Thursday, June 17, 2010 (PDF)

8:30 AM - 12:00PM

Location - Douglas North Reading Room (1966 Reading Room), 3rd floor of the Douglas Library

9:20 AM – 10:30 AM     Keynote Session: Learning Commons Café  [Bullet Points]       

PRESENTERS: Martha Whitehead, Queen’s University and Margot Bell, University of British Columbia

CONVENOR: Nathalie Soini, Learning Commons Coordinator & Learning and Research Services, Queen's University.

To determine “What’s Next” in the learning commons journey, we need to grapple with some fundamental questions:  How does the vision of ‘learning commons/centre’ complement or diverge from the vision of ‘discipline-specific,’ academic programs embedded in the curriculum?  Are there ways we could better leverage each?  What opportunities and challenges will arise from expanding interdisciplinary studies?  Which works best under which circumstances: a centralized model or a distributed faculty/course focussed model?  What is the most effective model to spur students’ growth from passively absorbing knowledge to actively analyzing, creating and applying knowledge?  In this session, the collective intelligence of participants will be tapped to answer these important questions.  The facilitators will lead off the discussion with observations based on their own experiences, from the development of a learning commons 10 years ago through many different campus teaching and learning initiatives.  The results of the session will be compiled and shared on the conference website.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM   Break

Among professionals providing academic support services within a postsecondary context, the model of supplemental, integrated, and embedded services (Schmidt & Kaufman, 2007; Queensland University of Technology Library, n.d.) has worked as a framework for designing and planning programs.  Supplemental programs tend to be generic programs serving a wide population of students; integrated programs are designed for a more specific cohort of students; and embedded services are seen as collaborations with faculty to build academic support into a course or curriculum.  Examples of embedded services include the integration of Learning Commons professionals into a course as invited guest lecturers or perhaps as advisors to the faculty on designing writing assignments.

In this model, embedded services within a course or sequence of courses and in collaboration with faculty members are often perceived as the ideal form of service delivery.  However, as academic support providers, we know that authentic learning can take place outside the classroom and may not always be linked to a particular course or curriculum (Cunsolo Willox & Lackeyram, 2009).  Given the complexity of student learning both in and out of the classroom, it is time to revisit our conception of embedded services.  Are embedded services the ideal to which we strive?  Should we redefine or expand our definition of embedded services?  In this presentation, I plan to put forth examples of academic support programming which suggest that we should re-examine our definition of embedded services and their role within the framework of service delivery. 

11:30am – 12:00pm      Learning Commons Online: Lessons Learned from Proposal to Launch

PRESENTERS: Dr. Patricia Maher and Nancy Cunningham, University of South Florida, Tampa
CONVENOR: Sylvia Andrychuk, Learning and Research Services, Stauffer Library, Queen's University

For many years the USF Tampa campus was not focused on undergraduate student academic success.  More recent emphasis on retention and graduation rates has energized many positive changes in services for students. The Learning Commons was an aggressive project that successfully accomplished the long-standing goal to consolidate student learning support on campus.  After only one year in operation, alongside an expanding range of online course offerings, Learning Commons' leaders recognized the need to significantly expand student access to learning support beyond the physical spaces and available hours of the Library setting.  Presenters will share the journey of the development of the Learning Commons Online, including the process of building support from both students and administration, identifying funding, developing initial services, to launching the new USF Learning Commons Online in less than one year.  The presenters will offer their reflective observations about aspects that lead to success such as creative use of funding resources and developing the most effective collaborative partners.  

AFTERNOON

BIOSCIENCES COMPLEX
12:00 – 1:30pm    Lunch  

Poster Sessions  (1:00-1:30)  

The Learning Commons as Process:  Change and Evolution of Vision and Service
PRESENTERS: Gail Wood and Anita Kuiken
Memorial Library, SUNY Cortland

Memorial Library at SUNY Cortland has had a Learning Commons in place since 2005.  In the beginning, the focus was on the Learning Commons as place and presence along with a vision of service; as a place with an array of offices and services in a comfortable setting working together in partnership to provide good, focused service.  The services integrate technology and information fluency in energetic and responsive ways.  The focus was on creating a space where faculty and students could interact both socially and intellectually while finding the services they needed in one location.

As the partnerships have changed and evolved, change and adaptation has become a key response to providing dynamic services.  Rather than the Learning Commons becoming a place, destination, or a static service, the library and its partners continues to find ways to respond to new and changing partnerships, to changes in user needs, and to changes in the culture of the campus we serve.  The Learning Commons constantly creates and recreates itself in response to the fluctuations and rhythms of user and culture.

