Engage! Creative and Practical Strategies
for Capturing Students’ Attention in
Information Literacy Sessions
SUNYLA 2015: The Art of Librarianship
June 5, 2015
Stephanie Herfel Kinsler, User Services Librarian
Andrea Laurencell Sheridan, Assistant Professor of English
Student Engagement…
What does it look like?
Use your artistic ability to draw what you think of when you
hear “student engagement”…What does it look like?
Image by Stephanie Kinsler
Student Engagement
(Barkley, 2010, p. 6)
Student Engagement Defined
“a process and product that is experienced on a continuum
and results from synergistic interaction between motivation
and active learning.(Barkley, 2010, p. 8).”
Suggested Reading
Palmer, P.J. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Description: This book offers an
inspirational and intellectual
discussion about finding your own
identity as a teacher. The author, who
has taught for over 30 years, believes
that becoming a great teacher
involves embracing our own identity,
having a “connectedness” to
ourselves and our students.
Know Yourself, Know Your Subject
•
Getting over presentation nerves/anxiety
 Know your subject
 Know your objectives
 Develop assessments
 Overplan/Underplan?
•
Explore your own identity
 Observe other teachers/profs
 Don’t be a scaredy cat
 Read the book…
• What am I missing here?
Photo by Bruno Caimi
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Know Your Students
• Talk with and get to know students
• Take “risks” in the classroom and be willing to laugh at
yourself and “be in the moment”
• Robots are never interesting
• Use keywords/search terms/topics that interest students
• Use analogies and examples that RESONATE with students
Connect with Students
In freshman composition courses:
• Show what I’m passionate about
• Ask what they are passionate about
• Allow them to explore their interests via writing,
argumentation, research, etc.
• Ask what they think about a topic/reading/clip rather than
telling them what I believe it means
• Allow the course to be
student-driven (within reason)
Photo by Robert Couse-Baker
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
First Impressions
First Day of a Literature Class
“Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being.”
(Wallace qtd. in McCaffery 26)
My own feelings about literature are clear, and they are free to
share theirs.
Connect with Students
• Freshman English 1:
• Open with an essay on technology and empathy
• “Rural > City > Cyberspace: The Biggest Migration in Human
History” by Nicholas Carr
Connect with Students Examples
• Present short stories with current themes/topics:
Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Foster Wallace
• Open poetry unit with discussion of music (as poetry)
• Hamlet, compare asides/soliloquies to text messaging
• Hamlet’s Claudius = Austin Powers’s Dr. Evil
• Postmodern and Post-postmodern: analogize to “goth, emo” kids and hipsters
Photo (dark edges cropped) by cliff1066™
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Active Learning Example…Boolean
college students
marijuana
Example of kinesthetic learning style: “Stand if you are a college student AND”
…
Active Learning Example
Using Google, find a reliable source of information on
animal rights and answer the following questions about
your website: (weight loss, dietary supplements, etc.)
1.
2.
3.
4.
The website cannot be a .com. What is the web domain
of your website? (.edu, .org, etc.)
Who is the name of the person responsible for the
information on your website?
What date was the web information published?
How much information is available on your website (a
paragraph, 3 paragraphs, several pages, etc.)?
(**At the very least teach in a lab and provide guided practice)
Pop Culture
“They can’t put anything on the
internet that isn’t true.”
https://youtu.be/v_CgPsGY5Mw
ENG101 Pop Culture
•
•
•
•
•
Zach Wahls video clips
• speech to Iowa State Senate
• debate on CNN
Pilot of The Newsroom (HBO)
David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”
Music: Mike Doughty & Edwin Starr
Banksy
Author of "My Two Moms", Zach Wahls
, with the Roanoke College Democrats.
Photo credit: Stephanie Garst
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Active Learning Example
Example:
Banksy’s Mobile Lovers
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/banksy-mobile-lovers-street-art
ENG102 Pop Culture
• Recordings of stories/poems
• Mark Ronson TED Talk: “How Sampling
Changed Music” (connecting to the Whitman >
Ginsberg > Dylan connection)
• Zach Morris to introduce asides in drama
• Frank Underwood to introduce soliloquy
https://youtu.be/iO2SirSH7Rg
Pop Culture
Other Courses
• Literature
• music (i.e. Jennifer Egan)
• film/film trailers (i.e. Sherman Alexie, JSF, Nick Hornby)
• S. by Abrams & Dorst
• Developmental Writing
• TED talks (Chip Kidd)
• music/television responses
• Honors Seminars
• 1920s Jazz & current rap/hip hop
• film (Gatsby, Midnight in Paris, Pulp Fiction, BIWHM)
• comedy (Woody Allen)
Technology
•
•
•
•
•
•
SmartBoards
Clickers allow for real time assessment
Poll Everywhere (great for discussions)
Google docs
YouTube videos
Any media
Write This Down
•
What part of this presentation did you find
most interesting/helpful?
Nonfiction writer of On Writing Well
Briefly wrote a blog for The American
Scholar, "Zinsser on Friday" about the craft
of writing, popular culture, and the arts
“Rules" of Engagement Review
• First impressions…Use any of these strategies at the beginning of
your class as a “hook”
• Know yourself: Tear down the wall
• Know your students (Audience)
• Use teaching best practices
 Plan your lesson
 Choose objectives
 Assess and close the assessment loop(!)
 Active Learning, not passive listening
 Build students’ past experiences/current knowledge
(also builds rapport)
• Pop Culture goes a long way
• Technology (with a purpose)
• Teach in lab setting only and only in conjunction with a research
assignment
References & Resources
Abromitis, R. & Hartman, L. Velcro instruction: 7 Techniques to make learning stick.
[Webinar]. Retrieved from http://nnlm.gov/mar/training/boost_recordings
Barkley, E.F. (2010). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college
faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Palmer, P.J. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Pink, D. (2005). A whole new mind. Pink, D. H. (2005). A whole new mind. NewYork,
NY: Riverhead Books.
Sittler, R. L. & Cook, D., eds. (2009). The librarian instruction cookbook. Chicago, IL:
ACRL.
Since some details are not in slides, feel free to contact us:
Stephanie Herfel Kinsler stephaniekinsler@sunyorange.edu
Andrea Laurencell Sheridan andreasheridan@sunyorange.edu