Lower Barriers in Social Contexts, or On Being An Interesting Human First

A while back I had an interesting conversation with a colleague on the origins of successful liaison outreach strategies. As several examples came to mind, we recognized a trend. Many of the most interesting collaborations seem to happen by accident. The librarian chatting with a faculty colleague before commencement. The liaison librarian who made new connections at a weekly departmental social hour. The librarian who connected with a faculty member outside his normal liaison duties based on a talk by the faculty member at a library-sponsored symposium.
It occurred to me that these informal social settings are an ideal setting for what Etienne Wenger describes as "one-on-one" and "immersion" "boundary encounters" (p.112 ff). To the faculty member from the departmental setting, there is no threat or explicit challenge to the departmental culture. The casual conversation may have nothing to do with teaching, with the university, or with any work-related topic. Perhaps the conversation is about children, the weather, local news, etc. The point is that the boundaries between two "communities of practice" are down. Too often, I fear, we librarians come blazing into a conversation on teaching and learning, with an immediate faculty response of "divert all energy to forward shields." If we begin a conversation with an apparent intent of infiltrating the departmental "teaching and learning regime" (Trowler) of the department, we should expect a hostile response. By contrast, in the informal social setting, we are hopefully an interesting life form worth learning more about, not a threat to the Federation (my recent DS9 binge is obviously warping my vocabulary).

As my co-worker and I continued the discussion, we reflected on the varied skills of our colleagues in these informal social settings. Several of them are not comfortable in these informal social settings. Heck, I'm not always comfortable in these settings. We realized, however, that it is part of our leadership roles to help make these connections.

We can help by playing the part of match maker, serving as the "weak link" in the network between our library colleagues and the faculty members we know through our various connections -- past or present faculty committees, community organizations, common hobbies, etc. This technique works particularly well in faculty-rich environments like the social hour before the start-of-semester all-faculty meeting, at the faculty dining center over the lunch hour, at athletic or arts events, etc.. By wrangling our faculty friends into conversations with the librarian assigned to their respective departments, we help our library colleagues "explore strange new worlds" of departmental culture.

Trowler, P. (2008). Cultures and change in higher education: Theories and practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.

Makerspace as Part of a Research Commons?

