Reflecting Back

What was the most interesting thing you learned from a class colleague this semester? How did it change your perspective?

I’m not sure I can pinpoint one particular thing, but what came to mind immediately in answer to this question was that I feel like my eyes were opened to the perspective of widely diverse viewpoints, especially those of economically disadvantaged communities. (I love that this is actually not related to innovation and participatory learning at all!) I come from a very comfortable economic background, and the school where I work is a very expensive private school. There are some issues that I simply have never dealt with. Without the insight of our classmates, I wouldn’t be thinking about these perspectives and how libraries can best serve these communities. Reading about our classmates’ families, backgrounds, and work situations really taught me about how varying communities and patrons can be, and how our work in libraries, including our innovative programming, can target specific needs.

Was the content of this course what you were expecting it to be? What would you like to have spent more time learning? Less time focusing on?

This course was so much more than I was expecting! I was expecting it to focus on maker spaces and that type of related programming, but I think that was only a tiny fraction of what I learned. I learned so much in every single unit—about how young people think and learn, about how we can learn to be creative, how to engage people with good programs, and so much more. I think I would have liked to have learned even more about pedagogy and learning styles—the parts we touched on really interested me, and one classmate’s comment about there being much more to it makes me wonder how what we learned fits in with what is generally implemented. If I had to choose something to spend less time on, it might be the innovation style book and corporate innovation. I think that some of that can certainly translate to libraries, but not that much. It’s more the spirit of the personalities and the idea that you need lots of different types of innovative styles on an effective team. What I really would have liked is if the information in the book were condensed to the length of a long magazine article. It think the innovation styles were really interesting, but the book was full of self-congratulatory examples that weren’t that relevant to me.

What was your favorite project or reading you worked on this semester? If you had to eliminate a project or reading, what would it be?

I can’t decide! I’m going to pick two: The New Culture of Learning and The Participatory Museum were my two favorite readings. Both of them were fascinating, eye-opening, and inspiring to me. My least favorite reading was Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. I thought these three concepts were interesting, but the text was dry. Again, everything I took away from that book could have been condensed into a magazine article. And actually, Invent to Learn cited it and covered most of the important points pretty well. My least favorite project was the innovation style paper. I don’t feel like it was a very strong learning opportunity. It was very narrow.

Overall, this was my favorite class I’ve taken so far. I have learned so much about things innovative and not, and it has made me see librarianship in totally new ways. I have been so inspired by everything we’ve done in this class. Thanks to everyone for a great semester!