On the Road to Information Literacy Success: Putting Students in the 'Drivers' Seat

An ACRL e-Learning Online Course
October 7-25, 2013

Description: Along the road to learning information literacy competencies, students often get lost, run into road blocks, and must take detours; but in the end are able to reach their destination successfully if they are put in the driver's seat and required to take an active role in their learning experience.  This course will demonstrate how to use ACRL IL Standards, learning outcomes, assessment strategies, and different teaching styles to support students in defining their own journey to success.  This course is relevant to instruction librarians because it presents a variety of engaging and interactive activities as well as opportunities to experience and create active learning strategies for IL teaching.  The weekly modules will present activities that produce tangible student artifacts which can be used for assessment of student learning, teaching skills, and an IL program.  This course will cover concrete examples of successes, challenges and cautionary tales of how active learning can be implemented into Information Literacy instruction sessions.  During the course learners will get simulated experiences of how some of these successful engaging activities work.  As Information Literacy becomes more integrated into the general college curriculum this strategy has proven to be a successful means of formative assessment.  It has allowed us to reduce instances of over repetition of a particular skill and can be adapted to other institutions.

Learning Outcomes:

  • After participating in this course the learner will be able to create and use engaging activities that are related to ACRL IL Standards.
  • After participating in this course the learner will be able to use results of assessment strategies to influence change and therefore improve on student’s retention of information literacy skills.
  • After participating in this course the learner will be able to implement teaching techniques that support different learning styles.

Presenter: Amanda Piekart, Reference Instruction Librarian, Berkeley College

Target Audience: Instruction librarians

Type of Audience:

  • People brand new to the topic.
  • People with some experience in the topic, but looking to grow.

Course Requirements: Your participation will require approximately three to five hours per week of primarily asynchronous activities to:

  • Read the online seminar material
  • Post to online discussion boards
  • Complete online exercises
  • Complete a seminar evaluation form

Registration fees:

ACRL member: $135
ALA member: $175
Nonmember: $195
Student: $60

How to register: Registration materials will be available summer 2013.

Questions should be directed to Margot Conahan at mconahan@ala.org.