Teaching and Learning Team

Vision 

To empower the University Libraries, Mason community, and academic libraries across the region to advocate for inclusive, innovative, and creative social learning experiences which integrate information literacy. 

Mission 

The Teaching & Learning Team of the University Libraries fosters and advocates for inclusive, innovative, and creative social learning experiences that empower and educate the George Mason University community. Through collaborative, person-centered instruction, student learning assessment, inclusion, and outreach, we create dynamic and engaging learning experiences focused on critical thinking and enhancing George Mason University’s teaching mission. 

Values 

Our core values inform how we enact our mission. These include: 

• Critical compassion - We center the dignity of the people on this Team and the greater Mason community and embody this concept in all our work. Through our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, this person-centered approach promotes kindness and is reflective of how we want to teach others.  Additionally, we recognize this as ongoing work and will work to continuously improve as a Team and as individual contributors. 
• Anti-racism – We are committed to the ongoing work of anti-racism in our teaching, outreach, scholarship, and everything we do as a Team. Through interrogating and dismantling white supremacist structures, we hope to contribute to a more just world. 
• Student-centered learning – With an emphasis on serving students throughout the Mason Core curriculum, we support and provide accessible, student-centered pedagogies and practices. By collaborating with instructional faculty and campus partners, we promote active learning instruction to meet the needs of all learners.   
• Informed pedagogy – Our teaching is informed by educational learning theories, the scholarship of teaching and learning, critical library pedagogy, and emerging scholarship related to information literacy instruction. We are committed to anti-racist instructional practices, as we believe informed pedagogy is integral to both inclusive learning and diversity and equity.  
• Community engagement – We are committed to the greater Mason community not only in our daily work but also in our open-door commitment to engage with the University Libraries. This work is informed by and in collaboration with our academic and co-curricular partners. We continually investigate new and emerging partnerships to expand our outreach initiatives.  
• Innovation - We embrace change and innovation in our work. Through the integration of emerging learning technologies, creative approaches to teaching, responding to the dynamic information landscape, and pursuing new partnerships, we explore new ways to accomplish our mission. We contribute to the larger scholarly conversation around the teaching and learning of information literacy.  
• Critical reflection – We value the need and time to reflect on our practice as a way to inform and enhance our work.  We reinforce this skill in our teaching and our collaborations.