Pam McKinney here live blogging from day 1 of the Lilac conference.Lea Watson shared her dissertation research into pedagogical approaches in medical Librarianship. Lea began by talking about her background as a graduate trainee at the Bodleian library followed by working as a trainee outreach librarian with the NHS, where she did a lot of information literacy teaching, followed by a master's course at UCL. In preparing for her dissertation, Lea identified that there is less research on IL teaching in health libraries compared with academic libraries. Active-learning is discussed in health contexts, but only really when led by clinicians, not librarians. Lea conducted a mixed-methods study, a survey of 82 librarians and interviews with 5 librarians. The majority of the survey respondents were working in NHS libraries. Lectures do have their place, but respondents recognise that they aren't the whole education story. Librarians described a range of approaches such as workshops, using pop-up stalls, outreach activities such as micro-teaching, case-based discussions, games-based learning and simulation-based learning. The results showed 3 key benefits: 1) engagement: hands-on. activities that gave learners the opportunity to practice what they were learning about, and how they relate to daily tasks. It also situated learning in work contexts. 2) collaboration, peer learning and the establishment of support networks. 3) service visibility: getting out of the library makes librarians more visible and increases professional presence. It also helped reduce library anxiety.
Making a session interactive doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work well. Lea identified that software could support more active approaches, e.g. Mentimeter. Incentives could help to support engagement , e.g. post-it notes as prizes for activities. It was important to address accessibility, with choices of software and learning design. Large group teaching was better if co-teaching models were adopted. It';s important to clarify session design with learners so that expectations can be managed. The physical space mattered, so librarians would try to book spaces that were consistent with the design of their activities. Approaches tool flexibility and sensitivity, especially when conducting outreach activities. Professional relationships help embed teaching, and there was a need for librarians to work in a cross-professional way.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching, librarians mostly relied on informal obeservation, but some used more structure forms e.g. evaluation forms. However it was quite difficult to collect data, and it was difficult to understand long term benefits of the training. The study identified that openess and willingness to experiment with teaching, spending time in nurse environments as part of outreach teaching increased librarian confidence in communication with nurses. Experimentation was important, and the ability to learn from successes and challenges. Professional growth through professional development is vital.
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