Each year the Electronic Library at Baylor sponsors a round of information sessions based on the EDUCAUSE 7 Things series. Yesterday I participated in a session on "makerspaces," led by David Burns. The discussion led me to thinking (and rambling, I'm afraid) about the possible connection between the makerspace concept and the "research commons" idea that I'm working to define for the Baylor Libraries.
The conversation brought to mind Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI). Gardner challenges the unitary intelligence model implied by an I.Q. test or the SAT with at least seven recognizable "intelligences": musical, bodily/kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal.While critics argue that Gardner's theory lacks rigor, and that what he labels "intelligences" might be more accurately described as "abilities," the theory has nevertheless been influential in education circles. For me, in this instance, it provides a way of articulating what struck me during yesterday's presentation.
Many of the examples David shared involved highly tactile activities, with a corresponding bias (in a good way) toward Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence. There also tended to be many proto-engineers in the spaces, hinting in my mind toward support for Logical-Mathematical and Spatial intelligences. We also observed that the orientation of the workspaces, and one explicit intent of those building the spaces, was to bring people together in collaborations, promoting Interpersonal intelligence.
It is my belief that the academic libraries overarching purpose is to provide those pieces of infrastructure that directly support the academic mission of the institution (teaching, learning, research) and which are better held in common than parceled out to or customized for the various colleges, schools and department. In the past this meant, at a most basic level, buying and storing books and journals. As we seek to redefine our roles in this online/hybrid course, hybrid collection, MOOC-hype, and student-amenities warfare era, we need to step back and reflect on this larger purpose. Where are the gaps in the academic infrastructure of the modern academy? What strengths do we have that align with solutions for these gaps? Where might we have a perspective useful for shaping the future of higher education? What do we lack in our skills and orientation that keep us from filling these gaps successfully?
This brings me back to Gardner, MI, makerspaces, and the research commons. The research commons, at least as I'm thinking about it now, is about shifting our energies from a rather intense focus on the perceived needs of undergraduates (and a bias toward support for active, group learning modalities),  and toward greater attention toward faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduates doing research, with a more nuanced and diverse approach to development of spaces for discovery. Most of my thinking along these lines has been leaning toward spaces for quiet reflection, small group discussion, and serendipitous, interdisciplinary encounters. What I realized yesterday, and as I've tried to unpack my reaction to the makerspace presentation, is that my research commons ideas have been fairly one-dimensional. For all of my excitement about a "revolutionary" space and suite of services, the outline in my head has been rooted in a traditional library orientation toward support for linguistic intelligences, with perhaps a bit of logical-mathematical and interpersonal thrown in.
What if we conceived of a space designed to nurture all of the intelligences, and to bring those with different strengths into contact and collaboration with one another? What if, in addition to a floor plan which moves from quiet on one side to active on the other, we overlay a set of services which intentionally nurture the full set of intelligences in Gardner's MI theory? What if a makerspace (or several such spaces) was part of this research commons?
I see at least three positive outcomes from this model. First, on a practical level, I think this brings interest (and potentially resources) from areas of the university which currently look on us as a pharmacist dispensing annual doses of electronic journals. Second, and more interestingly, the library may be able to make a real (perhaps even measurable) contribution to student retention and completion rates. This space could become a home for those who might be struggling with some of their traditional, linguistic/logical-mathematical courses but who have tremendous gifts in the other intelligences. The buzzword in the area of student retention and completion (OK, those are buzzwords, too) is engagement. The research commons could be the place a differently-gifted student becomes truly engaged in her educational process. Finally, this intentional diversity in purpose, aiming to nurture a range of intelligences, has a greater chance of attracting an intellectually diverse set of students and faculty, and creating the kinds of serendipitous collisions which lead to break-through ideas (more on serendipity, "collisions," and my debt to Steven Johnson in a later post).
It seems I'm rambling again, so I'll stop. I would like to know what you think. What is the potential of the "makerspace" to broaden the reach and relevance of the academic library? Can Gardner's MI theory stimulate our thinking about the diversity of library services we should offer?

Oh, for the comfort of a discipline, or, "There's no place like home"

In my reading on disciplinary differences, the setting for teaching and learning, etc., I ran across a great quote. Poole (2009) pushes back against another essay, in which Donald (2009) uses the metaphor of "home" for academic disciplines. Poole asserts that

complexity taxes us cognitively; whereas, uncertainty taxes us emotionally. Perhaps this is why Donald asserts that uncertainty is a greater threat to academics than is complexity. We are trained to deal with complexity. Indeed, most disciplines thrive on the application of intellect to reduce or at least explain complexity. Uncertainty is another matter. Our students expect complexity in their university course work. Generally, however, they abhor uncertainty. It is one thing to tell a class that a concept is difficult. It is something else again to tell them that there are a number of concepts that could be employed in a given context and we are unsure as to which is the best one. Our disciplines reduce the number of competing concepts and bring some degree of comfort to us and to our students (p. 51).