Creating and recreating a Commons is not particularly easy or clean cut.  Budget, personnel, personalities, and conflicting ideas and priorities often require nuanced and diplomatic responses.   We will discuss this messy, active and evolving process with examples from the Learning Commons experiences at Memorial Library of SUNY Cortland in Cortland, NY.

Queen's University

The first university wide Inquiry@Queen’s Undergraduate Research Conference was held in March 2007. March 2010 will mark the fourth annual conference. This initiative begins with students and involves students, inviting them to share the benefits of inquiry learning and their research discoveries with their peers, professors and other members of the community at Queen’s and beyond.

This poster will outline practical ways in which you can incorporate the I@Q Conference into your teaching and make it part of your assessment. The benefits to your students are many. As participants they can experience all aspects of an academic conference from writing an abstract, developing and delivering a presentation to answering questions.  They will learn what it means to share their research in an academic environment. As an audience member they can engage with research conducted by their academic peers, ask questions, network and discuss. Student participants provide much enthusiastic feedback “Inquiry@Queen’s is better than YouTube” and “presenting at I@Q was the best experience of my academic career” and “I've listed this on my grad applications…and it actually came up in a few of my grad school interviews too! I was certainly happy in my first grad conference presentation to have spoken in an academic context before - it's a great program and I hope it continues”.

1:30 – 3:00pm Concurrent Session #1: Partnerships: Reaching High, Reaching Out

CONVENOR: Mary Claire Vandenburg, Learning and Research Services, Stauffer Library, Queen's University

1:30 – 2:00 pm    Getting on the Syllabus: Commons Programming with Individual Faculty
PRESENTER: Charlie Bennett, Georgia Tech

The most successful programming in the Commons at the Georgia Tech Library developed out of collaborations between faculty members and the library.  Events, exhibits, and installations based on faculty research and their students’ learning can establish relationships that develop the Commons and expand the Library’s presence on campus.  This presentation includes examples of commons programming in collaboration with Georgia Tech faculty (The Thoreau Project, A History of the Mad Housers, and Walden Remediated) and strategies for developing faculty/library programming.

2:00 – 2:30pm    Student Association & Learning Commons: A Unique and Fruitful Collaboration
PRESENTER:Kathy Musial, BCIT

British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Learning Commons, built on a collaborative model to link complementary BCIT services, has been carefully customized to dovetail with BCIT’s unique learning environment.  Our strategic positioning as a highly collaborative model has paid off in many ways.  What has turned out to be one of our most enduring and productive partnerships is our work with BCIT Student Association on delivery of a comprehensive Peer Tutoring program for students. The Learning Commons offers the drop-in component of peer tutoring; the Student Association offers one-to-one.   Kathy Musial, BCIT’s Learning Commons Coordinator will describe the genesis of this partnership and its progression to a point where we engage in a joint recruitment and hiring process, share our learning spaces, and continually refer students to each other.   Working together to develop a seamless program has presented many challenges to surmount and has also provided tremendous benefits to the BCIT learning community.

2:30 – 3:00pm    Tragedy Averted: the multidisciplinary use of a Learning Commons
PRESENTER: Erin DeLathouwer, University of Saskatchewan

The University of Saskatchewan’s Learning Commons grand opening was inaugurated with a multidisciplinary panel discussion focused on how a Learning Commons might avoid the “Tragedy of the Commons”.  The tragedy of the commons highlights a paradox: while individuals using a common space may tend to behave in ways that maximize personal convenience or comfort, the common good may be threatened with such individualistic behaviour.  Sustaining a commons that is a comfortable place for all its occupants involves some level of personal commitment to group norms. The Learning Commons, therefore, must be defined with both sustainability and individual needs in mind.

Our inaugural panel featured a wide range of perspectives (Architect, Historian, Educator, Librarian, and Student Peer Mentor). Each offered their unique perspectives on how our values moderate the use of a common space, and how our notions of collaboration and sustainability contribute to the creation of common spaces. The event set a precedent for use of our Learning Commons as a venue for multidisciplinary discussion and debate. In addition to accommodating a wide range of services, the Learning Commons aspires to accommodate the intellectual growth of an entire community. We have hosted public multidisciplinary panel discussions on topics such as pandemics and poverty, mad pride, climate change, and artificial intelligence. Our invited panelists span the disciplines, drawing connections between our diverse faculties, and the audiences are often composed of a wide range of students and staff.

