Collaboratively brainstorming ways to make troubleshooting instincts central to the learning, my classmates in CONT996 and I created a Linoit Board of different strategies that teachers and teacher librarians can use to encourage resilience and independence when students run into difficulties in their work. Thanks to Vanessa for getting this going!
In the library learning commons, troubleshooting skills can be taught alongside research skills. Both involve a level of critical thinking and problem solving vital to success in completing the objectives of study. Fostering a practice of personal autonomy in the library now requires that students know more than simply how to research what they're looking for - they're going to be using technology all of the time to get their work done and will need to know how to fix issues with the tools they are using when things go awry.
At least once every year, I'll have a student in my class who discovers that their Chromebook is inexplicably set to a language other than their spoken tongue. For the first few occurrences I simply would fix the problem for them, but more recently I've encouraged students to use a second computer to Google the problem and work out step by step how to unravel the issue so that I won't have to fix it for them next time. Autonomy is really empowering.
Older students should also look into using a site like StackExchange, which can serve as a wonderful go-to for technology and coding-related problems.
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