By Anne Bahde, Special Collections Librarian for Research and Learning, Oregon State University Libraries
Introduction [1]
As part of a recent effort to streamline instructional development and delivery in my own practice, I designed a comprehensive instructional management database. Several goals drove its design. I wanted a cohesive, central place to track and plan instruction that would unite class materials spread over more than a decade of file management. I wanted to be able to explore instructional data in the tool so that past and current program trends could inform new strategies. I wanted a menu of activity and assignment possibilities that also showed the spectrum of skills and concepts arising from special collections and archives materials and research. I wanted to achieve maximum extensibility and scalability across the range of my instructional work and educational products.
I selected AirTable[2] for its range of functionalities, including powerful sorting, filtering, and grouping options, sharing features, custom interfaces, and linkability to other databases. Some of these functionalities are already present in existing platforms such as Aeon and Omeka. The database structure I present here is easily re-creatable with other database platforms/systems. Links below point to an example database in AirTable with sample data.
Tables and elements
I began by thinking of the elements involved in my instruction that I wanted to capture. These became data tables in the database. For my database, titled ‘Primary Source Literacy in Practice,’ I created eleven separate tables, which relate and link to each other in various ways so their information is carried through different queries and lenses in the interfaces.
Classes: Each class gets an entry; (in my case this is each class that booked a session with me since approximately 2012, including fields for current status, tracking prep time, and relevant linked fields. [link to example]
Partners: Collaborators, teaching faculty, and others I have worked with across the university and externally, with fields for their department, school, college, and more.
Terms: Each term gets an entry (quarters in my case).
Planning and Feedback: Planning records at the session level, with fields for reflective practice, student and faculty comments, and more. [link to example form]
Skills and Concepts: Specific skills and concepts extracted from the Guidelines for Primary Sources Literacy at a fairly granular level; skills not appearing in the Guidelines have also been added. Like all tables, this list is in ongoing development.[3]
Activities: Details about the distinct in-class activities and lesson plans I have done or can do. [link to example]
Assignments: Details about out-of-session uses of materials or visits.
Learning objects: LibGuides, Canvas modules, worksheets, presentations, etc. with space for attaching and linking.
Materials: Sets of materials parked in a stable spot (in my case, to another AirTable database of materials), mapped to classes and more.
Units: Groupings of skills and concepts.
Guidelines: A list of the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy, mapped to Skills and Concepts. This table could easily include other standards such as the Visual Literacy Guidelines or ACRL Framework. [link to example]
Sources: A Zotero export of the Teaching with Primary Sources Bibliography (current November 2023), mapped to entries for activities or assignments presented in the piece.
Outcomes and Opportunities
This tool is not yet team-tested, contains only my own instructional data, and has not yet been used for a full academic year. However, the efficiencies and possibilities have already started to become clear over the ten months I have developed and used it.
Strategy and planning
The Overview Interface [Figure 1] visualizes data from the different tables for at-a-glance analysis of trends. This interface aids reporting, suggests target areas for growth or attention, and can inform overall instructional strategy. For example, seeing the proportion of classes taught across colleges immediately demonstrates that a large percentage of my time and effort had been spent in one college (Liberal Arts) over time. This was at odds with aspirations to grow instructional efforts in other colleges. This comparison suggests a possible need for attention to the lesson content for that college to explore questions such as whether some might be relocated to other modalities or which classes had the most impact on students. Seeing how class content mapped to the Guidelines both overall and within colleges exposed disciplinary trends in demand for skills/concepts. Separating classes by status allowed consideration of where relationship energy is best spent.
The Classes Browser [Figure 2] is a sort of home-base to center my planning. This is where a class is populated with details and where all information about a class is gathered, including reflections, data, and feedback needed for assessment. My class planning time has become more efficient, simply because I am not gathering this data from multiple spots. Populating this table with historical data was an investment of time, but data entry started to accelerate once the uses and benefits became clear.
My class planning time has become more efficient, simply because I am not gathering this data from multiple spots.
Activity development
The Skills and Concepts [Figure 3] browser allows me to more easily match a skill or concept of interest to potential activities through a browsable list of activities that teach that skill, then scale or tailor those to the class need. For example, if I hear a faculty member saying that one of the skills they’d like their students to gain is recognizing gaps and silences in the documentary record, I can start planning that class by browsing this list of activities that develop this skill.
