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I’m on my way back from Philadelphia (literally: my plane has wifi!), where the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference 2011 was held. I was only there for a short time, but I got a lot out of it. My strategy for making the most of my time was to pick sessions that sounded interesting. A pattern emerged in what I chose: nearly every session was on instruction and/or outreach.

In Instruction Deconstruction: Perspectives on Critical Information Literacy with Dustan McNutt, Carrie Donovan, and Anthony Pash, the presenters highlighted the idea of critical social theory: the idea that education doesn’t occur in a vacuum, that “the language and culture of school is the language and culture of the elite.” Carrie Donovan went on to explain that since librarians are not all trained in pedagogy, we think more about the WHAT of what we teach than the HOW and the WHY of what we teach.

Char Booth’s presentation on her invited paper The Librarian as Situated Educator: Instructional Literacy and Participation in Communities of Practice was about four main ideas: communities of practice, situated learning, instructional literacy, and good enough. She defined communities of practice as a group of people who coalesce around an idea (e.g. librarians). Situated learning is what communities of practice do. The communities are drawn closer by sharing experience with those more and less experienced. Instructional literacy is the series of skills that library educators can bring, learning to teach as we go since most of us didn’t learn to teach in graduate school. Char tied this idea to Carrie Donovan’s presentation on thinking about the HOW and the WHY of what we teach, in addition to the WHAT. We should always be reflective after each instruction session, asking ourselves what went right, what went wrong, what can I do better next time, and was this the right way to present to this group. Good enough is the idea that we have to learn to be comfortable being confident educators. All of us are drawn to this profession because we believe in it, so we should believe in ourselves.

She explained, reiterating Carrie Donovan’s ideas, that the better we understand the community of students we teach, the better we will teach. This presentation was so refreshing. I can’t wait to go back into the classroom. My notes are not enough; if this sounds even remotely interesting to you, you must seek out her presentation and watch it yourself. Char Booth was absolutely amazing; it was the best librarian presentation I have ever seen in my life. Go, watch her presentation on ACRL, read her paper, view her slides, read her blog, buy her book. You won’t be sorry.

What I learned:

• Think about the HOW and the WHY of what I teach
• Good enough is good enough in teaching (don’t be a perfectionist)
• Reflect after every session (self-feedback)
• Illustrate to students why the info matters on the larger scale (libraries=freedom)