UnCOILed 2019: Summary of the Workshop – “2 Player Mode: Level Up Your Collaboration with Faculty”
ABCs of Persuasion
- Attunement: Use empathy and recognize common goals to attune yourself to faculty’s perspective.
- Buoyancy: Take control of your self-talk to stay buoyant after negative interactions.
- Clarity: Help faculty identify problems they don’t realize they have, perhaps by asking to see student work.
From Dan Pink’s video: https://bit.ly/1nF15L8
Relationship Dynamics
- Waller’s Principle of Least Interest: The party with the least interest has the most power.
- Goffman’s Gift Giving: If a librarian feels like receiving class time to teach is a “gift” from faculty, it contributes to the power imbalance.
- Goffman’s Deference Behavior: Using deference in the form of qualifiers (“I’m sort of a co-teacher with Dr. X”) also contributes to the power imbalance.
Consider the language you use with faculty and how it contributes to the power dynamic.
Successful Faculty/Librarian Collaborations
- A shared, understood goal
- Mutual respect, tolerance, and trust
- Competence for the task at hand by each of the partners
- Ongoing communication (Meulemans & Carr, 2012, p. 84)
See the COIL blog for examples of successful collaborations.
Meulemans, Y.N. & Carr, A. (2012). Not at your service: Building genuine faculty-librarian partnerships. Reference Services Review 41(1), 80-90. doi:10.1108/00907321311300893
Level Up Your Collaboration with an Actionable Value System
Part 1
Create a teaching philosophy that answers the following questions:
- What are your objectives as a teacher?
- How will you achieve these objectives?
- How will you measure your effectiveness?
- Why do you teach?
Part 2
What requirements should requests meet? What are you willing to do?
Examples:
- Students must be working toward a research assignment.
- No “point and click” database demos.
- Instructors must provide a class syllabus and/or an assignment sheet prior to a session.
Part 3
What are common misconceptions about library instruction among faculty? How can you respond when faced with those misconceptions?
See the slides with sample participant responses to the activities at https://bit.ly/2xJH7si