User education and Peer Instruction: a library class model for understanding concepts in the school

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a library lesson model that uses an active learning methodology to help students understand concepts related to the environment/universe of the school library. We conducted a literature review and focused on the active Peer Instruction methodology proposed by Eric Mazur by doing exploratory research. We developed a library lesson model divided into four phases (Phase 1: Organizing groups of students; Phase 2: Assigning concepts to the groups; Phase 3: Applying the Peer Instruction steps to the groups; Phase 4: Result and consolidation of the action). Phase 3 consists of seven steps (Step 1: Question posed; Step 2: Students think about the question; Step 3: Students record individual answers; Step 4: Students convince their classmates of the concept; Step 5: Students record the group’s revised answer; Step 6: Feedback to the librarian; Step 7: Explanation of the correct answer by the librarian). The study concludes that active collaborative learning methodologies play an important role in schools presently. They enable the student to become the protagonist of their learning, while the librarian and teachers serve as mentors, guiding the reflections, clarifications, and advancements of the classes in the pedagogical activities. Peer Instruction as an active collaborative learning methodology has proven to be a viable tool for increasing user education in school libraries, having the librarian in partnership with the teaching staff. This strategy would provide students with an in-depth understanding of the library sphere and, consequently, have a positive impact on the user education process.