Along with Claire Walker, Reference & Instruction Librarian at Belmont University, I gave a presentation called Authentic Teaching: Lessons from Instruction Librarians at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy. The Conference took place at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA on 6-8 February 2013.

Abstract: Librarians, like many scholars, often leave graduate school with little teaching experience or pedagogical training. Those who become academic librarians are immediately and regularly asked to teach information literacy sessions on conducting research and library resources, and can find themselves feeling unprepared and overwhelmed. Certainly the teaching experience of instruction librarians differs from that of faculty members, in everything from contact hours to course content. However, the lessons learned in library instruction sessions can often be applied to the traditional classroom, and the focus on authentic teaching benefits all types of instructors. This practice session will include discussion of deep modeling, transformative learning, and authenticity. Participants will learn about the use of these ideas in higher education pedagogy in a big picture context, work and learn in groups in order to apply these concepts, and take home a plan to develop individual authenticity in teaching.