Clarence Maybee and Charlotte Droll from Colgate University described how their group re-invented themselves and worked together with professors and IT folks to enhance student learning and reach information literacy and media goals…
Two pilot projects — a podcast project and a poster project — were the beginning of the program.
The Podcast Project
Students in the podcast project developed a podcast on the topic of a specific world conflict. A short video of student reactions showed that creating a podcast required students to think more about their potential audience, what they were writing would sound like, and how they could get others interested in the topic. “It was a lot more compelling to the students.”
The podcast project steps included:
- Reviewing other podcasts – this was important because students weren’t actually listening to podcasts
- Identifying sources to inform the podcast
- Writing and recording the podcast script
- Peer reviewing other students’ podcasts
- Writing a reflection paper on the project
The professor herself created the first installment of the podcast series, and they used the raw, unedited recording so that students could hear what it might sound like at the beginning. Students were anxious about the project. They didn’t know who would listen to the podcast, and were wondering how they should present their work.
Lessons learned:
- Having an audience beyond the professor engaged the students more
- Students wanted to have the chance to do things over
- Grading media projects is difficult at times – having a rubric is helpful.
- This required participants to step out of their comfort zones – students realized that they needed to find very appropriate information, not what they might use and otherwise consider “good enough”
The Poster Project
To boost student engagement, one anthropology professor opted to have students do a poster presentation.
Steps in the assignment:
- Create annotated bibliography
- Write poster text
- Get feedback on an early draft of the poster
- Present poster
- Write a reflection paper on the project
The second time they did this, they held an evening workshop with the professor, students, a librarian, and an IT member to help students with some of the aspects of the project. Students expressed the wish for more time with the librarian for assistance! At the end, it got students to think about the images and sources they used. They paid more attention to finding and using sources. At the same time, the professor found that students really didn’t understand some elements of the course, and incorporated content that would help students “get it” by the end.
Lessons learned:
- Students need to learn to critically evaluate images
- The poster workshop was really helpful
A Shared Pedagogical Effort
Charlotte Droll described the process of determining what the Collaboration for Enhanced Learning would undertake. They required that the work would be curricular and/or research based, and a Librarian AND an ITS member would be included. In the past year, they have focused on finding ways to scale the project up. (It had started with one project per semester, and they have scaled up to five projects in the last academic year.) Recent projects have included audio essays and Wikipedia projects in which students have to act as historians for a lay audience rather than a professor.
This led to growth and development for the teachers, including projects to expand participants’ knowledge of digital storytelling, public speaking, and developing rubrics for media projects. In conclusion, she noted that this was a successful collaboration.
Q&A
Did students get any feedback in iTunes? From their family, but not from the wider world.
Were the posters physical? Yes – the library bought a poster printer. They are working on ways to get more attendees at the poster sessions.
Was anyone reluctant to put their podcast on iTunes? One student was. It does make student work public.
At WPI, students do a poster session, but also interviews and PSAs.
How many people apply each semester? We’ve done recruiting, rather than an application process. Sometimes it comes up in the course of their regular work. They have also mentioned the project in smaller meetings, and that garners interest.
Amanda Izenstark
Reference & Instructional Design Librarian
University of Rhode Island