Library Skills: synchronous (live and face to face) training guide

You may find it helpful to consider the process of planning your session by breaking it down into the following steps:

You may find it useful to consider principles of backward lesson design to determine objectives / learning outcomes, assessment and active learning activities. 

As with a face to face session, ensure you have clear learning objectives for your session. These should align with the learning objectives of any associated asynchronous materials.

Around 3 objectives for a 1 hour webinar is ideal. A maximum of 5 is recommended.

Think of learning outcomes as being made up of two elements:

• What the attendee will be able to do

in order to...

• How they will then apply what they have learned. 

E.g. Describe criteria for evaluating sources in order to assess the quality of information

Consider using Bloom's taxonomy to identify verbs to help you define the first part of your learning outcome, and to ensure your objectives / learning outcomes cover a variety of depth of learning. This is outlined in the session on Forward thinking with backward design.

How will you determine whether your learning objectives / outcomes have been achieved. This can be as simple as asking if attendees understand, or can be more complex such as getting them to complete an exercise. This needs to be considered carefully as you cannot gauge understanding by looking at faces when in an online environment. You should also consider how the attendees will know whether they have understood and achieved the learning outcomes.

Assessment is inevitably linked with the next step, Activities and active learning.

What active learning activities will you use to help attendees learn, and how will you determine if they are successful?

1. Attendees may have already carried out asynchronous learning, which should give you an understanding of the baseline level, but inevitably some will not have done it, or will not have understood it. An activity at the start which gives you an indication of baseline knowledge is therefore important. It also sets the tone for the rest of the session, indicating that there will be interactivity throughout and attendees are expected to participate. By having interactivity from the outset, attendees are more likely to participate – it acts as an icebreaker. Examples include polls, quizzes or whiteboard activities.
2. Where a session is intended to consolidate what attendees already know, consider getting attendees to explain back to you what they already know. You might also want to ask them where they feel are lacking confidence, or do a quiz to establish areas where they are lacking understanding, and can then recap those areas, or get some attendees to explain them (this gives you a really good idea as to levels of understanding from across the group, those who admit to lacking understanding and those who claim they understand). This requires flexibility on the part of the trainer.
3. Depending on the nature of the session, you might have a more in depth learning activity, e.g. when attendees are set a task and asked to report back. In a one hour session, have one or a maximum of two more in depth activities.
4. Have an activity, e.g. Poll, quiz, at the end which gives you and attendees an idea as to whether they have understood and achieved the objectives.
5. Ensure there are opportunities for attendees to ask questions.

Once you have established your learning outcomes, assessment and active learning, you can slot in any other explanation that you will be required to give to enable the attendees to undertake the activities and achieve the learning outcomes.

Learning types / styles

There are many different models which classify different learning types / styles. In planning your session and activities, you might want to consider different learning types and offer a variety of activities that cater to different types.

Literature searching session

Conclusion

• Summarise what has been covered in the session, so attendees can reflect on what they have learned.
• Next steps: Ensure you include next steps. Where can attendees go to find out more. It is particularly good if you can make recommendations based on your assessment for learning.

Evaluation and review

• Feedback: In addition to feedback for assessment, it’s important that we get feedback on the sessions themselves so that we can amend and develop our sessions accordingly. This is particularly important as we launch new live online sessions, and because most of us are new to delivering training in this way so we have a lot to learn. Get in touch with the feedback project group to set up an online feedback form and share the link at the end of the session, asking attendees to complete it then in order to get a higher response rate. Sessions delivered as part of the Doctoral Skills Development Programme (DSDP) should include an Inkpath QR code.
• Review: Self-reflection and peer feedback are really important to help review and develop your teaching. Take time immediately after the session to reflect yourself, or with a colleague if you delivered a session together or had a peer observer. Plan for this, so that you make time and can also discuss any particular areas for consideration prior to the session.

Padlet is not accessible, but UCL Dig Ed have a list of suggested alternatives.

Mentimeter

UCL now has a licence for Mentimeter. There is further information on the UCL Wiki. From the Mentimeter Login page click on Login with SSO' and log in with your UCL userid and password. If you previously had a Mentimeter account set up with your UCL email address, this will link to that and your previous polls will be there.