Expertise in Any Format

I had a lot of fun doing the one-shot workshops last week! Being both a facilitator and a participant in workshops are really different roles that give you interesting perspectives as to how to craft a workshop that really gets you to learn something. As a facilitator, I faced challenges with wanting to specifically convey how mine and Nicco’s topic of algorithmic accountability in government related to our previous discussions in class, but I also had to account for the limited amount of time that we had for all the components of our workshop. As a participant, I just had to go with the flow and throw myself into the activities and questions that the facilitators asked of us. Seeing both sides allowed me to conclude what I liked and didn’t like in workshops.

First, I really like interactivity and most participants seem to like that as well. In our evaluations, participants were grateful that we had an activity outside the classroom that created more opportunities to participate in the greater discussion. Second, I don’t like being lectured at during most of a workshop, and participants sent feedback that our workshop introduction was too long and we should have left more time for discussion. I felt the same way with other workshops where I was a participant, as I would have preferred to talk about the issues with a partner rather than hear numerous lecture slides about a topic. Third, I don’t like being thrown into discussion situations where I have to act as an expert to a topic I just learned about. I saw this play out in a few workshops in my group and it seemed to be a result of not thinking through how participants would be feeling at a certain stage in the workshop. Overall, I think the one-shot workshop can only be done well when you have the dual perspective of the facilitator and the participant in mind at all times. It’s not only important to consider “how can I convey all this in a short amount of time?” but also “how will my participants think about this topic by the end of my teaching?”

This week, each of us was tasked with watching a live or archived webinar among a wide range of information topics. I decided to go with a webinar on makerspaces from last year because I always got these email notifications from American Libraries about their webinars, so I wanted to try one of them on a topic I was interested in. The webinar itself was a panel discussion about the strengths and challenges of implementing makerspaces in libraries, which is a hot topic that generated a lot of questions and side conversations in their provided chat box. I ended up really liking the format because I had the option of listening to the expertise of the panel and taking notes or poring through the chat discussion and seeing how other librarians thought of this topic. One of my big takeaways was that webinars can be a little chaotic because you do not always have control of where a conversation is going. The chat could be having an entirely separate discussion from your presentation. And if you have a panel discussion, it can be difficult to facilitate expert contributions in a way that works with your initial framing of the conversation. It’s precisely different from a one-shot workshop because the virtual space complicates who the focal point is for your audience. Regardless, I think a good webinar depends on focusing on an intriguing idea that captures your audience’s attention and provides a shared experience of knowledge where expertise is openly accessed by all.

I think no matter the format of learning, great takeaways can be achieved if the instructor has that expertise to drive thoughtful pedagogy. As the examples from How People Learn demonstrate, teachers are not good teachers simply because they excel at a certain method, but because they “have a deep understanding of the structure and epistemologies of their disciplines, combined with knowledge of the kinds of teaching activities that will help students come to understand the discipline for themselves.” [1] As it is for other professions, if librarians do not understand the principles and trends that underlie conversations about algorithms or makerspaces, they will not be as effective with their teaching no matter the methods they employ. Whether that is information literacy principles or theories of transfer, librarians need those theories in order to craft effective practice.  

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[1] How People Learn, p. 163.