Pam McKinney here live blogging from the final day of the Lilac conference in Cardiff. Meredith Knoff from Indiana University Bloomington presented on a peer-based learning initiative in the library. Peer-based learning has long been used in academic libraries - peers are seen to be more approachable, and both learners and peer teachers gain a lot from the experience. The research desk in the main library focuses on collaborative learning and support across different support areas in a service hub, e.g. IT, financial wellness, etc. The research desk supports students with inquiry projects and searching for information on an individual basis at any stage of their research process. Students can make appointments or drop in, and they offer in-person and online appointments. The desk is staffed by graduate assistants titled "research assistants" to reflect the higher nature of their work on CVs when they leave the university. The majority of the research assistants are studying in the library programme but include masters and PhD students from other disciplines.
The desk service is based on 3 learning theories: a humanist person-centred teaching perspective that emphasises choice and addresses the whole person. Secondly it is based on a dialogic learning perspective drawing on the work of Paolo Freire. This positions the librarian as just as much a learner as the students, on the same level, and the student and teacher actively participate in the learning each other. This encourages students to ask different kinds of questions. These one-on-one consultations support the students in developing their questioning techniques. The third philosophy is based on critical reflection, using metacognition to help learners connect their experiences to academic content. This theoretical basis helps students develop higher-level learning strategies that are transferable to other contexts.
The training for the research assistants is a key part. They meet weekly as a cohort and develop relationships with each other. They use activities such as role-playing and discussion to reflect on their own practice and use this as a means to think about how to support others. They also receive specialist training from librarians, e.g. from the Arts librarian. Research assistants are expected to act independently when working at the desk, so the peer network is really important for developing confidence. They are asked to reflect on their practice in research consultations and identify what went well and what could be improved.
Research assistants complete a self-reflection after each consultation, and these are collected, anonymised and analysed by library staff so they can monitor the practices of the research consultation and improve the training for the research assistants. Library staff have identified three key attributes of a successful consultation: Interpersonal communication, source selection and evaluation and self-reflection, with 3 levels - beginner, advanced and expert.
Meredith shared an example of a self-reflection, which demonstrated a deep reflection on why a particular consultation did not go very well. It demonstrated that the research assistant had engaged with dialogic communication and had developed an advanced mode of engaging with the students and attempting to develop their search practice. Meredith shared another example of a research assistant reflection that was very perfunctory and didn't demonstrate that the research assistant was able to develop a dialogue with the students. One point of learning is that students bring a lot of emotion to their consultations, and it's OK to let the students vent their frustrations and be sympathetic listeners - this is as useful for some students as supporting them in developing a detailed search strategy.
In the future, they will use this consultation reflection to inform strategic service development. There is potential for this service to be expanded, particularly to develop librarianship students, which will support them to develop as reflective practitioners. There is also the opportunity to develop the service in collaboration with student groups.
Photo: student voice wall in the Cardiff University Centre for Student Life
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