Abstract
The pandemic necessarily forced educators to embrace digital learning technologies and distance learning. However, as an outcome, it has become more difficult for librarians to embed information literacy (IL) instruction into the curriculum and there is now a greater onus on faculty to plan and deliver information literacy (IL) instruction themselves. This has also revealed inequalities in education, particularly with respect to the Digital Divide, which just further underscores the importance of students acquiring these skills. Practically speaking, too, students need these skills in order to become attractive to future employers and competitive in the workplace. Unfortunately, studies have shown that students are not equipped with adequate information skills that employers desire (Head, Van Hoeck, Eschler, & Fullerton, 2013; Abel, Deitz, & Su, 2014).
The focus of this presentation is to emphasize the importance of creating a shared culture of teaching IL. At an urban, public two-year college, two librarians created an IL program that is meant to be embedded across all disciplines and curricula. Library literature posits that it is more beneficial for student learning when IL skills are scaffolded across the course and taught by disciplinary faculty in the context of the course (Dacosta, 2010). As such, we created lesson plans, tutorials, handouts, and professional development sessions that disciplinary faculty can integrate into their courses. We envision an innovative and non-traditional approach that helps students succeed in the workforce, in their daily lives, and actively engage in society and empower themselves make a difference in our community.
During this session, an urban community college librarian will explain how she developed a curriculum enhancement project to incentivize and encourage faculty to co-own IL instruction on their campus. In spring 2024, the librarian collaborated with an interdisciplinary professor to integrate IL skills across a hybrid Criminal Justice course. During the project, the professor received professional development pertaining to IL teaching practices, completed a syllabi review, adjusted the curriculum accordingly, and utilized lesson plans, student-facing online tutorials, and handouts to teach these skills herself in an online environment to improve students’ critical thinking skills and success in the workforce.
This presentation will describe how these novel strategies can be adapted to create a culture of “shared ownership of IL instruction” at other academic institutions. Namely, it will demonstrate ways to frame conversations with faculty about IL and to create lesson plans. What makes this project unique is that faculty utilize these resources to teach the scaffolded IL skills themselves over the semester. It will include qualitative data analyzed from a mixed-methods approach drawing on samples of students’ work reviewed by a rubric, pre and post student surveys on their perceived research skills, and faculty feedback. It will also showcase examples of librarian-created, student-led tutorials on evaluating sources, using databases, narrowing a topic, and citation. These LibWizard tutorials are ideal tools for faculty to embed in hybrid courses. Practitioners will learn ways the librarian has adapted these practices to help develop embedded IL curriculum across the programs of study. By demonstrating how this approach has contributed and improved students’ learning, the hope is to inspire attendees to reevaluate their IL programming and consider this shared approach so that their instructional efforts maximize impact on student learning.
References
Abel, J. R., Deitz, R., & Su, Y. (2014). Are recent college graduates finding good jobs?. Current issues in economics and finance, 20(1).
DaCosta, J. W. (2016). Information literacy in the digital environment. In University libraries and digital learning environments (pp. 33-48). Routledge.
Head, A. J., Van Hoeck, M., Eschler, J., & Fullerton, S. (2013). What information competencies matter in today’s workplace?. Library and information research, 37(114), 74-104.
