Title

Deep Community Engagement and Learning Stories: University Students Develop Public Library Solutions

Location

Breakout room 1

Start Date

10-8-2018 10:15 AM

End Date

10-8-2018 11:15 AM

Description

Two university faculty members, one a librarian and one a professor in early childhood studies, team-taught an upper-level general education course on the Library, and designed the course for the university’s service learning designation. Collaboration between the teaching faculty and local public libraries resulted in student team projects such as developing public library programming for coding, 3D printing, developing agreed-upon behavior guidelines for a new youth center, and bilingual storytime, among others. This presentation details how the course design integrated community engagement with the concept of learning stories from the education literature, a formative assessment where students write directly to the libraries about what they observed and experienced, serving both as a learning tool for the public library and as a culminating service learning reflection for students. With the faculty framing the course design, a student who participated in the course will share her involvement in one of the local public libraries that faces competition for resources in their young adult center due to the locations of local middle schools and high schools. To create a mutually acceptable set of guidelines for the library, she and her group implemented a three-part plan including a survey and space analysis, development of practical guidelines, and the creation of programs for the local schools regarding the center’s resources and new guidelines. The session will conclude with discussion of successes and challenges faced both in course design and in the student’s project.

Short bio of the presenter(s)

Dr. Colleen S. Harris serves as the Digital & Data Services Librarian on the faculty at California State University Channel Islands, where she also serves as a lecturer in the Freedom & Justice Studies program. Formerly an Information Literacy Coordinator, and prior to that a manager in Access Services, her research focuses on library leadership, teaching, and effective academic library management. Editor of So You Want To Be An Academic Library Director (ALA, 2017), her work has also appeared in Journal of Academic Librarianship, Journal of Access Services, Library Journal, and various others.

Tracie Schneider is a third-year student at California State University Channel Islands currently taking the interdisciplinary course “The Library” under the instruction of Dr. Colleen Harris and Dr. Annie White. She is a Business Major with a focus on Marketing and a minor in Economics. Tracie presented independent student research in Mathematics at two California conferences last spring. In her free time Tracie line dances and attends as many hockey and baseball games in Los Angeles as she can.

Dr. Annie White is an Assistant Professor with the Early Childhood Studies program at California State University, Channel Islands where she teaches early childhood courses. She has close to 20 years of work experience with Early Head Start and Head Start Program in various roles. Dr. White is part of an innovate Early Childhood Studies program at California State University, Channel Islands where Learning Stories are used as the primary assessment approach in the early childhood curriculum and assessment courses. Dr. White is passionate about Learning Stories and incorporates the formative assessment approach in her University courses including student practicum, student own learner identity through “My Story”, and as part of community service learning.

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Aug 10th, 10:15 AM Aug 10th, 11:15 AM

Deep Community Engagement and Learning Stories: University Students Develop Public Library Solutions

Breakout room 1

Two university faculty members, one a librarian and one a professor in early childhood studies, team-taught an upper-level general education course on the Library, and designed the course for the university’s service learning designation. Collaboration between the teaching faculty and local public libraries resulted in student team projects such as developing public library programming for coding, 3D printing, developing agreed-upon behavior guidelines for a new youth center, and bilingual storytime, among others. This presentation details how the course design integrated community engagement with the concept of learning stories from the education literature, a formative assessment where students write directly to the libraries about what they observed and experienced, serving both as a learning tool for the public library and as a culminating service learning reflection for students. With the faculty framing the course design, a student who participated in the course will share her involvement in one of the local public libraries that faces competition for resources in their young adult center due to the locations of local middle schools and high schools. To create a mutually acceptable set of guidelines for the library, she and her group implemented a three-part plan including a survey and space analysis, development of practical guidelines, and the creation of programs for the local schools regarding the center’s resources and new guidelines. The session will conclude with discussion of successes and challenges faced both in course design and in the student’s project.