Editorial: Those Who Can, Teach
There is no substitute for an inspiring teacher Nov 15, 2010I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE WRITING ABOUT THE benefits of online education, although many librarians I admire have completed their LIS degrees online and many of the better graduate library schools have respected online programs. Online education itself has not converted me, however, but the educators who make it a vibrant forum for learning have—in this case, Steven L. MacCall, winner of the 2010 LJ Teaching Award.
He and his colleagues at the SLIS at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa—where he is distance education coordinator—have embraced a less common model of online education, as LJ’s John Berry points out in his article on MacCall in this issue (p. 24; the Teaching Award comes with $5000, underwitten by sponsor ProQuest).
The program features synchronous online learning—the students and MacCall, an associate professor, are not in the same room, but they participate in live online classes twice a week. The students hear the energy and enthusiasm in his voice and see his demonstrations and PowerPoints on screen. While “the sage on the stage model of lecture no longer flies,” as LJ columnist Michael Stephens writes in this issue (“Goals of an LIS Educator,” Office Hours, p. 32), there is no substitute for an inspiring teacher.
In fact, the sage on the stage model never really flew. Boring lectures to bored students will never “spur thinking,” as Stephens writes. It’s the educators who “serve as…trusty guide[s]” to help students “explore, play, experiment” who make the difference in outcomes.
MacCall’s students obviously agree. Sixteen of them banded together to sign a letter of nomination written by another member of their class, Kathie Popadin. She says they elected to submit a group nomination “in the spirit of cooperation and distance collaboration—both hallmarks of this fine profession.” The letter manages to convey both the content and flavor of their experience: “Unfazed by the vagaries of…technology failure, illness, Vista Blackboard upgrades, and constant text banter during live class lectures, Dr. MacCall gave [our class] an outstanding grounding in…Organization of Information.”
Many of them also took the Metadata course with MacCall, who required each student to create their own blog and subscribe to RSS feeds for both their classmates’ blogs and blog comments. This, said Popadin, “challenged [us] to learn to manage huge amounts of information, while staying current with fellow students’ postings and ensuring that we kept up with discussions via comments.” Instead of intruding on the class, as some professors in traditional face-to-face classrooms fear, technology enabled the students more readily to share ideas and connect with one another and their teacher.
That’s an important component of LIS education, as Stephens notes, too, in his current column. We must immerse students in “environments for exploration and experience,” he says, and in the communities, physical and virtual, in which they will work. He touts the benefits of “set[ting] students free” to establish learning networks on blogs, Twitter, and so on. The technology may change, but the experience carries over into life and work beyond grad school.
There’s an old saw that denigrates educators: “Those who can’t, teach.” It’s never been true. It’s an insult to inspired, inspiring teachers like MacCall, no matter the domain in which they offer instruction. In an era when we’re debating the paucity of excellent education in this country, the myriad solutions are all meaningless without the benefit of a good teacher. Kudos to MacCall and others like him.
Francine Fialkoff, Editor-in-Chief
ffialkoff@mediasourceinc.com
