At the end of the Birds of a Feather session, the top 3 (or so) suggestions/tips/take-aways from each group was shared with the rest of the groups. These are shared below.

Improvisation in Instruction

• difference bet. planned and unplanned improv
• requirements of improv (experience, knowledge of subject, confidence, risk-taking, spontaneity, PLAY!, back-up)
• pros and cons: increases alertness, fun, engaging; no interaction, don’t know the answer, difficult to assess learning when content not planned

Expanding ILI to more than just text (videos, maps, images, etc.)

• how to promote specialities (maps, environmental knowledge) to colleagues
• internal workshops, LibGuides, cool tools, SEXY!, knowledge-swapping, interdisciplinarity, BEER, be passionate, build others’ confidence

Motivating students: how to inspire passion!

• acknowledge that motivation is an issue: ask students why they’re there and use that to inform session structure
• recognize that not all students have the same motivation
• have students self-select their skill level and then teach the same session anyhow
• let students define what they need
• meaningful assignments; treat students as scholars

Serving international students in academic libraries

• need to investigate stats and trends: how many int’l students do we have in our libraries?
• recognize cultural differences and differences in libraries and access to resources (closed stacks, AI)
• partner with other campus units (writing centres, grad student advisors, outreach to int’l students during summer, programming such as language exchange)
• Int’l Students Library Tutorial at University of N. Carolina

ILI for Nursing / Health Sciences

• “Reading Research” book by Davies and Logan as a tool for us and students
• using online tutorials for students to learn basic skills so we can address higher level skills in class
• affirmation in knowing that other librarians who share the same challenges

Digitization/Metadata

• make use of student assistants for the laborious work (scanning, etc.)
• make sure you have policies/procedures/workflows in place ahead of time
• build a community of peers in digitization/metadata through a blog (You are not alone)

Student contributions to library materials (LibGuides, etc.)

• BoF: YAY! 🙂
• partner with a class when building the guide
• get student feedback on content and placement, language
• use student groups as a sounding board (announcements, repeate customers, incentives)
• embed links in LMS/CMS
• all but one using LibGuides
• teaching from the guide during class (realtime feedback)

Ideas for active learning

• large classes: have a pair of students do a database search using kw suggested by peers (FIGHT!)
• plant questions (Cephalonian method) in audience using coloured cards (Q&A)
• using Twitter in class: instructor sets up accounts in advance and have students get into groups; one student tweets answers to questions posed by instructor

Developing blended ILI

• blended: making videos, screencasts
• encourage the use of blended learning because it meets different learning style needs
• know why you’re doing it (NOT JUST COOL); gaps and overlaps in your programming/ILI; needs assessment
• high repetition topics (database searching) are good candidates as well as topics that are very specialized
• will not save you time

The idea of birds of a feather (BoF) is to give people a chance to get together and discuss topics of mutual interest. Ideas for discussion are all up to participants. If you hear something in a session and want to talk about it more or if you have a topic that hasn’t been discussed at the conference, write the idea on one of the sign up sheets at the Registration Desk.

If you don’t have a topic to suggest, stop by the Registration Desk to check out the other topics suggested by your colleagues and sign up for one that interests you! You will have a chance to contribute your idea or sign up for a session until the end of breakfast on Thursday morning. After breakfast on Thursday, each of the discussion topics will be assigned a table and during the BoF hour time slot (Thursday, 10:45-12:00) groups can take the discussion wherever it will go!

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Les groupes de discussion birds of a feather vous offrent l’occasion de discuter entre collègues de sujets d’intérêt commun. La matière à discussion provient des participants. Si vous avez envie de parler d’un sujet abordé lors d’une conférence ou si vous voulez lancer une toute autre idée, vous n’avez qu’à le noter sur une des feuilles d’inscription disponibles au comptoir des inscriptions.

Si vous n’avez pas d’idée à proposer, vous pouvez tout de même vous joindre à un groupe pré-existant. La période des inscriptions sera ouverte jusqu’à la fin du petit-déjeuner jeudi. Nous désignerons ensuite un numéro de table à chaque groupe et lors de l’heure de discussion birds of a feather (10h45 à 12h00), à vous de prendre la parole !