Tag Archives: information literacy

Trading Eights: Teaching Collaboratively with Primary Sources

By Jill E. Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian
and Kevin Fleming, Popular Music & Culture Archivist
Georgia State University Library

Introduction

This case study focuses on how Kevin Fleming, Popular Music and Culture Archivist, and Jill Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian, have developed a series of “Teaching with Primary Sources” library workshops at Georgia State University, an R1 public university. We designed these workshops to introduce faculty and graduate-student instructors to creative strategies for incorporating primary sources into their instruction. Drawing on historical comic books in the archivist’s collections, the active-learning exercises we devised for these workshops are meant to encourage attendees to consider and share their own ideas about instruction with archival and other primary source types. Rather than presenting ourselves as all-knowing “experts,” we aim to make ourselves available as possible partners for this kind of instruction. With these workshops, we hope to foster attendees’ own imaginative ideas about teaching with primary sources, while at the same time encouraging instructors to consider including us as partners in their classrooms. We received a 2019 Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC) Award for Excellence in the Educational Use of Historical Records for these workshops. In this article, we will describe our collaborative processes in the context of the evolution of our workshops. We will begin by discussing our initial collaboration in support of the librarian’s Honors freshman seminar, describe the evolution of our instructor workshops, and close with a discussion of our embedment in a College of Education and Human Development graduate course on Children’s and Adolescent Literature as a direct result of these workshops.

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Language Learners in the Library: Developing a Partnership with Pre-College ESL at a Community College

By Haruko Yamauchi
Teaching Coordinator
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College

Introduction

The United States is a vibrant and diverse country, made up of people with roots in many nations. While immigrant communities are now caught within political disputes that lie beyond the scope of this article to address, a few statistics about the current population of our country, our cities, and our colleges will indicate why teaching information literacy to English Language Learners in post-secondary education is and will continue to be of pressing concern, whatever may be the outcome of current battles over immigration policy.

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Teach Where They Live: New Opportunities for Library Instruction and Outreach in Residence Halls

By Michelle Bishop
Acting Coordinator of Reference
Penfield Library, State University of New York, Oswego

It was 7:30 p.m. and the student actors were beginning to arrive to review their roles for the “Experience World Libraries” workshop that would start in 30 minutes. As a live-in Faculty Resident Mentor in Hart Hall at SUNY Oswego, I had designed the workshop as an experiential learning activity meant to illustrate the critical role libraries around the world play in facilitating access to information. It was rewarding to see that after going through the three scenarios, students were actively discussing the impact that limited access to information has on societies. Two years later, I can still say this has been one of the most exciting teaching experiences I have had as an instructional librarian. It is important to point out that this experience occurred in a residence hall and not a traditional classroom. This workshop and other residential outreach experiences I have designed are as a result of the educational mission of Residence Life and Housing on the SUNY Oswego campus. Like Oswego, an educational focus is a key element of residential life missions on other campuses. As such, there is exciting potential for wide-ranging instructional outreach opportunities for librarians in campus residential settings.

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Escaping Library Orientation: The Introduction of Escape Rooms Into First-Year Experience Courses for Library Orientation and Familiarization

By Derek Malone
Assistant Professor, Instructional Services
& Interlibrary Loan, Scanning & Delivery Librarian
University of North Alabama

Background

At the University of North Alabama, our first-year library instruction has developed over time into a three-part sequence. The sequence is embedded in three required general education courses: FYE 101 (First Year Experience Seminar), EN 111 (First-Year Composition I), and EN 112 (First-Year Composition II). All students, unless they have tested out of one of the requirements, will attend all three instruction sessions.

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Difficulties with “Digital Natives”: Bridging the Skills Gap Via One-Shot Library Instruction

by Emily Thompson
Studio Librarian, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library
and
Theo Rhodes
Assistant Professor of Psychology, State University of New York at Oswego

Abstract 

Current students are very familiar with their handheld devices, but they are often thrown into productivity applications with very little instruction due to the assumption that digital natives are already proficient. This study focused on students’ abilities using PowerPoint to create and execute a presentation. We conducted an A-B comparison with a “one-shot” instruction session by a librarian in between. After analysis by a group of objective observers, we saw a statistically significant improvement in the post-intervention slides. This implies that it is helpful to give students lessons in common productivity applications, with a possible new direction for library instruction.

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