making changes to Nursing classes…again
In preparation for the start of Fall term I am in negotiations with the Nursing (NUR) faculty about the 1st year orientations and 2nd year research classes. This is an ongoing struggle to which you have been witness. We’re making progress, slowly but surely.
In an attempt to decrease the number of scheduled classes to which not a soul shows up, the Nursing faculty coordinator contacted me and requested a 6-hour-long drop-in session. I think she figured I could just hang out in my office and get work done until students came. I understand and appreciate her thinking, but few librarians get to spend much time in their offices, really.
So, we are no longer teaching a half day of 2nd year Nursing classes (to which no one shows up). I have yet to hear a confirmation from the NUR coordinator yet, but I think she’ll agree. I have proposed 2 x90min drop-in sessions. They will be on a Friday, which I think is a day that Nursing students don’t have class (that’s a pos and a neg, seriously).
The sessions will be open (no lesson plans) so students should come with questions. At minimum I’ll be prepped to do APA 6, WorldCat Local, and CINAHL updates. I have also invited 1st year Nursing students with the caveat that if we fill-up, computer preference goes to NUR 2 students. We’re totally not going to fill-up but it seems wise to have a plan, just in case.
We are still teaching 1st year Nursing students in September (3x 50min basic overview). That’s a model I think doesn’t work at all. Sure I get that the students need to just know where we are and that we’re around to help, but I have talked to them and they tell me that first day is such a blur for them that it doesn’t really stick. It is literally the first day of the term. They haven’t met their teachers, gotten their assignments, or even focused on the syllabus yet. Understandably, a lot of them don’t think about us again until it’s way too late. I’m hoping for success with the drop-in model. If successful I will push for only offering combined drop-in sessions in the future. COME IF YOU WANT TO LEARN STUFF. Okay, maybe a bit more focusy than that.
Basically I’m trying to bring down the number of manhours expended on booking NUR classes to which few students show up and those who do retain little. Last year was the student-organized experiment (I think it worked well, I will continue it this year). This year I am replacing the 2nd year student mandatory sessions with drop-ins. In reality, this year I will be offering the same number of hours in the classroom for NUR 2 students, I’m just hoping that the format will actually get more of them in the door. Rather than saying “show up for all 50 of these minutes and learn what some other person thinks you need to know” I’m saying, “show up for some of these 90 minutes and ask me about what you need to know”.
In reality, the timing is still not ideal (late October, NUR 2 assignments are mostly due in the spring). I’m hoping that the open session (lesson planless) will allow students to just come and explore some things that are puzzling them.
Hopefully the 2nd year students were here last year and caught some of the buzz I finally got started amongst last year’s graduating class and are now feeling like they are in a position to take advantage of my services. I don’t know, we’ll find out.
I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement in how I deliver IL instruction to nursing students. I just keep working to understand what the year feels like to them (rather than to their instructors) and how they feel the pacing should go. So far I’m pretty sure that Nursing students would benefit most from seeing me twice a year, but I haven’t quite figured out how to make that work. I do find the whole process of recreating the NUR IL instruction program interesting and I’m hoping that after several years of shifts and changes we’ll eventually get there. This one is definitely a marathon (maybe a triathalon even) and nothing remotely like a sprint. Not that I would know…I won’t even run for the bus.
