CILIP East held a TeachMeet on Saturday 9 July 2016 at the Chelmsford Campus of Anglia Ruskin University. This free event was open to all librarians with an interest in sharing their teaching experiences.
Overall, it was an interesting experience,with the Anglia Ruskin librarians sharing some of the ideas they discovered at LILAC (Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference) and the Health Libraries Conference.
Gamification was a big theme, demonstrating that information skills can be taught in a fun and engaging way. I particularly liked the competitive aspect of the question hunt, which would appeal to children in years 7-9.
Also the fact or fiction cards would be a good way of debunking myths and evaluating information sources with older pupils, perhaps in the sixth form.
There is no denying that these lessons are far more engaging than the traditional stand in front of the class and give them lots of information lessons that we are more used to offering. They also require much more initial preparation and a higher level of creativity.
However, once the initial work is done, they offer a more enjoyable lesson to deliver, and possibly one that children will enjoy more, and perhaps they may even retain more of the information through being taught this way.
I felt that many of the participants were novice teacher-librarians, looking to pick up some info on how to teach. I wanted to talk to others about their teaching styles, and what techniques they used when offering inductions to new users: it seems that we are most of us stuck in a rut - offering the same teaching materials because we are conscious that we only get a short period of time in which to give them everything they need. This makes inductions dull for us and dull for our users.
It is very hard to change, but if we do it bit by bit, we could make these sessions fun for everyone,
Overall, it was an interesting experience,with the Anglia Ruskin librarians sharing some of the ideas they discovered at LILAC (Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference) and the Health Libraries Conference.
Gamification was a big theme, demonstrating that information skills can be taught in a fun and engaging way. I particularly liked the competitive aspect of the question hunt, which would appeal to children in years 7-9.
Also the fact or fiction cards would be a good way of debunking myths and evaluating information sources with older pupils, perhaps in the sixth form.
There is no denying that these lessons are far more engaging than the traditional stand in front of the class and give them lots of information lessons that we are more used to offering. They also require much more initial preparation and a higher level of creativity.
However, once the initial work is done, they offer a more enjoyable lesson to deliver, and possibly one that children will enjoy more, and perhaps they may even retain more of the information through being taught this way.
I felt that many of the participants were novice teacher-librarians, looking to pick up some info on how to teach. I wanted to talk to others about their teaching styles, and what techniques they used when offering inductions to new users: it seems that we are most of us stuck in a rut - offering the same teaching materials because we are conscious that we only get a short period of time in which to give them everything they need. This makes inductions dull for us and dull for our users.
It is very hard to change, but if we do it bit by bit, we could make these sessions fun for everyone,
