oct05b.indd


conference circuit 

Carol Scamman, Robin Kinder, and Priscilla Coulter 

Your
brain
on
information
literacy


ACRL
Immersion
’05



Attention, all those with a passion for information literacy (IL) in higher educa­
tion: ACRL sponsors a yearly opportunity to 
truly immerse yourself in that passion. Two 
options make up the Institute for Information 

control have been emphasized in the past, 
knowledge and wisdom provide critical and 
necessary approaches to learning and teach­
ing. Following this introduction to the pro­
gram, program and teacher track participants 

Literacy’s Immersion Program: the 
teacher track, for those looking to 
optimize their instructional reper­
toires, and the program track, for 
those responsible for “selling” IL to 
university administrators, teaching 
faculty, and librarians. 

While attending Immersion ’05, 
which was held at Eckerd Col­
lege in St. Petersburg, Florida, our 
brains were on IL day and night, 
forming new connections and 
assimilating new information. So 
immersed were we in the company 
of a new “family” of energetic, re­
markably clever colleagues that we 
scarcely noticed the ’gators dotting 
the lovely, tropical campus. 

The Immersion Program pro­
vides a structure for teacher partici­
pants to learn effective teaching, 
learning styles and theory, and 

“This is your brain on 
information literacy,” 
one group’s sculptural 
interpretation of what 
I L  m e a n s  to  t h e m ,  
could be a metaphor 
for what we learned at 
ACRL’s Immersion ’05. 

diverged, coming together again at 
the end after five full days of Im­
mersion in one of the tracks. 

Teacher track 
These three activities—teaching, 
learning, and assessment—are in­
tricately intertwined. Without even 
basic assessment—what do I want 
the student to know?—how do I 
teach effectively? How do I teach 
in front of a class without answer­
ing that simple question? Randy 
Hensley provided the example 
and experience of how to teach 
in the front, middle, and back of 
the class, giving participants an 
honest look at effective teaching, 
summarized memorably in the 
words: Be authentic. Can we be 
authentic without knowing our 
own learning styles? 

assessment. The historical background of 
emerging IL and current issues begin the pro­
gram, with both teacher and program track 
participants, stressing the need to consider 
conceptual approaches to enhance student 
learning, such as knowledge construction, 
knowledge extension, and wisdom. 

These approaches place the experience 
and knowledge of the student in the center of 
the learning process, rather than the teacher. 
While information sources, process, and 

The teacher track began with one of 
Hensley’s sessions, Play Dough in hands. 
We could have simply discussed the article, 
“Improving learning through understanding 

Carol Scamman is a librarian, e-mail: scammancarol@ 
sfasu.edu, and Priscilla Coulter is a librarian, e-mail: 
coulterprisc@sfasu.edu, at Stephen F. Austin State 
University ; Robin Kinder works in the reference 
department at Smith College, e-mail: rkinder@email. 
smith.edu 
© 2005 Carol Scamman, Robin Kinder, and Priscilla Coulter 

C&RL News October 2005  650 

http:smith.edu
mailto:coulterprisc@sfasu.edu
http:sfasu.edu


brain research.”1 Instead, we modeled how 
we felt about IL at that point, explained 
our Play Dough images to the class, and 
voila! left­brain/right­brain transfer and 
reflective thinking had already transpired. 
Cohort leaders modeled great teaching 
and served as coaches while we coached 
each other. 

That scary moment when we presented 
to our peers a five­minute slice from the 
lesson plans we had prepared (sans tech­
nology or visual aids) resulted in phenom­
enal improvements. Many of us felt naked 
without the technology we have come to 
depend on. We discovered the power of 
using our bodies and voices as our primary 
teaching instruments and experimented 
with vocal variety under Hensley’s 
tutelage. We had begun the journey 
from teaching to learning, from being 
“the sage on the stage” to being “the 
guide on the side.” 

