Most people tire of a lecture in ten minutes; clever people can do it in five. Sensible people never go to lectures at all. But the people who do go to a lecture and who get tired of it, presently hold it as a sort of grudge against the lecturer personally. In reality his sufferings are worse than theirs.
-Stephen Leacock (2014) in My Discovery of England.Last week I was asked to provide a half-hour induction for some mid-year MSc entrants. I've been to my fair share of Library and IT inductions, and delivered more than a few myself. So I know what I'm saying when I say that they are usually incredibly boring. Students are smarter than we often give them credit for, and a lot of the introductory information provided in these inductions is either close to common-sense, or something that given enough impetus to do so, the students could figure out for themselves. After all, we do everything we can to make our services and resources as easy to discover and use as possible, don't we?
I'm not the only one who thinks this way. There has been some discussion about the the association between Library instruction and boredom, as well as the need to avoid it (White & Collinson, 2010; Trefts & Blakeslee, 2000). With this in mind, I thought that the session last week would be a good time to shake things up a bit, and try something new. Well, new to me anyway. The Cephalonian Method was first devised by Nigel Morgan and Linda Davis, two intrepid academic liaison librarians from Cardiff University, which they later explained in a 2004 issue of SCONUL Focus. The method was born form Davis' experience at a tourist event in Cephalonia;
In place of the usual lecture detailing attractions on the island, holidaymakers were assigned printed questions which they were required to read aloud in a random sequence. For example, ‘Am I stuck on the island for a week, or are there trips to the mainland?’ or ‘Is there a reliable bus service because I’m too scared to drive on these roads?’ This simple idea proved to be a very effective ice-breaker.Active learning as a method for information literacy has been widely discussed, and proved quite popular, and the Cephalonian Method in particular (Shamchuk & Plouffe, 2013; Seeholzera & Salem, 2010; Verlander & Scutt, 2009; Hegarty, 2008; Jones, Peters, & Shields, 2007; ). As a teaching technique it has been described as a good fit for Library instruction "because it allows a librarian instructor to reach medium to large groups of students while covering a substantial amount of material. The method encourages immediate interaction between student and librarian, breaking down the communication barriers," (Hensley, 2010). Not only is it a popular method, it is also an effective one (Essex & Watts, 2011).
Based on my readings I thought it would have a reasonable change of engaging the students more than the usual induction session. So I devised some question cards, slides to go with them, and set to it. The questions were divided into three groups; yellow cards for questions about IT facilities, blue cards for those about Library resources, and red cards for those about Library services. The questions were based on humorous reference queries I have experienced before, "I've forgotten my password. I thought it was ONEDIRECTION but that didn't work, so I tried password123 and that didn't work either..." to sly observations on student behaviour, "We all know I'm just going to use Google anyway."
In the end there were smiles, a few chuckles, and some extra questions at the end. We had fun and didn't take our half-hour together too seriously. Much has been made of the positive effect of humour in an educational context, not only for student enjoyment, but also as a means on enhancing learning and memory (Nesi's 2011 review on laughter in university lectures makes for some excellent reading on the subject). One student got in touch to say that "Your lecture was fun and easy to understand. I like the paper slot tactics you used." Which I feel points towards a successful session, and means that I will continue the experiment in future induction sessions.
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