Donna Harp ZIEGENFUSS

As a library faculty member, my role as a teacher and mentor goes beyond traditional information literacy teaching. I work with both students and teachers across a variety disciplines, levels, and topics such as qualitative research methods, research design. evaluation methods, and professional development. I teach outside of and beyond the traditional classroom context, and span formal and informal educational and mentoring contexts. I have experience with accreditation work, program assessment and participate in PhD dissertation committees across several Colleges.

Relationship building is the core of my learner-centered teaching approach, and I believe that learners and teachers learn from each other and should share in the teaching and learning responsibilities. My focus, no matter what I am teaching, is to develop connections with learners, build a better understanding of learning bottlenecks and motivations, engage learners in the process of ‘doing’ while learning, and guide learners as they construct their own meaning. I share my purpose and passions, and my past learning experiences to model how learners can connect to their purpose. Striving to establish trust and a level of comfort in the classroom creates a learning space that becomes an engaged community of practice (CoP).

I see myself as a teacher-scholar and I ground my teaching practice in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). For example, data I have collected in my freshman level library research classes, demonstrate that students express anxiety about doing research. Undergraduate students reported that they want to learn how to be effective and efficient researchers, but in many cases do not know where or how to start. Therefore, I have re-framed my instruction around how to do research, or rather the process of research, instead of just teaching library databases and resources. I use backward design to create a mix of formal and informal instructional methods, integrate hands-on practice and active learning, and provide opportunities for reflection and peer learning. In teaching the research process and library skills development, my outcomes are to engage learners in the scholarly process, embolden the beginning curious learners, and develop those lifelong research skills so emerging scholars can confidently support their learning journey and uncover their own researcher identity.