CLeaR Fellows 2015 – Dr Li Wang

Establishing a community of interests for staff using technology in teaching & learning

Li is the Learning Support Services Manager. Li had over ten-year teaching experience as a university lecturer before she joined the University Library in 1996. She has led the Learning Support Services team to design and teach many information literacy workshops with a student-centred learning approach and is always interested in engaging students in learning. Li has been working with lecturers, subject librarians and learning advisers to integrate information and academic literacy into curriculum and to provide best support to students. Li has also led her team to successfully develop the Academic Integrity online course which is compulsory for all students.

When Libraries and Learning Services staff work with faculty to integrate information literacy into the curriculum, they hear of different technologies that are being used in teaching. Staff they have spoken to indicate that students engage with, and appreciate the use of, innovative technologies. However, as a large organisation, it is difficult for teaching staff to share beyond their own department what new technologies they are using and how.

Li is very interested in conducting research with University of Auckland staff involved in teaching to identify what new technologies or tools are being used, how they are being used, and if the use of these tools for teaching/learning purposes was successful. In order to do this, Li will conduct interviews with most of the teaching award winners and other teaching staff actively using different technologies from each faculty. The findings of this research will then be used to establish an online hub to ensure these technologies and tools are available for all teaching staff to share, use and adapt.