(First posted on my Teaching Artist blog)
Recent training sessions that I’ve received and given, have prompted me to ask myself whether I actually practise what I preach. (Most of the time, I do …)
I pitched a session at the second Glasgow Library Camp last Saturday (8 November 2014), which provoked quite a lot of discussion.
- I began by describing the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Teaching Artist Course (in the Short Course form that it adopted last session), which took place 12 Feb – 28 May 2014.
- Do I count as an Artist? Yes, I think I do. I may not teach performance at work, but I am a church organist and choir director.
- Why I did it? To gain theory about pedagogy, teaching and learning, current best practice …
- There was a wide variety of recommended readings, and a mixture of virtual and physical meetings.
- The idea of reflective practice featured very prominently. Therefore, from the beginning, we had to keep a blog. This is it; I’ve continued to post on it since the course ended.
- Outcomes: we had to produce written assignments; an E-Portfolio (one of the tabs above); and a Bibliography. Mine is in my E-Portfolio, but there’s also a web version as a separate tab.
- I recently gave my first distance learning user education session to PGCert students. I had half an hour on a Thursday evening, and had to get used to using a headset and webcam with Adobe Connect.
- I talked about our library service, holdings, e-resources, and good academic practice. Bearing in mind I hadn’t got long in which to cover the topic, I briefly covered referencing, avoiding plagiarism, keeping a bibliography, and annotating it for one’s own benefit. Bibliographic software. Mendeley, Zotero, Endnote, Word.
- Remembering the Teaching Artist course, I sought feedback afterwards, so I could reflect upon how it went, what went well and not-so-well, and what I’d do another time. Talking about reflective practice over coffee, we asked ourselves the question that I then asked LibCamp delegates last Saturday: Do we reflect adequately on what we do? Do you?
- For myself, I certainly do keep a bibliography, use bibliographical software, and Diigo for useful websites. To be fair, I do a lot of writing, so it’s particularly important for me. And this blog is still a place where I can reflect on what I do, whether as a librarian, a researcher or a musician.
This blogpost was a ‘pitch’ at Library Camp Glasgow 2014, which took place on Saturday 8th November. I also did a quick-fire rant (Minute of Madness) about the extreme usefulness of Diigo.
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