My own journey as a lifelong learner and educator has exposed me to many varied and diverse approaches to university teaching and library instruction. Over the years and through different stages of my career I have: worked independently as an instructional librarian, focused squarely on information literacy; co-taught university courses and professional workshops with colleagues on academic and critical literacies; and worked alongside and learned from diverse and distributed project teams, committees, and working groups that included graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, educational developers, university staff and administrators, instructional designers, and educational researchers. The sum of these experiences have helped shape my current approach to teaching and have taught me to both seek out and to remain open to new ways of teaching, learning, knowing, and understanding.

What I know now, and what I strive to keep at the center of my teaching philosophy and practice today, are the following guiding principles:

• that teaching and learning are iterative practices that require continuous reflection, refinement, and revision (i.e., the work is never ‘done’)
• that the most effective and rewarding approaches to teaching and learning are often active, collaborative, and participatory by design; neither teaching nor learning are passive practices
• that the library and the classroom are community sites, and who and what we invite into and/or make room for in these spaces – be it information, media, texts, or ideas – are purposeful choices that directly and disparately impact each member of the community
• that teachers and learners alike require a sense of agency in higher education and that this is best achieved when mutual goals are negotiated, clearly articulated, and agreed upon (and revisited and renegotiated as needed)
• that teaching and learning, as it is currently and predominantly practiced in formal institutions of higher education, is designed to uphold longstanding systems of power and privilege that serve few and harm many, and that all members of the university community have a responsibility and role to play in working to dismantle oppressive policies and practices in order to make higher education accessible, equitable, and inclusive for all.

I have yet more learning (and unlearning) to do as a university educator but believe that aligning my teaching practice with the above values-based, learner-centered approach will continue to facilitate rich and rewarding experiences in the library and classroom communities I cultivate.