Sharing an Information Literacy Curriculum: Strategies for Professional Development for Writing Faculty

Type of Presentation

Individual paper/presentation (20 minute presentation)

Target Audience

Higher Education

Location

Room 1005

Proposal

At the University of Colorado-Boulder, a librarian and a composition and rhetoric instructor have been creating a first-year writing curriculum designed to transform the conventional “academic research paper” and to infuse information literacy (IL) into the writing class throughout the semester. The overarching goal of the curriculum is to offer learning experiences in which students cultivate practices of self-directed exploration and critical reflection as they explore information landscapes, pose research questions, navigate conversations, formulate arguments, and compose and circulate their own texts for a variety of audiences and purposes through various media.

In this presentation, we will detail our process for establishing a professional development strategy that introduces local writing faculty to the new curriculum. Our strategy emerges from professional frameworks and recent scholarship that offer threshold concepts and habits of mind as guiding principles for teaching writing and information literacy. We plan to introduce new assignments and lessons while also inviting further creative thinking about learning design based upon current theoretical foundations. We will reach these goals through a variety of delivery mechanisms, including a half-day workshop, a monthly series of drop-in trainings, and online learning content. Additionally, through targeted interest groups, we will gather faculty feedback to shape our curriculum in ways that acknowledge the unique identity and values of our local program.

With conference attendees, we will explore strategies for developing teacher trainings that successfully balance theoretical and pedagogical foundations with practical application and implementation in the pursuit of an enhanced information literacy and writing curriculum.

Short Description

We will detail our process for establishing a professional development strategy that introduces local writing faculty to a new first-year writing curriculum designed to transform the conventional “academic research paper” and to infuse information literacy into writing classes in innovative ways throughout the semester.

Keywords

Collaboration, Rhetoric and composition, Pedagogy, Curriculum, Frameworks, Threshold concepts, Professional development, Information literacy, Digital literacy

Publication Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

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Sep 30th, 1:15 PM Sep 30th, 2:30 PM

Sharing an Information Literacy Curriculum: Strategies for Professional Development for Writing Faculty

Room 1005

At the University of Colorado-Boulder, a librarian and a composition and rhetoric instructor have been creating a first-year writing curriculum designed to transform the conventional “academic research paper” and to infuse information literacy (IL) into the writing class throughout the semester. The overarching goal of the curriculum is to offer learning experiences in which students cultivate practices of self-directed exploration and critical reflection as they explore information landscapes, pose research questions, navigate conversations, formulate arguments, and compose and circulate their own texts for a variety of audiences and purposes through various media.

In this presentation, we will detail our process for establishing a professional development strategy that introduces local writing faculty to the new curriculum. Our strategy emerges from professional frameworks and recent scholarship that offer threshold concepts and habits of mind as guiding principles for teaching writing and information literacy. We plan to introduce new assignments and lessons while also inviting further creative thinking about learning design based upon current theoretical foundations. We will reach these goals through a variety of delivery mechanisms, including a half-day workshop, a monthly series of drop-in trainings, and online learning content. Additionally, through targeted interest groups, we will gather faculty feedback to shape our curriculum in ways that acknowledge the unique identity and values of our local program.

With conference attendees, we will explore strategies for developing teacher trainings that successfully balance theoretical and pedagogical foundations with practical application and implementation in the pursuit of an enhanced information literacy and writing curriculum.