This rings particularly true for me, as I bounce from anthropology, to sociology, to philosophy, and back again, while reading for a research project in a profession (education). I'd love to find a "home," to be able to reduce the uncertainty as I also try to bring some sense to the complexity of my topic. But alas, my source of frustration is confirmed later in the article, as Poole states that "professions are not the same as disciplines. Professions contain disciplines" (p. 54, emphasis added). So it looks like I've picked a boundary-spanning homelessness for myself. When I'm done with my treatise, that will probably seem like a good thing. [wry smile here]
Poole, like Trowler (2009), rejects the reification of the discipline, or a particular epistemology for a discipline. Both share a view that disciplines are socially constructed lenses for organizing knowledge. To take the "home" metaphor a bit farther, the boundaries that establish disciplines as intellectual homes are not so much permanent, solid walls, but more like lines in the sand. A good wind may erase the separation, a renegade academic may redraw the line, or a strong storm may wash away the sand. Perhaps an even better metaphor would be the paths that define plots in a community garden.On the one hand, the practices of one gardner growing tomatoes may offer some benefits to another gardner, across the path, raising potatoes. On the other hand, come spring some kid with a rototiller may completely tear up the path, and create fertile new strip, between the plots.
Now, to stray a bit farther, this consideration of boundaries brings to mind a topic of discussion at work during the past week. In looking for a creative solution to locating our "learning information studio," we've had some interesting conversations about boundaries to the space. How much of a boundary do instructors need to feel "at home" teaching in the space? How "at home" should instructors feel, and how much do we want the space to challenge the safety of a traditional classroom? A fundamental design principle for us is that the space, or more precisely the learning taking place in the space, should be highly visible. Some ideas that surfaced this week:

• what if, in addition to one clear glass wall, we use a translucent glass wall as a whiteboard/projection surface that is partially visible to passersby in a darkened hallway outside the studio?
• what if we build a front end with more solid borders for whiteboards and projection, and the back end with a variable/less permeable interface to the outside?
• what if, beyond the semi-permeable divider we have a more open area that can serve as expansion/overflow/breakout/interaction with non-members space?
  
• and, here's a new one that just occurred to me: what if the space features a monitor that is capable of providing simultaneous, real-time definitions from dictionaries/other reference works from multiple disciplines, of terms that are used in the class wiki/blog/real-time interactive interface?
  

I guess what I'm getting at here is deconstructing classroom and discipline together by creating a space for developing interdisciplinary thinking by participating in "boundary practices" (Wenger, 1998). But alas, now I need to get out of the boundary between work and treatise research, and continue to till the treatise soil. I do need to get to harvest in that plot!

Donald, J. G. (2009). The commons: disciplinary and interdisciplinary encounters. In C. Kreber (Ed.), The University and its disciplines: Teacing and learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries (pp. 35-49). New York: Routledge.

Poole, G. (2009). Academic disciplines: Homes or barricades. In C. Kreber (Ed.), The University and its disciplines: Teacing and learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries (pp. 50-57). New York: Routledge.

Trowler, P. (2009). Beyond epistemological essentialism: Academic tribes in the Twenty-first Century. In C. Kreber (Ed.), The university and its disciplines: Teaching and learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries (pp. 181-195). New York: Routledge.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press. 

Why Reinvent the Wheel (or Learning Space)?

Earlier this week I went with a couple colleagues to an event on technology in higher education sponsored by BKM Total Office of Texas. Some of the key ideas presented during the one of the sessions on generational differences within the workforce are available as an article on the Steelcase website. Another interesting session focused on Steelcase's research on academic libraries. There was also a session with representatives from a local community college talking about their Steelcase "LearnLab" prototype classrooms.

In the Baylor Libraries we are currently working, in partnership with Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning, on the design for what we are calling a "learning innovation studio" for Moody Library. On the way home from the workshop, one member of our team asked the question, "Why reinvent the wheel?" His point was that the vendor had put considerable research into the design of this new "off the shelf" classroom, the LearningLab. Why would we continue to put time and energy into a completely new design, having heard some testimony from students and a faculty about how the LL creates an entirely different learning experience?

These are good questions -- but I think we came up with some good answers. I read an article earlier this week on course management systems. In that piece, Lane (2009) makes the point that "course management systems ...are not pedagogically neutral shells for course content. They influence pedagogy by presenting default formats designed to guide the instructor toward creating a course in a certain way." She goes on to compare "opt-out" systems, like Blackboard, with "opt-in" systems, like Moodle. According to Lane, most users of these CMSs are relative web novices, so tend to take the path of least resistance. This means translating into the web-based world old pedagogical practices, especially when the structure of the CMS reinforces this trend. So a CMS that emphasizes space for storage and submission of documents, rather than a course timeline, or learning objectives, tends to become something akin to a photocopier, email client, and grade book, rather than a stimulus for pedagogical reflection.

