Spilling the tea: LIS professionals speak out on the good, the bad, and the ugly in LIS education

Lee, Shari; Chancellor, Renate

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105302 Copy

Description

Title

Spilling the tea: LIS professionals speak out on the good, the bad, and the ugly in LIS education

Author(s)

• Lee, Shari
• Chancellor, Renate

Issue Date

2019-09-24

Keyword(s)

• Library and information science education
• Teaching and learning
• Curriculum
• Pedagogy

Abstract

For LIS faculty, a fundamental goal in teaching is to engage, challenge, and inspire students to become diligent and dynamic information professionals. As a result, faculty often strive to create learning environments that engender critical thinkers and ethical decision makers in the hope that they will become competent, service oriented, information professionals. In facilitating this agenda, we frequently evaluate course content in an effort to provide the clearest possible instruction and positive course experience. Faculty therefore rely heavily on feedback from students. Not only do we scrutinize course evaluations, but many of us also solicit additional feedback from students. As appropriate, revisions are made to the syllabus, course content, and the curriculum. We also bring practitioner expertise into the classroom, as practitioners have their own unique impact on students. According to Ramasamy (2017), students get engaged with a teacher who is currently working/specializing in the topic being discussed in the classroom. However, while we bring professionals to the classroom, their perspective is often missing from the feedback and data we gather from course evaluations. We contend that this perspective is of value to the teaching and learning environment, and one that can provide crucial information to improve the learning experience as well as the curriculum. Students provide a familiar perspective; professionals would provide a new perspective. Specifically, they can discuss what happened after they graduated; went through the job seeking process; entered the field; and began working. How prepared were they for what they encountered on the job. In what ways did their library program prepare them? In what ways did it fail them? What was their experience a year later? Two years later? We have gathered a panel of six recent LIS alumni that represent a global view of the field and LIS education, who will not only answer these questions, but also share their ideas about LIS education. Panelists: Nicholas Alexander Brown, Anastasia Chiu, Christina Gavin, Jhani Miller, Emily Wagner, and Heather Wiggins.

Series/Report Name or Number

• Education
• Curriculum
• Pedagogy

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105302

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