This presentation will examine the role that multidisciplinary panel discussions have in defining the boundaries of a Learning Commons, and how the emphasis on a collaborative approach to learning can widen the space we work within such that the tragedy of the commons can be averted.

1:30 – 3:00pm Concurrent Session #2: Next is Now! Service and Teaching Delivery Models

CONVENOR: Linda Williams, Learning Strategies Development, Queen's University

The benefits of participating in the conference for students are many. As participants they experience all aspects of an academic conference and they learn what it means to share their research in an academic environment. As an audience member they can engage with research that was conducted by their academic peers, ask questions, network and discuss. The conference raises the visibility of the QLC with faculty and university administrators, it brings together the QLC partners in a collaborative effort and it fits perfectly with the QLC goal of providing a collaborative space where students can engage both academically and socially.

This presentation will discuss how the conference was conceived and implemented, how it is pedagogically and financially supported, as well as outlining the logistics of organization, financing and implementation. It will also discuss ideas for future development including ways to ensure long term sustainability.

2:00 – 2:30pm    RE:search: Online Learning Modules Developed via Collaboration and Community-Building
PRESENTERS: Julie Hannaford and Sheril Hook, University of Toronto

To engage students in understanding the complex world of information, the University of Toronto library is leading the development of a modifiable, collaborative online learning resource known as RE:search. The system allows authors (instructors, librarians, course assistants) to add content to any of the five modules in order to address the research needs of their students, for specific class requirements (http://webapps-beta.utsc.utoronto.ca/itcdf/start.php). Each module focuses on skill development, such as building an effective research question, identifying appropriate sources, creating effective search strategies and evaluating and integrating sources. The tool provides a flexible learning environment, allowing students to start at the level they feel most appropriate and to continue at a level for as long as they determine necessary. Each module has three levels, which become increasingly complex and interactive. This allows students to build on their knowledge as they progress through the levels.

The session will showcase this ongoing cross-campus project at the University of Toronto to create a community-driven tool. Librarians have collaborated closely with students and faculty as the project has progressed. In the session, speakers will discuss the impetus, philosophy and actualization for the learning system, results of early user testing and the assessment (using both qualitative and quantitative measures) undertaken during the Winter, 2010 term at all three campuses at the University of Toronto.

2:30 – 3:00pm       Next is Now!
PRESENTERS: Vivienne Monty and Sarah Coysh, York University

At York University, the design of a learning commons began with the standard model as in most places but has evolved into a modular one. Modular models allow a learning commons to respond to advances in technology and changes in philosophy quickly so that Bennet’s concept does not have to be re-designed every few years due to change and shifting needs. This is an area where librarians can take a central and leading role as people who understand the constructs of knowledge and also know about database structures.

A physical model of the learning commons tends to be somewhat static but our online model has been expressly created to be evolutionary. It is constructed so that adding to it is easy as is changing it. Different media can be integrated effortlessly.  The people who design and create the modules in this online presence are also meant to be modular in the same fashion. The team is constantly changing as per requirements. Librarians, however, provide the backbone as designers and administrators.

The first iteration of the online learning commons set down key concepts of learning as a foundation. The site was then populated with materials that were already available for the most part to gain an immediate presence and use for students.

Currently, in phase two, we are constructing interactive modules. As each section develops either the interactivity or the way a module is built is dependant on the nature of the need, students’ feedback and so on.

3:00pm – 3:30pm    Break

3:30pm – 5:00pm Concurrent Session #3: Architecture & Design: The Shape of Things to Come

Convenor: Michele Chittenden, Library Services for Students with Disabilities & Learning and Research Services, Queen's University

3:30pm – 5:00pm Concurrent Session #4: Extending the Commons: Service Delivery Models

Collaboration between librarians and instructors has been an elusive and largely unfulfilled goal of the library community for decades. Professors make assignments independent of librarians, yet expect the librarians to support whatever the assignment requires of the students. Now, in the world of Web 2.0, the tools exist to create what we call knowledge building centers where former assignments that were one-way directives are turned into collaborative conversations between the instructor, the librarian, the students, and any other expert working on the learning experience. The speakers will demonstrate templates in various Web 2.0 technologies that make collaboration the normal response for a proposed project – a natural site where everyone is participating, contributing, discussing, creating, thinking, and producing together.