The LearnLab, it seems to me, is much like Blackboard. Blackboard provides a useful, structured way to get some elements of a course online. The truly creative faculty member can go far beyond the basics. But most will take the path of least resistance and take the default settings. The LearnLab is similar. There is merit to the space, and it does make worthwhile improvements by, for example, creating a greater sense of community within the classroom. Students face each other, the instructor can move about the classroom, and there is no back row where students can hide (and get lost). Yet the LL  has a certain rigidity to its setup. The tables are large, so while the chairs are mobile (chairs with casters, now that's innovative), the tables really are not mobile. So the LL may not look like a lecture hall, but it will almost always look the same from class to class, in the default "X" arrangement. In addition, the complexity of this opt-out system will tend to push the novice toward using the "defaults."

Our learning innovation studio, I would argue, should be much more flexible. One goal for the space is that it serve as a sandbox for the study of pedagogy. It should be an opt-in space where faculty members decide what to include, based on their pedagogical goals and a commitment to trying new things, rather than an opt-out room crowded with tools and a default way to use them.

Lane, L. M. (2009). Insidious pedagogy: How course management systems impact teaching. First Monday, 14(10). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2530/2303

Layers of Learning

Wednesday and Thursday the Baylor Libraries and the Academy for Teaching and Learning co-sponsored a local site for the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Fall Focus Session, entitled Flattening the Classroom: Building Collaborative Learning Environments. The format was eclectic, with an Adobe Connect session as the primary vehicle for delivery, but with an additional chat channel in the Ning community set up for the event, a lively Twitter conversation (#ELIFS09), and great local conversations, with as many as 30 teaching faculty, staff, librarians, and students present at any one time. The days were loosely structured, with ample time between session to engage with presenters in a virtual "parking lot," talk with each other locally, take a break, etc.

What strikes me as I look back on the two day event are the many layers of learning that were taking place.

• The event was about facilitating learning as teachers, instructional designers, librarians, through the collaborative learning environments, in both online and built spaces.
• Those of us participating were learning about the topic.
• Our sessions were taking place in a new learning space, the Garden Level Study Commons, which is still (and hopefully always will be) a work in progress.
• Those of us who had a hand in designing the space were learning about how the space, which is normally designed for small group study, worked for this kind of event. We intentionally chose to think about this space as a rough prototype, for these two days, of the type of space we hope to build as a "learning innovation studio" in the next phase of our renovation.
  
• Students in proximity to the session may have learned that this space is intended to be active, group space. I've got to work on signage to that effect, and send folks up to our new 24-hour quiet study space if that's what they are looking for. At one point in the second afternoon a student, from all the way across the room, made a very loud "Shhh," undoubtedly aimed at us. Now that's something...the students shushing the librarians!
  
• We learned about colleagues, some who we already thought we knew, and some whom we met for the first time: their skills, their interests, their style of work in groups.
  
• We learned with colleagues, in an unusual, mixed setting.
• We learned about some new tools for collaboration, and even learned (hands on!) some of them in the process of doing collaborative work (Etherpad, a foretaste, I think, of Google Wave)
• I learned by trial-and-error to "tweet" a workshop (sitting at the feet of the master, I might add).
• I learned that tweeting a workshop may be the best way to get followers for a fledgling Twitter account.
  
• I learned to have a little more respect for the for-profit higher ed. sector. Janet Salmons of Capella University offered one of the most thoughtful approaches to assessment that I've ever heard.

I have also been trying to apply this experience to my doctoral thesis topic. In particular, I've found myself thinking about the nice cross section of faculty who attended (theology; heath, physical education and recreation; social work; environmental studies; business; honors college; and more). What role do these individuals play within their departments? What are the characteristics of the "teaching and learning regimes"(Trowler, 2008) of their normal workgroups? In what ways did the event, with its levels of learning, expose or challenge the "moments" of these TLRs? Could the group assembled be considered a fledgling or potential TLR?