2019-2020 Information Literacy Learning Community
Pair | Course Information | Team Summaries |
Lauren Todd |
Title: Engineering Technical Writing Department: Engineering Communication Center School: McKelvey School of Engineering Semester: Fall 2019 | Lauren and Seema employed the fully embedded librarian model using the ACRL frame Authority is Constructed and Contextual. Lauren attended both sections of the Technical Writing class twice a week. Seema and Lauren split the teaching 70/30 and incorporated the framework into an assignment they designed together as well as the final project proposal, presentation and paper. They also co-developed an assignment where the students reviewed sample papers and how the papers’ authors used sources, and incorporated conferences with Lauren and Seema into the structure of the class. |
Ted Chaffin Andrea Murray |
Title: Topics in Anthropology: Bioprospecting Department: Anthropology School: College of Arts and Sciences Semester: Fall 2019 | Ted and Andrea co-taught three sessions themed around research skills which included utilizing online databases, strategic exploration and question design, and citing sources. The pair also practiced critical source evaluation with their group through low-stakes weekly activities including current events (e.g., “Bioprospecting in the News”). For each session, one student presented a news piece related to major course themes. As part of this exercise, the students researched the news outlet, publication, author, political or historical context, and other relevant information for the study. Finally, Ted and Andrea screened portions of multiple films and discussed the qualities of these multimedia (e.g. documentary, journalistic, propagandistic, politicized, scientific). |
Miranda Rectenwald Beth Martin |
Title: A Sense of Place: Exploring the Environment of St. Louis Department: Environmental Studies School: College of Arts and Sciences Semester: Spring 2020 | Miranda and Beth are more intentionally interweaving information literacy into the course topic, which connects information literacy skills directly to both course work, as well as the students’ future work as scientists and members of society. For example, they intentionally integrated a class session on researching various source types into a class session prior to their first research assignment on local communities. Through metacognitive practices, they had students reflect on their research process and sources as part of the final product the students submitted. |
AJ Robinson Younasse Tarbouni |
Title: Beginning Arabic and Cultures II Department: Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies School: College of Arts and Sciences Semester: Spring 2020 | In addition to AJ attending most class sessions in two sections of this course, the team is incorporating two of the ACRL frames into the course. First, the team arranged a guided tour of Special Collections items and digitized collections and an annotated bibliography and presentation assignment (Information Creation as a Process). Second, the team created an assignment for students to search the bookshelves to find interrelated materials (Searching as Strategic Exploration). In April, they will highlight the frame Information Creation as a Process again by hosting a calligraphy workshop for the entire campus to showcase student learning in the course. |
Melissa Vetter Heather Rice |
Title: Experimental Psychology Department: Psychological and Brain Sciences School: College of Arts and Sciences Semester: Spring 2020 | For this team’s first semester, Melissa is regularly attending class and is leading two class sessions on literature searches. This team chose this measured approach because prior to ILLC, librarians had limited involvement with this course. Further, this is one of several sections of the course that is offered and there is minimal flexibility in the content covered by the different faculty for the course. As a result, this team thought it would be prudent to spend the semester exploring where there is overlap between the current course content and information literacy more broadly. From there, the team will strategically weave information literacy content into the current content. By taking this slower approach, the team believes that they will be able to ensure that the integration can be adopted by all the sections of the course. |
Sample Seminar Agenda
Fall 2021 | Activity |
Day 1 | Topics: What is information literacy and how will the faculty and librarians work together? Learning Goals: Develop faculty/librarian team collaborations. Explain what information literacy is and how it applies to their curricular context. |
Day 2 | Topic: How do we build transparent assignments? Learning Goals: Teams will create assignments that facilitate the information literacy learning outcomes. |
Day 3 | Topics: How do we work together as a team and how do we scaffold information literacy instruction and integrate it with course content? Learning Goals: Raise faculty awareness of the range of skills and expertise that librarians can contribute to classroom learning. |
Day 4 | Topics: How will we teach, assess, and communicate our work? Learning Goal: Apply teaching and learning practices and skills to a course (or course design process). |