Five Libraries Faculty members contribute chapter to “The Grounded Instruction Librarian”

University Libraries faculty Erica DeFrain, assistant professor, Leslie Delserone, associate professor, Elizabeth Lorang, associate professor and interim associate dean, Catherine Riehle, associate professor, and Toni Anaya, associate professor, have contributed a chapter in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) publication of “The Grounded Instruction Librarian: Participating in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,” edited by Melissa Mallon, Lauren Hays, Cara Bradley, Rhonda Huisman, and Jackie Belanger.

The Grounded Instruction Librarian engages the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through different lenses and provides a sense of the varied ways it’s currently being conducted in academic libraries in North America and Europe. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning refers to original research and scholarship on teaching and learning practice in higher education conducted by scholars across disciplines interested in understanding student learning, teaching innovations, and transforming higher education. SoTL work is situated in a specific time and place, publicly disseminated, and diverse in discipline, theory, and method.

The chapter, “Recentering Teaching and Learning: Toward Communities of Practice at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries,” contributed by Defrain, Delserone, Lorang, Riehle and Anaya present the emerging efforts to develop a more intentional community of practice around teaching and learning. They outline three recent, multidisciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning projects in which librarians played critical roles and reflect on how the emergent community of practice is inspiring librarians to be more systematic in approaches to teaching, in analyzing these efforts, and in sharing these outcomes and findings broadly.  

Each section of "The Grounded Instruction Librarian" begins with a foundational chapter from SoTL leaders that discusses central questions, highlights important theories and literature, and introduces the SoTL-in-practice chapters that follow. The practical chapters highlight work at the more local level and take a range of forms, from case studies from specific institutions, reflections on individual participation in SoTL work, to explorations of a particular topic or theme. This thorough book can provide innovative ideas and methods to help you use SoTL as a professional development tool, a research agenda, a way to create theory, or for a deeper understanding of your teaching and your students’ learning.