Activities included in the database [Figure 4] vary by scale and include multiple pedagogical approaches, including inquiry-based learning, object-based learning, and anti-racist instructional practices. This table includes those I have developed for past instruction but also new activities as they arise from my day-to-day work. An opportunistic mindset over this project has yielded dozens of activities prompted from situations, materials, or other elements to which I am exposed every day. When I encounter a source or situation particularly suited to teaching a skill, or set of skills or concepts, these are entered as activities for later development. Some are based in quick and simple concepts, while others are full lesson plans. For example, the activity Opposing Sides was inspired by an outreach event where materials from different perspectives of a controversial issue were on display together. Visitor responses prompted an activity based on identifying bias while simultaneously building historical empathy.
Activities are also being gleaned from the literature using the TPS Bibliography. Activities are linked to the Sources table [Figure 5], becoming a library of sources cross-referenced with the skills, concepts, and Guidelines addressed in each exercise.
Communication
The Skills and Concepts and Activities Browsers also provide me with the desired menu of options to share with potential collaborators. Sharing these interfaces with faculty gives them a clearer understanding of the lesson content and potential applications and allows them more agency in the planning process with that wider understanding of potential adaptations. If there are particular skills they are interested in building during the student visit, I can build a custom, sharable view of the activities list limited to those skills for them to peruse and adapt. While I am not currently including activities from the bibliography in what I share with faculty, this would make our published practice more compiled, accessible, and understandable to others.
Sharing these interfaces with faculty gives them a clearer understanding of the lesson content and potential applications and allows them more agency in the planning process with that wider understanding of potential adaptations.
Units
The Primary Source Literacy in Practice Database can function as a curriculum building and development tool, allowing grouping of different elements. Units [Figure 6] are clusters of skills and concepts, based on the broad learning object themes in the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy (current units in development include Access, Analysis, Bias/Authority/Power, Context, Definitions, Description, Ethics, Materiality, Synthesis, and Use). When Skills and Concepts and Activities are juxtaposed together, I can more easily see how content can be streamlined for different audiences and environments. Different clusters of activities, assignments, or objects can be a starting point for adapting this content to different potential products and platforms, and for seeing different ways to structure and scaffold all kinds of instructional products, whether those are in-person workshops or labs, online LibGuides and Canvas modules, or other open educational resources. For example, if I wanted to build a unit around Bias, Authority, and Power to serve an online, single-learner, undergraduate audience for my university’s growing Ecampus, this view gives me foundation for building a suite, curriculum, module, or other unit of highly tailored, adapted learning opportunities and objects.
When Skills and Concepts and Activities are juxtaposed together, I can more easily see how content can be streamlined for different audiences and environments.
Conclusion
Such a system has some potential applicability to the wider profession; I have been intrigued to think about how such a resource could represent, serve, and be managed by the TPS Community. Initial response to this idea has been strong and a community managed resource could be possible with enough volunteer engagement. If that idea resonates with you, or to get a copy of the base schema, please get in touch via this form.
Revision and refinement of this tool is ongoing. I have not yet had the opportunity to share it with many faculty, so I will continue to gather feedback from collaborators about how this approach does or does not engage them. For my own practice, it has already been transformational. I can see value and impact in new ways, strategize with more complete information, and begin to envision exciting instructional possibilities for the future.
[1] This article is adapted from an initial presentation given at Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Fest 24, and incorporates feedback from that event and further development.
[2] This experimental product, in using AirTable, did not fully address the significant accessibility issues with the tool that have gone unaddressed by the company. Some accessibility issues can be addressed by using Forms in AirTable, but the tool itself requires significant accessibility adjustments that require AirTable’s investment to address. Other systems, such as Claris Filemaker, could better address these issues. I am grateful to Kristine Greive for this reference.
[3] Robin Katz’s forthcoming 608 Measurable Learning Outcomes for Primary Source Literacy: An Adaptable Handbook to Assess Student Learning at Every Level, from Society of American Archivists Press, will advance our professional conversation on skills and concepts in remarkable ways.
Anne Bahde is the Special Collections Librarian for Research and Learning in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center at Oregon State University, where she works with faculty and students to integrate primary sources into educational experiences across the university.