Blog 7: Listening, Tech Waves, and Communitiy of Practice

Class Reflection 

At the end of last class, we took turns facilitating conversation based around a list of prompts. I found that brief activity to be an incredibly powerful experience -- the experience of sharing that space with my classmates brought to the forefront a bunch of questions that have been in my head this semester (and things I’ve been trying to get better at as a human).

I’ve always had a kind of ambivalent relationship to listening and speaking. I very sincerely love listening to others, and specifically creating space for people to work through ideas and express themselves in a way that makes sense. I appreciate opportunities to facilitate where I have a formalized role that involves stepping back and making space, and to that end, I very much enjoyed trying to lead the discussion and create a supportive little bubble of conversation, if only for a moment.

At the same time, I often want to share my own ideas and speak up. I sometimes do this too much -- the urge to add something wins out more than I’d like. I am generally a verbal learner and figure out my ideas by trying to express them to others, whether in writing or in person. But I’m also aware of how this is getting in the way of my other goal of contributing to and creating harmony in a discussion. I sometimes get anxious as a class session carries out, aware that I spoke one too many times and trying to role it back, and yet continuing to want to add something.

The clear role definition in the small group activity helped me realize that going forward professionally, there will absolutely be times where I can adopt this formal role of facilitator/educator and really focus on helping others develop their ideas. That makes me really happy. Similarly, while my own learning process is important in some situations, it’s not something I always need to prioritize. This isn’t to say that I’m “done learning” or will ever be done learning, just that I’m excited to get out of that sort of anxious ambivalent mindset that being a student in a classroom sometimes puts me in and adopt a more professional role (will still hopefully being relatable and down to earth).

It’s neat to see the many different ways my peers hold themselves in this regard, and to appreciate both their intellect and kindness in the diverse ways they manifest. I don’t know, perhaps this won’t make sense and is too neurotic or whatever, but I found that activity unexpectedly moving and helpful as I figure out my place in library/learning worlds.

The Readings 

“Why, in a world in which choice and personal preference are highly valued, would any college want to create such a mandate? Because it makes a bold statement about the importance of moving education into the future. It is, in a sense, only a step removed from saying, "We no longer accept theses on scrolls, papyrus, or clay tablets. Those artifacts do still exist in the world, but they are not the tools of this institution." Or: "In this institution we have abandoned the slide rule. Those who find it useful and/or comforting can, of course, use it, but not here."” (Prensky, 2011) 

It’s interesting to think about Prensky’s article after watching Jane McGonigal’s TED talk. In general I’ve had trouble making distinctions between particular eras of the 2010s (or, for that matter, since the recovery from the 2008 recession). But the optimism expressed in both pieces -- Prensky’s 2011 declaration about “the importance of moving education into the future”, and McGonigal’s 2010 excitement about gaming to “save the world” - operates on this perception of technology as a powerful, transformative wave we can harness to address endless problems. In 2018, the wave has arrived, and we’re all down here underwater being jostled around by the currents. We still have problems to address, but they are undergirded by the pragmatism of technologies being right here, right now, everywhere.

From my vantage point at the University of Michigan, I believe e-books and electronic materials are already fully intermixed and enmeshed in the materials we need for learning. Only one of my 14 courses on campus involved using a course reserve, and perhaps only 4 or so courses required any physical book at all. I now associate physical books with rarity - either because something has been released just moments ago, or we need to access a particular edition or an archival resource only available in print. From my perspective as a student, I’m not always clear if this rarity is “real” in the sense of very few copies of something existing, or “artificial” in the sense of licensing and access disputes getting in the way of free or low-cost access for the institution. But I don’t think a single policy of digital-only would solve rarity in either of these cases, so the question of going all-digital seems moot.

I think some of the ideas about removing the constraints of physical medium have actually been targeted through the open journal/open access movement. Journals are distinct from other types of books of course, but I think there’s a healthy debate going on about the degree to which the production of scholarly work should be transparent, easily accessible, whether data sets should be open and thus replication studies can target the reproducibility crisis, etc. I don’t know a ton about this, but it seems like an area that might interest Prensky/provide an alternate context for his argument.

In addition to questions of scholarly production and access to resources, the readings tackle the relationship between librarians and readers more directly via book clubs. I particularly appreciated da Rosa dos Santos et al.’s focus on communication and collaboration, meaning-making, and self-efficacy, as principles for running a successful book club derived from Universal Design of Learning principles. In their recommendations, the authors zero in on what it takes for an instructor to facilitate a community of practice:

"First, the selection of a book needs to provide a large enough scope so all members find an area of interest or something of value. It can foster ownership of their professional learning by allowing individuals to select the chapter(s) or section(s) they want to lead and/or facilitate discussion with the group. Second, through the intentional shared facilitation of discussion of the book, it sows the seeds for the emergence of a community of practice. Through the interactions and commitment to learning through the use of book club, participants begin to influence each other’s learning within the community. Third, using a book club strategy embedded in a community of practice allows individuals to investigate, reflect, discuss and collaborate." (da Rosa dos Santos et al., 2015). 

 I found these three recommendations to be incredibly helpful in imagining what it would take to bring folks from diverse backgrounds and skill-sets together and fostering a community of practice. It seems like such a delicate task! And yet, from my anecdotal experience and seemingly confirmed from the literature, communities of practice greatly increase engagement, and thus set the stage for meaningful transfer after the book club (or any other kind of intervention) ends. What would be a meaningful way to measure the success of communities of practice? Could we use formative assessment specifically to monitor and improve the quality of the community that emerges within a club, classroom, workshop, or other setting?

In the book club scenarios above, shared facilitated discussion is at the heart of fostering a successful community of practice. I’m curious to learn more about how to achieve communities of practice in different types of library learning interventions/workshops/classes/etc., and also how to best draw on the strengths and weakness of my personality to put this into action (see the Class Reflection section above!) I’m also curious about the ways in which communities of practice, as a model, extends or modifies the “collaborative learning” model as put forward by Daniels (2002) in the context of literary circles. Daniels describes collaborative learning as having a long history in American education, which is certainly familiar and recognizable -- but I find the pursuit of a healthy community of practice more specific and valuable in this context.

(tl;dr: I’ve become a community of practice partisan it seems!)