Category Archives: teaching and learning

Credo

By Iris | Published: Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
This I believe: The classroom is about learning, not teaching. Learning happens best when it is directly and explicitly tied to and relevant to a project at hand. Learning happens best when it builds on existing knowledge. This is why getting some sense of where the students are (such as talking to them before launching into a session [...]
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The Crazy Thing about Linguistic Research

By Iris | Published: Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Just when you think you have something nailed down, turns out you were holding a cherry tomato and the nail just made the whole thing explode. I’m constantly figuring out how to be a better librarian to the disciplines I serve. I have pretty deep knowledge of the ways of literary research, since that was my [...]
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Beyond Course-Integrated Instruction: An Example from Linguistics

By Iris | Published: Monday, February 1st, 2010
I just finished teaching this term’s installment of one of my least usual classes. This is a class that takes the idea of course-integrated instruction to an even more integrated level. There are trade-offs, for sure, but it remains one of my favorite sessions to teach. The General Idea I show up for one class period of [...]
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Why Advanced Search?

By Iris | Published: Thursday, January 14th, 2010
I often teach Boolean searching to classes of students. There, I’ve said it. And I’ve decided not to be ashamed of that practice even though most of the literature I’ve read since library school has steadfastly lambasted the practice as outdated, unnecessary, and self-indulgent. Of course, I don’t teach it in every class, but sometimes there’s just [...]
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Communities of Inquiry

By Iris | Published: Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
I spent the last two afternoons in a workshop for professors who are thinking of teaching Carleton’s new first year seminars next year, so I’m now well steeped in thoughts about first year students. And the more I think about it, the more I think that my main goal for first year students is for [...]
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