Intentional Informationists: Re-envisioning Information Literacy and Re-designing Instructional Programs Around Faculty Librarians' Strengths as Campus Connectors,Information Professionals,and Course Designers

This article adds to the recent literature that questions, and hopes to redefine, the information literacy notions and practices in academic libraries and their institutions. The authors draw on research in the area of social justice to express the need for academic libraries to explore new avenues to insure their institution's graduates are not merely competent consumers of information. The authors put forward the notion of the intentional informationist, who they define as having the contextual, reflective and informational skills to identify information opportunities, tackle complex information problems and pitfalls, and provide solutions or considerations that do not just meet her individual needs. In addition, they pose questions and detail opportunities, partnerships, and examples of curricular and co-curricular integration to engage students beyond the library, instruction sessions, a single course, or graduation requirement.     

Propagation from the start: the spread of a concept-based instructional tool

We describe the propagation of a technology-based educational innovation through its first 3 years of public use. The innovation studied is the Concept Warehouse (CW), a database-driven website developed to support the use of concept-based pedagogies. This tool was initially developed for instructors in undergraduate chemical engineering courses, but has spread to other disciplines as well. In this time, it has grown to over 650 registered instructors representing over 170 institutions. While this study is specific to a particular case, the intent of this article is to provide an exemplar of real-time propagation that informs other researchers and developers. We frame our analysis with Diffusion of Innovation Theory and use a design research methodology that focuses on communication channels, types of knowledge, and stages of the innovation-decision process. Data sources include usage records and survey responses which are analyzed with network diagrams and non-parametric statistics. We find that in comparison to mass media, interpersonal communications tended to result in higher proportions of how-to knowledge and implementation. Three types of opinion leaders were identified through user data and network diagrams. All played critical roles in the tool’s propagation, especially the project collaborators—opinion leaders who actively promoted the CW, in part, because it also propagates their own innovations. Finally, users with self-identified prior principles knowledge showed statistically significantly greater progress in gaining how-to knowledge, but no significant difference in progressing to the implementation stage of the innovation-decision process when compared to users without.     

Participatory concepts of multidisciplinary/professional working on an Early Childhood Studies degree course in the UK

This paper aims to explore democratic values in higher education pedagogies, as related to an Early Childhood Studies (ECS) degree course in an English university. It seeks to find out what constitutes a multi-disciplinary course from both student and tutor perspectives. It is contextualised by the concepts of participation embedded in the idea of multi-professional team work, in order to establish how these ideas could contribute a strong ethical focus to the concept of multidisciplinary study. The study was designed within the paradigm of participatory action research and findings suggest that, although students make links between different disciplinary discourses, tutors feel that their professional identity and knowledge can be constrained by the course structure. The paper suggests that more work needs to be done on the validation of early childhood courses to allow opportunities for multi-professional working to be modelled.     

Formative assessment of procedural skills: students’ responses to the Objective Structured Clinical Examination and the Integrated Performance Procedural Instrument

Assessment of clinical skills is a critical element of undergraduate medical education. We compare a traditional approach to procedural skills assessment – the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) with the Integrated Performance Procedural Instrument (IPPI). In both approaches, students work through ‘stations’ or ‘scenarios’ undertaking defined tasks. In the IPPI, all tasks are contextualised, requiring students to integrate technical, communication and other professional skills. The aim of this study was to explore students’ responses to these two assessments. Third‐year medical students participated in formative OSCE and IPPI sessions on consecutive days. Although performance data were collected in both assessments, quantitative data are not presented here. Group interviews with students were conducted by independent researchers. Data were analysed thematically. The OSCE and the IPPI were both valued, but for different reasons. Preference for the OSCE reflected the format of the summative assessment. The IPPI was valued for the opportunity to practise patient‐centred care in a simulated setting which integrated technical, communication and other professional skills. We posit that scenario‐based assessments such as the IPPI reflect real‐world issues of patient‐centred care. Although the limitations of this study prevent wide extrapolation, we encourage curriculum developers to consider the influence of assessments on what and how their students learn.     

Designing biomimetic robots: iterative development of an integrated technology design curriculum

Educational technology research and development - In most middle schools, learning is segregated by discipline. Yet interdisciplinary approaches have been shown to cultivate creative thinking,...     

A Paradigm of Normal Birth: Teaching Through the Healthy Birth Practices

Debra McAllister, a childbirth educator with 9 years of experience as a labor and delivery nurse, provides commentary on how she teaches through the Six Healthy Birth Practices as a paradigm for normal birth.     

Identifying Key Features of Effective Active Learning: The Effects of Writing and Peer Discussion

We investigated some of the key features of effective active learning by comparing the outcomes of three different methods of implementing active-learning exercises in a majors introductory biology course. Students completed activities in one of three treatments: discussion, writing, and discussion + writing. Treatments were rotated weekly between three sections taught by three different instructors in a full factorial design. The data set was analyzed by generalized linear mixed-effect models with three independent variables: student aptitude, treatment, and instructor, and three dependent (assessment) variables: change in score on pre- and postactivity clicker questions, and coding scores on in-class writing and exam essays. All independent variables had significant effects on student performance for at least one of the dependent variables. Students with higher aptitude scored higher on all assessments. Student scores were higher on exam essay questions when the activity was implemented with a writing component compared with peer discussion only. There was a significant effect of instructor, with instructors showing different degrees of effectiveness with active-learning techniques. We suggest that individual writing should be implemented as part of active learning whenever possible and that instructors may need training and practice to become effective with active learning.     

1, 2, 3, 4: Infusing Quantitative Literacy into Introductory Biology

Biology of the twenty-first century is an increasingly quantitative science. Undergraduate biology education therefore needs to provide opportunities for students to develop fluency in the tools and language of quantitative disciplines. Quantitative literacy (QL) is important for future scientists as well as for citizens, who need to interpret numeric information and data-based claims regarding nearly every aspect of daily life. To address the need for QL in biology education, we incorporated quantitative concepts throughout a semester-long introductory biology course at a large research university. Early in the course, we assessed the quantitative skills that students bring to the introductory biology classroom and found that students had difficulties in performing simple calculations, representing data graphically, and articulating data-driven arguments. In response to students'' learning needs, we infused the course with quantitative concepts aligned with the existing course content and learning objectives. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by significant improvement in the quality of students'' graphical representations of biological data. Infusing QL in introductory biology presents challenges. Our study, however, supports the conclusion that it is feasible in the context of an existing course, consistent with the goals of college biology education, and promotes students'' development of important quantitative skills.