Beth Woodward traced the learning 
theories—behaviorism, cognitivism, 
constructivism, humanism—critical 
to understanding the methods and 
instruments we use to teach. In ex­
amining our own learning styles—we 
are rarely only one style, but can 
be predominantly accommodators, 
divergers, convergers, or assimila­
tors—we recognize our dependence 
and comfort with a particular style. We 
reach more students by introducing more 
learning styles, and we expand our own 
repertoire in the process, becoming more 
effective and creative teachers. 

One moment that stands out for Carol 
Scamman occurred in the session on learn­
ing styles. “I expected to hear yet once 
again about auditory, visual, and kines­
thetic learners. Instead, we took the Kolb 
Learning Style Inventory,2 and discovered the 
nuances of constructivist and other learning 
styles. Most people teach from their own 
learning style. Under Woodard’s guidance, 
we broke into groups. Addressing those 
whose learning styles were diametrically 
the opposite of ours, we told them what we 

hated about being taught from their style 
and what style they could use to reach us.” 
Throughout Immersion, there was an empha­
sis on breaking something in order to fi x it. 
The idea that we can increase our repertoire 
of techniques to draw on in the classroom 
inspired confi dence. 

Which is easier, wrestling with a ’gator 
or writing a learning outcome that can 
be assessed, complete with criteria? Hint: 
with Carol Hansen’s expert leadership, 
we wrestled with and learned the impor­
tance of writing learning outcomes for our 
students. With practice, our brains were 
rewired to always consider first, “What do 
we want the students to be able to do as 
a result of this instruction?” 

Immersion attendees demonstrate their new­
found “voice” in a round of k araoke at a beach­
side social event. 

Judith Koveleskie (Seton Hill University) 
attended the teacher track. Upon her re­
turn, she wrote to the Immersion ’05 online 
community: “At the airport I bought a small 
flamingo to keep on my desk as a reminder 
whenever I need to be re­inspired by the 
Immersion experience. I’m sure that I am 
one of the older people in the group . . 
. but I have very little experience and no 
formal training as a teacher. 

“I feel transformed, courageous, renewed, 
and ready to try all the things I learned at Im­
mersion. I also think this was a very special 
group of people who enhanced the work of 
our wonderful faculty. 

“Before I came to Immersion, I met a 

October 2005  651 C&RL News 



person who was there in 2004. When I 
asked her what it was like, she said, ‘It’s 
a cult, but it’s a good cult.’ I’m not sure I 
agree, but it was like a spiritual awakening 
to discover the teacher within me.” 

At the end of the teacher track, Immer­
sion leaders Dane Ward and Craig Gibson 
concluded with a description of IL that is no 
longer bibliographic instruction, that is, not 
“business as usual.” The leaders acknowl­
edged the demands made on librarians in 
promoting and incorporating IL, often with 
scant support and resources from the institu­
tion. The refrain to “be realistic” gave partici­
pants the necessary antidote to the intense 
program of Immersion. They provided frames 
—political, structural, human resource, and 
symbolic—for knowing our own leadership 
qualities and how we may join to collaborate 
with leaders possessing qualities we do not, 
in order to build stronger alliances. 

Program Track 
Dane Ward and Craig Gibson fi rst plunged 
program track attendees into a discussion 
of IL as part of a paradigm shift in higher 
education, rather than glorifi ed bibliographic 
instruction. This was our first taste of the Im­
mersion learning environment: we strayed 
from structured lecture into an interactive 
group discussion of how to best sell IL 
as something bigger than library instruc­
tion, sharing our frustrations and successes 
openly. 

We next delved into theories of leadership, 
blasting myths (“leaders are born, not made”) 
and clarifying definitions (managers are not 
necessarily leaders). We took a close look at 
a set of meaningful leadership qualities and 
performed a soul­searching analysis of our 
individual leadership styles. We had asked 
colleagues at home to rate our leadership 
qualities beforehand, and the results took 
many by surprise. We applied the different 
qualities of leadership to the complex task of 
advocating for and coordinating IL programs, 
and quickly learned that no one leadership 
style will get the job done. To be optimally ef­
fective, a leader must be flexible in his or her 

approach—and suddenly, our jobs seemed so 
much larger than ever before. 

