Atla Annual 2021 Online

[This workshop was not recorded]

Theological education in particular, and Western Higher Education in general, have been haunted and shaped by colonialism. These colonial educational spaces too often produce a pedagogical model where the instructor or institution is centered, pushing learners into a voiceless, passive margin. What role does the theological library play in resisting the Colonial Imagination and cultivating an ecology of learning that celebrates multiple ways of knowing and promotes a reciprocity of teachable moments?

This workshop will first initiate a conversation on the theological origins of the Colonial Imagination, leading to a collaborative discussion with attendants on where they see it at work in their libraries. After sharing brief conversations on the answers participants come up with, we will share a collaborative, learner-centered and values driven design approach to instructional resource design practiced by a team of librarians and student workers at the UCLA Library called Writing Instruction and Research Education Team (WI+RE). WI+RE creates open online learning resources, such as videos, worksheets, and interactive tutorials, that address research, reading, and writing challenges. The last segment of this session will share how WI+RE’s implementation of learner-centered design philosophy can be seen as a workable model for fostering an instructional embrace of community and an institutional climate of belonging. We will work with the audience on the initial steps of the process, which give a sense of how we practically center the learner and challenge the values of the colonial imagination in an ongoing communal practice. All that is shared during this session falls under creative commons."