OR ... what 41 years of experience has taught one librarian:
- Planning: Meeting with faculty member either via phone or face-to-face several weeks prior to the class to learn about the class and its requirements and what is most important for the students to learn about info flu. Obtain a syllabus and copy of the assignment.
- Faculty/Librarian Collaboration:
- Matching of student learning objectives with information literacy frame(s): Careful matching of info fluency objectives with objectives of class and department.
- Co-Creating a course LibGuide WITH the faculty member(!) to which students can refer after the instruction session is over. Faculty often embed these in the relevant Learning Management System (Canvas) courses. Librarian may be listed as “co-instructor.”
- During the session itself! (see #4 below).
- Point-of-need delivery: Delivering the instruction as close to point-of-need as possible.
- Faculty presence at and participation in sessions: Students know when they are being babysat … and so do the librarians. Faculty participation is a reflection of how important the faculty member thinks the session is.
- Relevance of instruction to specifics of assignment: If you request that certain specific information be presented, please, find a meaningful way to incorporate the significance of that information into the assignment. Students need to understand WHY they are being asked to do something other than Google for info/
- Active learning: students need to have time to apply what they have learned before the session has ended. When you ask questions, give students sufficient time to respond and/or reframe the question if necessary.
- Ya gotta have a carrot ... demonstrate impact of utilizing info lit/flu skills learned on overall learning experience (i.e., how does this impact the grade?). It's important to provide motivation for using and demonstrating use of library resources. There have to be consequences for not applying what they learn in an info lit session. Rubrics for papers are recommended.