Our discussion expanded to include cam­
pus cultures, and we were again surprised 
to see how closely the characteristics of in­
stitutional cultures matched the qualities of 
leaders. We practiced navigating the unique 
(and variable) cultures of campus adminis­
trators, teaching faculty, and librarians and 
realized that we had been given a powerful 
tool to use as we worked to promote our IL 
programs: a constant awareness of cultural 
factors at play in any given situation, and 
an understanding of how we might use our 
own leadership skills to make the best of 
every interaction. 

Of course, programmatic assessment was a 
big item on the Immersion menu, we walked 
and talked our way through careful assess­
ment of student learning and instructor ef­
fectiveness, eliminating much of the mystery 
and (of course) sharing our experiences and 
questions to great effect. 

We saved what was for many the touchiest 
topic for last: how to spread and instill the 
Immersion spirit to our colleagues at home. 
Play Dough and crayons in hand, we took 
a colorful stab at our IL programs’ internal 
weaknesses, culminating in a bout of creative, 
insightful storytelling that left us in no doubt 
of our newfound ability to lead even the most 
resistant librarian, faculty member, or admin­
istrator into a new era of IL instruction. 

IL after Immersion 
Listening to other librarians is perhaps the 
most fruitful experience of Immersion. Lead­
ers gave wide latitude to discussion, and it is 
rare to have the chance to listen expansively 
and intently to those who work as I do each 
day. There was so much talent and creativity 

Apply now for Immersion ‘06 
Immersion ’06 will be held at Simmons 
College in Boston, July 28–August 2, 
2006. Complete details about Immersion 
’06, including application materials, are 
online at www.ala.org/acrl/events. 

C&RL News October 2005  652 

www.ala.org/acrl/events


Librarians at Immersion ’05 came away with 
renewed energy, a wealth of new ideas and 
the knowledge that the Immersion community 
will outlast the four­and­a­half­day marathon 
meeting. 

in the room, commitment, courage, rebel­
lion, intelligence, and personality—with a 
great deal of collegiality—that we learned as 
much from each other as from the Immer­
sion leaders. 

Within the Five College community in 
western Massachusetts, librarians have met 
twice to listen and learn from former Immer­
sion participants, from both the teacher and 
program track. The past participants provided 
a clear outline of what one learns from Im­
mersion, but they did not—and perhaps 
could not—define the actual experience. 

As a recent participant, I realize the dif­
ficulty of describing experience and learning 
as it occurred in Immersion. With discussion 
groups, conversations, work with cohort 
groups, shared reflections and observations, 
and laughter, amid a community of dedicated 
librarians and leaders, Immersion lives up to 
its rumored reputation. It is an outstanding 
experience for those who are willing. 

Priscilla Coulter sums up her experience at 
Immersion ’05 as, “an intense lesson in cre­
ative, collaborative introspection.” Not only 
did we get the information on IL instruction 
and programming that we expected, but we 
also learned to fully mine a wealth of experi­
ence and imagination: our own and that of 
fellow librarians. This was not an experience 
that will fade into a few lines on a curriculum 
vita. It had a true impact on our learning 

outcomes, and our own students will benefi t 
from it for years to come. 

We would like to thank the Immersion 
faculty, Craig Gibson, Carol Hansen, Randy 
Burke Hensley, Dane Ward, and Beth Wo­
odard, for lending their energy, imagination, 
and knowledge to this experience. We are 
grateful as well to ACRL, Eckerd College, and 
St. Petersburg area librarians for sponsoring 
and hosting the meeting. And, Tory Ondrla, 
your efforts in coordinating the whole, from 
the application process to the fi nal evalua­
tion, were appreciated by all! 

Notes 
1. K. Wunderlich, A. Bell, and L. Ford, 

“Improving learning through understanding 
of brain science research,” Learning Abstracts 
8, www.league.org/publication/abstracts 
/learning/lelabs200501.html (accessed August 
30, 2005). 

2. D. Kolb, “The Kolb learning style in­
ventory, Version 3” (Boston: Hay Resources 
Direct, 1999). 

October 2005  653 C&RL News 

www.league.org/publication/abstracts