The Information Literacy Institute: Integrating Information Literacy into the Course Experience

1. The Information Literacy Institute: Integrating Information Literacy into the Course Experience Margaret Montet Maureen McCreadie Bucks County Community College

2. Writing to learn (MMM) • Take three minutes to write a few sentences about your BTE (Best Teacher Ever). Please include: • What they taught, • Why you liked them, • What made them different, • What techniques they used. • We’ll discuss this in a few minutes…

3. The IL Institute, briefly(mmm or MMc) • Four intensive days • IL = Find-Evaluate-Use Ethically • Core Outcomes • Co-taught (librarian + professor) • Deliverable: an IL-rich assignment participants will be able to use in class

4. History of Institutes (mmc)

5. IL Institute purpose (MMM or mmc) • To help faculty, especially those teaching Core courses for IL, integrate IL into their coursework seamlessly, knowledgeably, and purposefully.

6. Margaret’s secret agenda (MMM) • Constantly imagine that the participants are asking “What’s in it for me?” • Reveal to the participants that they should imagine their students are asking “What’s in it for me?” as they design assignments and activities. • Insert unexpected, but relevant, surprises to keep up participant interest.

7. Main Topics Covered in IL Institute (MMM or MMC) • Core Curriculum • Information Literacy

8. Core (MMC?) • Luckily for us, Information Literacy is already an outcome in our Core. • We assess all of our outcomes in a five-year cycle.

9. Parts of the iL institute: Which do you think makes the biggest Impression? (MMM thru slide #19) • Pre-Institute Reading Assignment • Icebreaker • Student Panel • Interactive learning: Find-Evaluate-Use • Exercises to build assignments gradually • Guest speakers • Free day to work • Sharing results

10. Pre-institute reading assignment • SURPRISE! We actually discuss the participants’ experience retrieving the articles through the library’s databases more than the content of the articles. • “What’s in it for me?”—empathy for the student experience.

11. Icebreaker: best teacher ever SURPRISE! The techniques and habits that the Best Teachers Ever used rise to the surface of the conversation. • Participants realize why these teachers had such a lasting impact. • Recurring themes emerge. • “What’s in it for me?”—ideas to use in class.

12. Student panel • SURPRISE! Even the least motivated students are stars here because facultyparticipants rarely get a chance to ask honest questions and expect honest answers. • “What’s in it for me?”—empathy for the student experience and insight about how to reach them.

13. Interactive learningfind-evaluate-use • We focus on each element with its own activities… • FIND: • the pre-institute article search, and • student-style IL sessions

14. Interactive learningfind-evaluate-use • EVALUATE: • a Psychology assignment where students are asked to find articles that give advice or tips, and, • bogus websites.

15. Interactive learningfind-evaluate-use USE: • examples of annotated bibliographies, And, • search-strategy questionnaires. • “What’s in it for me?”– participants gradually accumulate ideas for their own assignment.

16. Guest speakers • LibGuides • Media Literacy • Universal Design

17. Free day to work

18. Sharing results • The last day is devoted to eating breakfast and sharing the assignments particpants have created. • Critiques are encouraged, but participants are usually impressed by their colleagues’ creativity! • “What’s in it for me?”—more ideas.

19. now Which do you think makes the biggest Impression? • Pre-Institute Reading Assignment • Icebreaker • Student Panel • Interactive learning: Find-Evaluate-Use • Exercises to build assignments gradually • Guest speakers • Free day to work • Sharing results

20. Funding (MMC) • Usually the questions we get are: • Where does the money come from to offer a stipend? • Where does the money come from to provide food?

21. questions