

Taking Games In Libraries Seriously