Tag: student blog

Meet the Engagement Team: Jaidyn Smith

Ever wondered what it’s like to work at the library? We sat down to talk shop with one of our Part-Time Engagement Assistants, Jaidyn Smith, who has been with the Libraries since February 2022.

What’s your major and year in school? 

I’m a Junior Communication Sciences and Disorders Student.

What’s a song that best describes you? 

I would have to say Björk’s “Atopos – Side Project Remix” really connects with me. Like it’s really unique beat wise and that’s really how I would describe myself. I can never really be truly comfortable unless I’m pushing the bounds in some way. 

What made you interested in working for the libraries’ engagement team? 

From the moment I stepped onto campus, I looked for a way to help out at the Libraries. Growing up, I was always really into books and would go out of my way to surround myself with them whether it be volunteering at my high school library or winning bingo night at my local bookstore. Initially, I just would have been fine working anywhere but I think the Engagement Team is the perfect role for me. I love campus events and connecting with people and this allows me to do both. 

What have been some of your favorite projects while working here? 

The postcards event was super fun. It was a lot of work to create and I know the whole team put a lot of effort into it. I think the students really appreciated the opportunity to send a postcard. I also loved the Add-Your-Art Tapestry event. One of my favorite parts of the job is being able to connect with other students. It was nice to just be able to de-stress, talk about our lives, and see the students make some awesome art. 

Is there a resource or service that the library offers that you wish more people knew about?

I think people could benefit from knowing all the different ways to access their class text. I know all my friends complain about paying a bunch of money for a book they only reference a couple of times and don’t use again after the semester ends. We have a huge eTextbook collection for a wide variety of classes. We also have Course Reserves where you can rent a textbook in the library for a period of two hours. If you need to use that textbook outside of the library, there’s a book scanner. Imagine all the money you could save. 

Last Question – what’s your favorite book? 

My favorite book right now has to be Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. I think Yanagihara is masterful with her storytelling and really brings life to her complex, emotionally hurting characters. Reading the story has allowed me to connect to my emotions in a way I didn’t previously think a book could. A Little Life also introduced me to my favorite photographer Peter Hujar which is a cool bonus.

This blog post was written by Jaidyn Smith, Student Engagement Assistant at FSU Libraries.

Curriculum Mapping: An Overview

Guest blog by FSU Student, Carolyn Dang.

Curriculum mapping is a method of analyzing an academic program to find important motifs between courses (Buchanan et al., 2015). Based on the analysis, a support system can be created to help students achieve the learning objectives. Curriculum mapping seeks to answer three main questions:

  • What is taught?
  • How is it taught?
  • When is it taught?

By collaborating with faculty members and identifying core skills, the perception of the library can also change. The library is traditionally seen as giving scholarly products. However by using curriculum mapping, students can begin using the library for scholarly processes (Booth and Mathews, 2012).

Curriculum mapping + Student = ?

For most courses, I print out the two most important pages of the syllabus; the first and the last. Why? As a student, I care about the grading scale, textbook requirement, and the list of due dates. I think those are the three main pillars a student needs to be successful in a class, but what are supporting those pillars? How do we connect those pillars to create a better foundation for students?

The daily schedule for a student may include (1) attending lecture, (2) finding the assignment/exam that is due, (3) crying in the library trying to figure out what they don’t know, (4) going home, (5) rinse and repeat.

FSU libraries provides resources to students such as late night tutoring, software tutorials (through Lynda.com), and research assistance. Having worked at the Learning Common’s circulation desk for the past two and a half years, I have noticed that some students are more reactive rather than proactive. Students tend to run into major problems closer to the deadline. For instance, not understanding how to use a program or cramming five textbook chapters before the night of an exam.

I think that curriculum mapping will have positive effects on students academically and professionally. By providing resources that are catered to student’s classes, students have the opportunity to be more prepared for deadlines. This may help alleviate a burden on technology and tutoring staff with an influx of students the night before. By curriculum mapping courses, library staff have more time to prepare resources based on the course schedules and provide higher quality services to students. As mentioned by Moser et al. (2011), curriculum mapping is a method to help students connect the dots between the skills they have learned. A tight collaboration between librarians and faculty will help staff identify gaps within the student’s learning. Therefore, the library can provide supplemental resources and events to help students.

One of the resources created can be workshops. Although the main reason for workshops would be to teach students different resources, it can be an additional networking opportunity. By clustering students from the same departments in a workshop, this gives students a chance to create connections with their peers.

As a student, I think that curriculum mapping has the potential to create positive outcomes. It would construct a more collaborative, in-sync learning and teaching environment for students, faculty, and library staff. It will be interesting to see how curriculum mapping will work with a diverse set of courses and number of departments.

Sources: 

Booth, C., & Mathews, B. (2012, April 7). Understanding the Learner Experience: Threshold Concepts … Retrieved from http://www.carl-acrl.org/conference2012/2012CARLproceedings/Understanding%20the%20Learner%20Experience_BoothMathews2012.pdf

Buchanan, H., Webb, K. K., Houk, A. H., & Tingelstad, C. (2015). Curriculum Mapping in Academic Libraries. New Review Of Academic Librarianship, 21(1), 94-111. doi:10.1080/13614533.2014.1001413

Moser, M., Heisel, A., Jacob, N., & McNeill, K. (2011, April 2). A More Perfect Union: Campus Collaborations for Curriculum Mapping Information Literacy Outcomes. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/national/2011/papers/more_perfect_union.pdf