Type of Presentation
Panel (1 hour and 15 minutes presentation total for two or more presenters)
Target Audience
Higher Education
Location
ELAB 38
Abstract
With just two teaching librarians at our small liberal arts college on the Gulf Coast, we needed to create a coherent, reproducible, adaptable, and student-centered information literacy curriculum that would best serve the freshman English courses we work with most closely. Over the course of the last four years, we have blended the long experience and deep institutional knowledge of one of our librarians with the fresh-from-the-trenches (that is, high school librarianship and experience as an adjunct English instructor) perspective of the other to create the program of a Spirit of Inquiry, which we describe this way:
Active curiosity, diligent pursuit of knowledge, and meticulous use of information are all part of a Spirit of Inquiry.
Inquiry is larger than information literacy, although good information literacy skills serve inquiry well. And inquiry goes beyond research methods, although conscientious habits of research help to extend both the process and eventual products of inquiry.
A person with a Spirit of Inquiry will delight in learning over the course of a lifetime, and can be expected to contribute meaningfully to the world.
Attendees will take away the six-lesson Spirit of Inquiry curriculum outline, ideas for classroom instruction and activities, and examples of assignments, to include the Inquiry Guide, Inquiry-Based Essay, and Inquiry Infographic, among others.
Presentation Description
This presentation will outline the essential elements of our program of information literacy, which we call the “Spirit of Inquiry” and which can also be used as an online or hybrid program, and provide examples of assignments that give students the opportunity and the incentive to develop a Spirit of Inquiry in their academic work and in their lives outside the classroom. We will also share all the things that went both wrong and right on the way to our current program!
Keywords
Information literacy, inquiry, research, first-year writing, online learning, curriculum design, assignment design, collaboration.
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Mandyck, Maura, "From Information Literacy to a Spirit of Inquiry: A Tale of Two Librarians" (2020). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 74.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2020/2020/74
From Information Literacy to a Spirit of Inquiry: A Tale of Two Librarians
ELAB 38
With just two teaching librarians at our small liberal arts college on the Gulf Coast, we needed to create a coherent, reproducible, adaptable, and student-centered information literacy curriculum that would best serve the freshman English courses we work with most closely. Over the course of the last four years, we have blended the long experience and deep institutional knowledge of one of our librarians with the fresh-from-the-trenches (that is, high school librarianship and experience as an adjunct English instructor) perspective of the other to create the program of a Spirit of Inquiry, which we describe this way:
Active curiosity, diligent pursuit of knowledge, and meticulous use of information are all part of a Spirit of Inquiry.
Inquiry is larger than information literacy, although good information literacy skills serve inquiry well. And inquiry goes beyond research methods, although conscientious habits of research help to extend both the process and eventual products of inquiry.
A person with a Spirit of Inquiry will delight in learning over the course of a lifetime, and can be expected to contribute meaningfully to the world.
Attendees will take away the six-lesson Spirit of Inquiry curriculum outline, ideas for classroom instruction and activities, and examples of assignments, to include the Inquiry Guide, Inquiry-Based Essay, and Inquiry Infographic, among others.
