Presenting at MLA’16 in Toronto!

Fresh off the plane, Senior Lecturer Hannah Spring recounts her experiences at MLA’16 this week in Toronto, Canada…

Presenting a workshop on effective survey design methodology  in Toronto.

Presenting a workshop on effective survey design methodology in Toronto.

Conference: MLA (Medical Library Association) / Mosaic
Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada
When: 13th, 14th, 15th May 2016

What were you presenting?

2hr workshop: Improve your data! How to use surveys effectively in healthcare research, evaluation and audit

2hr workshop: Facilitating your focus group: running effective focus groups in healthcare research, evaluation and audit

What did you hope to gain from attending the conference?

– To build both my and the University’s international profile by teaching workshops / presenting at a large international conference

– This was my first time at MLA and have always wanted to experience it, so attending has been a goal for a while

– Network, meet new people and find guest writers for my Learning and Teaching in Action regular feature of the Health Information and Libraries Journal

What were your main points of reflection from the day?

With some of my workshop attendees.

With some of my workshop attendees.

– I felt my workshops were well received and the micro-exercises I gave at the end were embraced by the attendees and resulted in a lot of discussion.  Everyone learned a lot from each other, including me!

– It was great to use my PhD to illustrate examples of the research methods I was teaching.  I am continually reminded of the extent of my learning experience during my PhD studies and the lasting impact this is having on both my own learning and influencing the learning of others.

– It was very interesting to meet and hear what professionals from other countries are doing and to hear different perspectives.

– I found the message of Dr Ben Goldacre’s keynote address compelling and inspiring. I will investigate his ‘AllTrials’ resource in more detail and will include this in future literature search teaching sessions.

Highlight from the day?

– The highlight was seeing Ben Goldacre give his very entertaining and inspiring keynote address.

About JESS OLSEN-WELLS

Final year student studying English Literature at YSJ.
This entry was posted in Events and Conferences and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Presenting at MLA’16 in Toronto!

Leave a Reply