Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Metaphor me that #lilac17

Another report from Pam McKinney @ischoolPam at the LILAC conference: Pam writes:
"Elizabeth Brown from Central Washington University, USA, ran a workshop entitled Metaphor me that: using metaphor to aid information literacy understanding.
"Elizabeth used metaphors in her IL teaching to describe the research process e.g. It's a race track. Metaphors are a way for us to understand the world around us and create a conceptual bridge. They allow us to understand theoretical concepts with concrete objects. Scholarship as conversation [from the ACRL IL Framework] is an example of a metaphor in library science.
"We were given 3 scenarios to discuss in groups, and we were invited to think of metaphors that we could use to describe the research process to a student who was experiencing difficulties e.g. A student who was fixated on only one source: this is only hearing one instrument in the orchestra, you need to hear multiple instruments to understand the music.
"Students talk about 'navigating' the library search engine - meaning they see information search as a journey. This was a really enjoyable and active workshop, and I now have lots of great ideas about using metaphors in my own teaching."
By the way, apologies from me (Sheila) that I'm posting this morning's reports from Pam later than she sent them to me: I'm on holiday at the moment and was visiting Crystal Palace Park this morning (see picture)

1 comment:

Pam McKinney said...

The park looks lovely Sheila! Thanks for taking time on your holiday to post my reports!