2019-2020 Information Literacy Learning Community

PairCourse Information Team Summaries 

Lauren Todd
Subject & Instruction Librarian -Engineering

Seema Dahlheimer
Senior Lecturer in Engineering 

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 
Head, Academic Support & Collaboration; Anthropology Subject Librarian

Andrea Murray
Lecturer in Anthropology 

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
Curator of Local History

Beth Martin
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies & Interim Director of Climate Change Program 

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 
Islamic Studies; South Asian Studies; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Librarian

Younasse Tarbouni
Senior Lecturer in Arabic 

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
Biology, Psychology, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Subject Librarian

Heather Rice
Senior Lecturer in Psychology & Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences 

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 1Topics: 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 2Topic: How do we build transparent assignments? Learning Goals: Teams will create assignments that facilitate the information literacy learning outcomes.
Day 3Topics: 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 4Topics: 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).