Sessions

#TechTools: ReEnergizing Formative Assessment for Enhanced Learning Using ACRL Framework Threshold Concepts
Lori Mardis (Information & Instructional Design Librarian) and Frank Baudino (Head Librarian for Information Services) @ Northwest Missouri State University
- Slides and handout (link)

There are multiple technology tools that track student performance and demonstrate learning, in turn providing real-time results with immediate feedback. These tools can also serve as ice-breakers to start conversations and be used to gauge students’ prior knowledge (pre-assess). Unlike summative evaluation products, these tools do not require a large investment in resources of time and/or money.

The presenters will increase the attendees’ awareness of formative assessment tools to reinvigorate teaching which can be used by instruction librarians like Kahoot!, Plickers, FlipQuiz, Socrative, Poll Everywhere, Blubbr, Zaption, Padlet, Google Forms/Docs/Sheets, TodaysMeet, Chatzy, Classroom Presenter, etc. The majority of these tools can remove the awkwardness of public hand raising and provide the instructor with feedback that can influence how s/he is teaching at that moment. The anonymity of these tools increases the motivation of students to participate and actively engage in class.

Participants will be placed in workgroups and provided with a suggested topic. The groups will create a learning outcome, develop questions for a formative assessment to test the effectiveness of the desired student learning outcome that has been aligned with the ACRL Framework threshold concepts, and select from an annotated listing which technology tool would be effective for the assessment. Group facilitators will share results. By attending this workshop, session participants will see formative assessment technology tools in action, be given resources and practice how to design their own assessments, and explore methods for redesigning information sessions that can engage students in both online and face-to-face learning environments.

Participants will:

• be able to create a learning objective that incorporates formative assessment
• be able to evaluate and apply effective technology tools for formative assessment purposes

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

As Seen on TV: Reimagining Monroe’s Motivated Sequence for Library Instruction
Candice Benjes-Small (Head of Information Literacy & Outreach) @ Radford University

Are you stressed about your research paper? The Library Database (TM pending) is for you! It searches! It finds articles! It gets the full text! And if you go to the library website right now, it’s yours for FREE! This may sound like a cheesy infomercial, but infomercials are very effective. The secret lies in their use of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence, a persuasive structure that delivers information in the most psychologically compelling manner. In this workshop, we will deconstruct this effective method and then discuss ways we could appropriate it- in non-cheesy ways- for successful library instruction sessions.

Participants will:

• be able to name the steps to Monroe's Motivated Sequence
• be able to identify the use of the sequence in short persuasive pieces
• be able to adapt the sequence to information literacy workshops

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Concept Inventories: Teaching Information Literacy like a Physicist
Greg Szczyrbak (Learning Technologies Librarian) @ Millersville University

Concept inventories are a powerful educational idea increasingly employed by science and technology educators to diagnose misconceptions held by learners. These measures use problem solving, and multiple-choice questions to probe novice learners’ beliefs about basic concepts in a discipline. Threshold concepts, a term familiar to librarians, are described by Meyer and Land as “…opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking…”. The similarities between concept inventories and threshold concept theory are numerous. Fundamentally, both deal with the issue of transforming the learner by confronting conceptually difficult knowledge within a discipline.

In this workshop, participants will consider the elements that contribute to a successful concept inventory. Participants will write concept inventory questions based on the threshold concepts from the 2015 ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

Participants will:

• investigate elements of a successful concept inventory
• create concept inventory questions based on threshold concepts in the ACRL Framework
• evaluate the feasibility of creating an information literacy themed concept inventory

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Engaging Students Through Information Literacy Based Service Learning Assignments for Community Benefit and Academic Success
Leah Galka (Academic Outreach & Engagement Librarian) @ SUNY Buffalo State and Theresa McDevitt (Government Publications & Outreach Librarian) @ Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Presentation (.pdf)
- Activity Handout (.pdf)
- Activity Instructions (.pdf)

Student success, academic engagement, community development, and deep student learning outcomes are all priorities in modern higher education. Service learning-based instruction supports all of these as it benefits students, faculty, universities and those in need by increasing understanding, sharing skills, and allowing for practical application of theoretical content. In this interactive session, academic librarians from different universities will provide an overview of the benefits of service learning and how they have used it to energize and engage students. Participants will then be given the opportunity to develop service learning assignments and outcomes for a variety of community partners.

Participants will:

• consider the definition of service learning and the potential of information literacy based service learning assignments to boost student learning and engagement, improve university/community relations, help those in need, and help students improve their resumes and job prospects
• explore how IL service learning assignments have been successfully used at a variety of universities
• develop unique IL service learning assignments for a variety of disciplines and community partners

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Everything in Its Right Place: Effective, Strategic, and Differentiated Outreach
Meggan Press (Teaching & Learning Librarian) and Amy Pajewski (Student Outreach Librarian) @ Paul Smith's College

Effective outreach is built on the principle that not everyone cares about everything. When libraries fail to create an identifiable distinction in services on varying platforms, the audience stop listening. Distributing posters or blasting social media ignores one of the central tenet of marketing: Differentiation.

