I don’t know that I’ve really got any great insight into planning a good instruction session. But I’m mroe than willing to share what I’ve learned so far with the sessions that have worked and the ones that haven’t worked as well.

The first thing that helps is communication with the faculty member requesting the session. Even if they don’t have a great deal to say about what you’re planning, my experience is they like being informed about what you’re planning.

And planning really helps, if you’ve got the time. I’m still fairly new to the whole instruction thing (only a year of face-to-face and three years of distance), so I don’t really have a full menu to draw from that can be quickly adapted. I imagine that as I go along, the planning won’t take as long in terms of the full session. For my most recent one, I also decided it was time to develop a lesson plan template to use. This was most helpful in helping me to really focus what I wanted to accomplish. (I still plan to work on rubrics for different session, but am still doing some research on how to best set these up. But this will also help in future instruction.) The lesson plan also helped me keep my thoughts together during the actual session.

As to the actual session, I tried to tie everything into a practical application for the students which meant a lot of hands on and very little lecture. Although I was working with grad students, a number of them really weren’t familiar with the library. So we started out with a tour where I highlighted specific areas and resources that would be helpful to them when they do their research. When we moved to the classroom, after I explained a concept or resource, I had them actually use it. Candy was a nice incentive for them to participate. I also covered evaluating resources and then when we did an exercise in groups using the databases, they were encouraged to use those guidelines to find one good article for their research based on the criteria. Again, tying in a concept into an actual resource with them doing actual research.

Since these were grad students and it was a 2 1/2 hour class, I taught for about half of that time. Normally I probably won’t cover as much during the fall or spring semester for an undergrad class. If I were to do something like this again, I’d probably recommend that we break it up into two sessions or possibly go to the classroom to cover a few of the more basic things.

Student participation really helps. And I find that if I move around the room the students are more likely to engage with me. The type of things that we are covering are more useful if the students actually get to work with them under our guidance/supervision.

And when I wrap up a session, I always make sure to let them know that I’m available for individual research appointments if they need further help. I stress that this is what I’m here for and it’s not a big deal if they can’t find information right away. I also give out my business card. And some students do take advantage of this. Not too many yet, but I am optimistic this will change as more faculty are also aware that this is an option for their students.

So like I said, nothing really earth shattering or particularly innovative. I am willing to share my handouts that I used for this session and my lesson plan template. Just email me at jsodt at emporia dot edu. And for those of you more experienced, please share with us newbies any good ideas that you have found. I’m always looking to improve!