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Preparing To Teach

As I prepare to teach my first class next week, I'm finding myself reading everything I can find on teaching styles and the state of information literacy instruction for inspiration. But instead of posting link spam to more articles than I could possibly give my two cents on and still keep you all interested, I'll just talk about my experiences a little bit.

After doing my first dry run in the classroom, I realize there is a lot left to figure out before I'll be confident teaching this presentation. For the first time I'll be using a smart board and clickers. While both pieces of technology seem to work well, it's still a new layer I'm getting used to. Then there are the issues of working off a script I have to stick to so that the instruction remains uniform across all the different sections. I still don't get how to make my point with some of the activities we're supposed to do. My transitions are still clunky, largely because I'm still having trouble remembering which pieces of information go in which sections. And the list go on ...

And despite the multitude of little worries, I can't wait for my first class. I'm sure as it gets closer I'll start getting genuinely nervous and feel differently, but right now I can see ahead to when it's over and I know I'm going to love that feeling, because once the first one is over, the second one will be easier, the third might even be fun, and before I know it, this will be second nature to me and I'll love every presentation, even the difficult ones, sometimes especially the difficult ones.

The reference desk has started getting busier now that students have actual assignments to do and it's just like during summer reading in the public library. While it could be exhausting, I loved the challenge. Here, while I'm still learning a lot and getting acclimated, I love that I can still help so many students, and that many of them are willing to learn with me.

It's weird though, I feel guilty being so enthusiastic. Maybe it's because I travel in a sarcastic crowd, but being just plain old happy feels weird. However, after months of job hunting I can't help but be excited, especially since being back in the library teaching feels so right. This is where I'm supposed to be. Why in the world was I away for so long?
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