This workshop begins by introducing participants to the use of personas in the initial outreach process to help identify target markets. Beginning with personas helps guide outreach and marketing so librarians can provide targeted marketing and concrete solutions for users’ needs and wants based on demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and product-related segmentation. The presenters will encourage going beyond broad distinctions of “faculty” or “student” and instead guide participants into diving deep into the mind and body of, say, a first year biology major to explore pain points, conversations, and needs. Groups of participants will use guided inquiry to define real-world struggles of their target audience and come up with concrete solutions that can be adapted for any institution.

Participants will then discover how their persona operates, how that persona learns about things happening on campus, and which social media platforms they use and how often they use them. Knowing this will enable participants to identify a structure for communicating with a specific audience and for identifying strategic partnerships in order to further outreach goals while shifting from marketing everywhere all at once, to just focusing on a specific user group. Finally, speakers will help groups create a framework for developing outreach initiatives and growing partnerships that can be taken back to their institution and enacted immediately.

Participants will:

• learn how to develop and identify with personas in order to differentiate outreach efforts
• be able to identify strategic partnerships with key areas of the campus community
• develop an actionable outreach plan in order to target an event or service to a particular audience

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

From Wikipedia to Academia: A Transliteracy Approach to Undergraduate Instruction
Katherine Ahnberg (Academic Services Librarian) @ University of South Florida

This breakout session offers tools for developing student-centered, effectively scaffolded instruction that empowers undergraduates in transition between popular websites and library databases. Drawing from recent studies on millennial searching behavior, digital literacy, and the ACRL Threshold concepts, join in on a discussion of approaching the challenges of scholarly language, locating relevant resources, and student perception of proprietary databases. Engaging in an interactive component, attendees will take away techniques for grounding one-shot instruction in a contextual framework that will excite as much as challenge new library users.

Participants will:

• define the term “transliteracy,” and relate its relevance to metaliteracy within the ACRL Framework
• articulate the challenges and benefits of transitioning to library resources for first time users
• develop three strategies for incorporating popular online environments into one-shot instruction to strengthen student information seeking and the retention of basic research concepts

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

On the Rhode to Success: DIY Designing a College Research Experience for High School Students
Jennifer Thomas (Librarian & Digital Learning Specialist) @ Paul Cuffee Charter School and Mary MacDonald (Professor & Head of Instructional Services) @ University of Rhode Island
- Slides and resources (link)

Outreach to high school students is seen as a valuable and rewarding experience for all involved, but the logistics and implementation can present multiple challenges. In this workshop we will share how a high school librarian, teachers, and academic librarians collaborated to plan, implement, assess, and refine an effective research experience. Our model will showcase one such experience designed and implemented for a community of diverse high school students exploring their junior year capstone projects in an academic library setting. Learn how to plan your own research day for high school students that will energize everyone involved and engage and encourage students to do their best work. Attendees will have the opportunity to review several logistical models that support effective content delivery.

Participants will:

• identify steps to develop strategic, meaningful pre-activities for high school students preparing to experience college-level research
• consider how to adapt and modify their programmatic first year student information literacy instruction in order to support a one-day program for high school students
• evaluate what high school students learned at each visit to the university, and how the research day was modified according to students' self-assessment of their learning

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Reaching Over the Fence: Building Partnerships with New Teaching Neighbors
Julia Feerrar (Learning Services Librarian) @ Virginia Tech and Rebecca K. Miller (Head of Library Learning Services) @ Pennsylvania State University
- Presentation (.pdf)
- Scenario Handout (.docx)
- Worksheet Handout (.docx)

As more contingent faculty, graduate teaching assistants, and other new instructors move into the instructional neighborhood, librarians face a familiar challenge: collaborating with teaching and learning partners who may be unfamiliar with information literacy and librarians’ roles. This interactive workshop will empower participants to move beyond these potential barriers and reach over the fence in order to support our neighbors. Presenters will share an overview of the research conducted and approaches undertaken at their university to support and more effectively collaborate with teaching assistants and other contingent faculty members. Participants will work collaboratively to discuss the unique needs of contingent faculty, develop strategies for building productive partnerships, and analyze a sample scenario in order to reflect on application of these ideas to their own instruction programs.

