Talent,Schmalent: An Instructional Design/Action Research Framework for the Professionalization of Teaching in Academic Libraries

When myths become canonical beliefs within a professional culture, they can have a profound impact on professional practice. In this paper we identify as a pernicious educational myth the belief that the ability to teach well is a naturally occurring innate talent or skill. The first two sections of the paper aim to demonstrate (i) that the concept of the naturally gifted teacher is a myth based on factually incorrect assumptions about expertise development and (ii) that this myth has several major negative implications for professional practices around teaching in academic libraries. We then we draw on the education literature to offer an alternative model for the cultivation of teaching excellence, an instructional design/action research framework that prioritizes ‘deliberative’ practice over innate talent. We close with suggestions for how academic librarians and library administrators can implement this framework within their institutions.     

From divergent evolution to witting cross-fertilisation: the need for more awareness of potential inter-discursive communication regarding students' extended historical writing

History education stakeholders in England have consistently judged that some students find formal historical writing prohibitively difficult due to the demands of constructing an extended argument. While policy makers have agreed students need support in their historical writing, recurring themes in centralised resourcing have been wastage, incoordination and replication. Furthermore, two concurrent but largely disconnected discourses have developed and promulgated initiatives relevant to students’ extended historical writing: ‘genre theorists’ and the ‘history teachers’ extended writing movement’. Despite certain goals held in common participants in the two discourses have tended to talk past one another with concomitant issues in resourcing. Unsystematic, cross-fertilisation between the discourses has led to cycles of genre theory being collectively discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered by history teachers with knowledge not being built cumulatively. Furthermore both discourses have independently developed similar initiatives in a form of convergent evolution resulting in duplication of labour. Finally, divergent evolution has occurred where genre theorists have advocated approaches that are increasingly redundant for history teachers’ requirements. A more activist stance is therefore required to ensure meaningful inter-discursive communication between genre theorists and the history teachers’ ‘extended writing movement’ to ensure efficacy in developing approaches to improving students’ extended historical writing.