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Monday, April 11, 2022

#LILAC22 Increasing inclusivity: developing an HEA accredited teaching course for librarians

 Pam McKinney, live blogging from the lilac conference. This presentation from Kirstie Preest and Claire Sewell from university of Cambridge spoke about the teaching practice of librarians and how this is different from other academic teachers, and the need to develop specialist teaching skills. The course to develop IL teaching skills initially took place over 3 full days, but this was tricky for participants. In 2017 the university developed a new IL framework which was then used to develop a 9 month blended learning programme, in 2020 there was an emergency pivot to online only due to COVID. Now the course takes place over 6 months online, and covers developing a teaching philosophy, learning theories, inclusivity and feedback and evaluation. Learners complete activities in their own time, and have drop-in sessions. They use a range of online tools such as padlet, MS teams, jamboard etc, and this is deliberate. The course is mapped to the HEA framework and is expected to be accredited as a formal teaching qualification for AFHEA status in the next cycle. Assessment is through a portfolio where they have to develop a personal teaching philosophy, and through a Nano-teaching session on any topic - assessing how someone teaches, not what they teach. Learner feedback was positive. Learners said they had increased their pedagogical knowledge, and their confidence to teach. They felt they had significantly changed their practice, and made their teaching more inclusive. Learners picked up lots of good ideas from each other, and there was a lot of peer support, including mini-mutual-support networks. They are hoping to extend the course to learners from outside the university of Cambridge in the future.

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