Integrating Information Literacy Into Your Classroom

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Integrating Information Literacy Into Your
Classroom

• Virginia Heinrich Anne Ryan
• Information Studies Department
• Minneapolis Community Technical College
• Adapted from a presentation by Thomas Eland

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An information literate student

• Determines the nature and extent of information
  needed.
• Accesses needed information effectively and
  efficiently.
• Evaluates information and its sources critically,
  and incorporates selected information into her or
  his knowledge base.
• Uses information effectively to accomplish a
  specific purpose, individually or as a member of
  a group.
• Understands many of the economic, legal, and
  social issues surrounding the use of information.

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Why information literate students matter to you

• Can develop appropriate research strategies
• Understand the literature of the field and how to
  use tools to access quality information
• Can critically evaluate and integrate the
  information in a coherent manner

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Students need to

• Learn how to evaluate the information they find
  for quality, authority, bias, etc.
• Know how to trace a source of information and
  locate additional information about an author,
  publisher, or web site.
• Articulate why they think a particular piece of
  information supports their research topic.

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Meaningful research

• Information literacy is not just about learning
  technical skills.
• To do meaningful research students must have an
  understanding of how
• Academic disciplines are organized,
• Information is published,
• Controlled vocabularies are structured,
• Information is classified,
• Databases are operated,
• Subject-appropriate information tools are
  identified and used.

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Assessing skills

• Assumption students know how to do research when
  they turn in a research paper and receive a good
  grade.
• But what research skills are actually being
  assessed when students write a research paper?

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Assessing skills Tips

• Ask students to tell you
• What resources they use to search for
  information.
• Document how they searched those resources,
  including which specific keywords they used.
• Observe
• Do your students understand subject searching and
  how to narrow topics using the appropriate
  subheadings?
• Do they understand how to trace subjects in a
  database? Did they use advance search features?

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Assessing skills You can help students

• Understand the language of the discipline and how
  to use it effectively to search for information.
• Identify and use appropriate reference sources to
  help them define their topic, find background
  materials, and provide them with good
  bibliographic references.

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Help students be successful

• Open web vs. closed web
• Match goals to project
• Use discipline-appropriate materials
• Information Literacy ? a library project

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Sample projects

• Research Journal
• Research Paper Portfolio
• Pathfinder Assignment
• Practicum Examination
• Research Worksheet

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Research Journal

• Students maintain a journal or diary of their
  research process, record their thinking about the
  topic, questions they wish to answer, keywords,
  and the progress of their research.
• For each resource consulted, students discuss
  which tools were used to locate information, how
  they used the tool, and how successful they were.

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Research Paper Portfolio

• Similar to the research journal except
  students keep copies of the articles or other
  resources they felt were most useful, along with
  a brief description of why they found the
  resources useful.

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Pathfinder Assignment

• An assignment to create a guide to searching the
  literature of a particular discipline or topic.
• Usually organized into such categories as
• General overview,
• The types of information available (e.G.,
  Statistics, critical works, government
  publications),
• Appropriate subject headings and keywords for
  searching in the library catalog and in
  periodical indexes,
• Reference sources,
• Web resources.
• Etc.

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Practicum Examination

• Students are assigned to research a particular
  topic in the library. Each student may be
  assigned a different topic, or all students use
  the same topic.
• Their work is graded based on criteria set by the
  instructor for
• accuracy,
• completeness,
• choice of appropriate sources,
• variety of resources used, and so on.

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Research Worksheet

• A printed assignment that guides a student
  through research in one or more resources, such
  as catalogs, journal indexes, or reference books.
• The worksheet provides instructions for using the
  resource(s) and includes space for writing what
  was found.
• When completed, the worksheet will include such
  information as the keywords and subject headings
  that led to useful information, resources found,
  evaluation of the sources usefulness for the
  project, and one or more bibliographic citations.

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Activity

• 3 resources
• Newspaper Article
• Journal Article
• Web Document
• Evaluate each resource according to your handouts
• Describe scenarios when each resource might be
  appropriate

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Self-Assessment

• Based on the information given, could you make
  good evaluative statements about these resources?
  What would your students need to be able to do
  to do the same?
• Could you think of situations when each resource
  might be appropriate to use?

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Application

• Consider one of your courses
• Think of how you ask students to process
  information in this class
• How might you integrate or further develop
  information literacy skills in this class? How
  would you measure student success?
• Write this idea down on the half-sheet of paper
  and leave it with us well check up on you later!

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Additional resources

• Fister, Barbara. Enhancing Developmental
  Research Skills in the Undergraduate Curriculum.
  Gustavus Adolphus College. http//www.gac.edu/onca
  mpus/academics/library/IMLS/
• Indiana University Bloomington Libraries
  Assessment Plan for Information Literacy
  http//www.indiana.edu/libinstr/Information_Lite
  racy/assessment.html

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Contact us

• Anne Ryan
• anne.ryan_at_minneapolis.edu
• 612.659.6291

• Virginia Heinrich
• virginia.heinrich_at_minneapolis.edu
• 612.659.6296