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Those Who Can, Teach, Too: Using Teaching Skills As a Cataloger
by Naomi Young
Until recently, I was reluctant to tell people that my first career was as a special education teacher. It seemed like such a stereotype: burned out teachers become librarians. Then there was the old saying, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." If I had found I couldn't even teach, where did that leave me?
With one brief exception, I've always worked as a cataloger, although I've usually had some public service responsibilities. I was always especially happy when an education student came to the reference desk. Occasionally, I had the opportunity to teach a bibliographic instruction session. Beyond that, I thought my teaching skills would never again be of much use.
Expect the Unexpected
Then, our libraries embarked on a system migration. We were moving from a mainframe system to a client-server system. Staff members would be working in a Windows environment for the first time, and we would be implementing the MARC Format for Holdings. At the same time, our campus HR system and OCLC were also undergoing drastic changes. Suddenly, none of us knew how to do our jobs. We had always claimed to be a "learning organization;" now our survival depended on it. I became part of the university-wide training group. I would be the primary trainer for MARC holdings, and a backup trainer for cataloging and serials modules. I was at ease and enjoying my job more than ever before - and many of my colleagues weren't. My undergraduate degree and my teaching experience made the difference.
The teaching skills that have served me so well fall into these broad categories: classroom management skills, task and concept analysis, and positive reinforcement. My colleagues are intelligent people, but they often leave training or instructional programs they've created feeling frustrated, rather than exhilarated. Their lack of teaching skills has hurt them.
Transferable Teaching Techniques
The first thing people mentioned to me was my ease in getting in front of a group to teach, even when the network went down mid- lesson, or the room was ice-cold. Five years of teaching "captive audiences" of disaffected teenagers was the key. I'd seen worse. I had no fear that a colleague would get up in the middle of my discussion and shout, "Where's the beef?" No one in my training sessions has tried to carve up or throw the furniture. (A few, though, have logged into their e-mail or gone to sleep!)
Instructing adults who (for the most part) wanted to learn new skills was a treat, not a threat. But, I still needed my classroom management skills. I had to motivate students, watch closely to see when I was losing their attention, and stare down side conversations when class was due to begin.
Other useful skills included task analysis, which involves breaking a large task into its components of smaller, simpler steps. Anyone who has ever coached someone in a step-by-step activity has performed a task analysis; it helps to write those steps on paper. Through task analysis, I could design individualized instruction that skipped over steps the learners already knew. I could also group tasks that require similar skills into one lesson segment.
Concept analysis is similar, but, instead of listing activities, I listed important concepts and the ideas underlying them. For example, the most important elements in understanding the MARC Format for Holdings are the paired fields (85X and 86X). To understand how those fields are constructed, one must first understand the terms pattern and caption, and how tags, indicators and subfields are used in a MARC record.
The branch library staff often needed instruction on the structure of MARC fields, but understood caption and pattern before the monographic catalogers did, since they handled dozens of serial issues a day. Knowing which ideas were most important, and which needed to be understood first, helped me structure coherent lessons.
Finally, I want to say a few words about positive reinforcement. This phrase evokes images of lab pigeons pecking a button, but I mean something more human: people who are appreciated do more, and do it better. Rewards are individual; what makes one person feel appreciated makes another feel patronized or manipulated. I'm surprised at how much a sincere "good job on this" means to me. I'm not asking anyone to make up flattery. Just let people know when they are doing a good job.
Developing Teaching Skills
I never took a public speaking class, but my friends who have are at least as comfortable in front of groups as I am. Another option is joining a Toastmasters Group.
Many people have performed task analysis; they just don't call it that. Writing computer programs requires a kind of task analysis, since computers only do what we tell them to do, not what we mean to tell them to do. Macros require determining every keystroke and computer action. To test a task analysis, ask a friend to follow the listed steps exactly. The results will show where steps are missing or actions are assumed. It's amusing to watch, as well!
To sketch out a basic concept analysis, write down the ideas that will be understood by everyone who completes the course. More than three or four key points is too much for a one-hour session. It's vital to know the minimum time it will take to cover the material. Each team in our training group taught its draft lessons to the rest of the group in the actual classroom we'd be using. As a result, we taught more classes, with fewer new concepts in each.
Discovering that my instructional skills are important to my success in my current position has given me a new view of my past and my present. I no longer think of answering questions or writing documentation as an intrusion; they are the core of my work.
Naomi Young is Principal Serials Cataloger for the Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida.