Promoting learning in the culturally diverse library instruction classroom: An active exploration

Delivering culturally competent classroom instruction has been well-explored in the general educational literature and undoubtedly will continue to be highly relevant and evolving. Similarly, diversity in libraries is a topic of rapidly rising interest to the library community, yet very little of the current literature and conference offerings are geared towards improving our connections and classroom interactions with culturally diverse populations. This hands-on workshop seeks to harness the broad experiences of participants as information literacy instructors as we work together to improve our ability to facilitate learning for culturally diverse students in our classrooms. Specifically, participants will explore three proposed areas for improvement: the self, pedagogy, and classroom variables. Following a brief introduction and overview of the issues to be covered in the session, the remainder of the workshop will be broken into thirds, with each addressing one of the above issues. First, session participants will explore issues of the self, including awareness, attitudes, and knowledge through both personal and professional lenses in a series of reflective writing and discussion-based exercises. Secondly, in small groups, participants will “try on” different learning paradigms and apply pedagogical approaches as they might relate to culturally diverse learners. Finally, participants will work together in groups to examine a variety of classroom variables (technology, activities, etc.) and how they might be adapted in a culturally diverse classroom