Type of Presentation

Individual paper/presentation (20 minute presentation)

Target Audience

Other

Location

Room 212

Abstract

The Summer of 2008 ended with a decision to more actively participate in the classroom. Some of our objectives were more interaction, relationship building, additional opportunities to expose students to our resources, and strengthen student information literacy. We wanted to do it in such a way as to make it meaningful for the students, helpful for the professors, and useful to us. More interaction was an obvious initial objective to begin with. Library instruction limited to an hour in the Fall and an hour in the Spring is very constraining. It is simply not possible to adequately expose students to all the IL ideas and facts they need to truly move toward information literacy. One way to deal with that reality was to connect more frequently over the course of an entire semester. While not the guarantee of the desired learning this would at least give us the opportunity to dialogue more and expose the students to additional LI issues. It just seemed reasonable that the more often you hear or see something the more likely it is to be etched into your thinking and memory. What exactly have we done to this point and why? We decided to move beyond the idea of simply having a Blackboard/Blog presence and being available. We concluded there would be a far greater likelihood of students participating with us and engaging in dialogue with us if our component was a part of their grade. We wanted them to have incentive to pay attention to us and respond to our requests. With that end in mind we approached a couple faculty members about the prospect of doing something like this. We offered an opportunity to improve the information literacy of their students in a measurable way. That was of interest to the Communication Arts professors as all faculty face the pressures of proving their students are learning. This would give them an additional way to show that. They agreed!The presentation will discuss in detail how we approached the planning, execution, and evaluation of this initiative. We have been able to assess impact on student learning and have also been able to evaluate which technology works best for this type of interaction.

Presentation Description

Introducing students to information resources and research tools is the easy part. Building on that initial opportunity can be challenging if not impossible in some cases. In collaboration with Communication Arts faculty, Samford University Library has used Blackboard and Blogspot to move into the classroom through an entire semester. This discussion will provide lessons learned, present assessment findings, and offer points to consider.

Keywords

Embedded librarian programs, Active participation, Information literacy instruction, Library orientation

Publication Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

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Sep 25th, 1:30 PM Sep 25th, 2:45 PM

Embedding with a Purpose

Room 212

The Summer of 2008 ended with a decision to more actively participate in the classroom. Some of our objectives were more interaction, relationship building, additional opportunities to expose students to our resources, and strengthen student information literacy. We wanted to do it in such a way as to make it meaningful for the students, helpful for the professors, and useful to us. More interaction was an obvious initial objective to begin with. Library instruction limited to an hour in the Fall and an hour in the Spring is very constraining. It is simply not possible to adequately expose students to all the IL ideas and facts they need to truly move toward information literacy. One way to deal with that reality was to connect more frequently over the course of an entire semester. While not the guarantee of the desired learning this would at least give us the opportunity to dialogue more and expose the students to additional LI issues. It just seemed reasonable that the more often you hear or see something the more likely it is to be etched into your thinking and memory. What exactly have we done to this point and why? We decided to move beyond the idea of simply having a Blackboard/Blog presence and being available. We concluded there would be a far greater likelihood of students participating with us and engaging in dialogue with us if our component was a part of their grade. We wanted them to have incentive to pay attention to us and respond to our requests. With that end in mind we approached a couple faculty members about the prospect of doing something like this. We offered an opportunity to improve the information literacy of their students in a measurable way. That was of interest to the Communication Arts professors as all faculty face the pressures of proving their students are learning. This would give them an additional way to show that. They agreed!The presentation will discuss in detail how we approached the planning, execution, and evaluation of this initiative. We have been able to assess impact on student learning and have also been able to evaluate which technology works best for this type of interaction.