Participants will:

• identify common characteristics and needs of contingent faculty involved in the learning enterprise in order to support these faculty members in their professional roles as educators and collaborators
• develop effective strategies for collaborating with contingent faculty in order to create meaningful learning experiences for the learners in the courses taught by contingent faculty
• reflect on the landscape of new instructional partners at their home institutions in order to apply strategies to their own unique context

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

ReMix: Combining Motivational Design with Problem-Based Learning to Build Real World Information Competencies
Lindsay Roberts (Education Librarian) @ University of Colorado at Boulder
- Slides, handout and additional info (link)

Emphasizing transferable skills can be a challenge when many of our interactions with students are via one shots for specific courses or assignments. The Framework for Information Literacy shifts us away from straightforward skill-based instruction and towards fluid threshold concepts, allowing librarians to reconsider how academic research skills are transferred to students’ chosen fields. Discover the results of an empirical study that used problem-based learning scenarios and motivational design to increase students’ transferable information literacy skills. This hands-on, interactive session will help you adapt problem-based learning and motivational design principles to the Framework’s threshold concepts to increase student engagement and “real world” information literacy skills. In groups or individually, participants will practice identifying the appropriate threshold concepts to form learning objectives, map concepts to sample problem-based learning scenarios, and identify when and where to embed problem-based learning and motivational design into a lesson or overall curriculum.

Participants will:

• analyze which Framework themes are best suited to motivational design and problem-based learning
• evaluate the appropriateness of sample problem-based scenarios for your learning outcomes
• assess strategies for implementing problem-based learning into a one-shot or larger information literacy program

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Rework, Reuse, Reflect on Your Research: Writing Center and Library Collaborations
Holly Jackson (Humanities Librarian) and Jill Tussing (Writing Center Graduate Assistant) @ Wright State University
- Presentation (.pdf)
- Handout 1 (.docx)
- Handout 2 (.docx)
- Handout 3 (.pdf)
- Handout 4 (.pdf)

This year, Wright State University Libraries and the University Writing Center have expanded on their collaboration. From co-taught workshops to having a librarian-on-duty four days a week, they have revitalized their relationship. This interactive workshop will involve brainstorming collaborative endeavors with Writing Center staff, examining and assessing research scenarios, and designing an activity to take back to your own institution. This session is meant for instruction librarians who are interested in collaborating with Writing Centers or academic success centers, but may not necessarily have an established relationship.

Participants will:

• identify various ways to collaborate with a Writing Center in order to best serve the research needs of students
• assess sample scenarios in order to determine best practices for collaboration with tutors
• design an activity to take back to their Library in order for students to be able to utilize available Library and Writing Center resources

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

A Sample Is a Tactic: Hip Hop Pedagogy in the Library Classroom
Craig Arthur (Instruction Librarian) and Alyssa Archer (Instruction Librarian) @ Radford University

Hip hop is a powerful teaching tool for increasing student engagement with information literacy concepts. With a knowledge base acquired over two decades of DJing, the “nicest librarian on two turntables” has helped our team of librarians incorporate hip hop pedagogy into our instruction. This presentation features two turntables, a mixer, and interactive lesson examples. Participants will learn how creating a hip hop song can mirror the academic research process and add richness to teaching the Framework for Information Literacy. The presenters will discuss ways to foster buy-in at your institution and create student outcomes that are inspiring and revelatory.

Participants will:

• be able to articulate the similarities and differences between the creative process inherent to hip hop music production and the academic research process in order to better explain the importance of recognized conventions
• be able to frame a discussion of academic integrity geared towards undergraduate students using music sampling as a reference point in order to make information literacy concepts more palpable
• be able to infuse hip hop pedagogy into their library instruction sessions via suggested active learning activities in order to increase student engagement as well as understanding

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Starting with “Yes, And...”: Collaborative Instructional Design in Digital Scholarship
Erin Pappas (Librarian for European Languages and Social Sciences) @ Georgetown University and Kate Dohe (Manager, Digital Programs & Initiatives) @ University of Maryland

Improv principles and techniques are applicable in any instance of teaching: respect your partner, know your audience, work the room, jump in with both feet, agree agree agree. These techniques take for granted that this form of instruction and collaboration is new for both partners, that neither person is the expert, and that the content and situations will have to be recreated anew in every classroom and workshop.

In this workshop, two librarians and former improv and theater instructors will lead workshop attendees through some of the fundamentals of improv, and reflect upon how these same activities and principles help create an environment of collaboration and openness necessary to support the diverse goals of digital scholarship. Session attendees will leave with creative ideas for digital scholarship instruction and collaboration, and new techniques for working with the many partners involved in advancing digital scholarship.

Please note that this will be an active workshop requiring total participation. No technology will be allowed during the session.

Participants will:

• collaborate and create with one another with zero preparation
• reflect on ways they can incorporate the tenets of improv into teaching and collaboration

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Steal This Idea! Getting from Awesome to Action
Karla Fribley (Instruction Coordinator) @ Emerson College and Erica Schattle (Outreach & Assessment Librarian) @ Tufts University
- Presentation (Google Slides)
- Handouts (Link)

How do you move from “Hey, that’s an awesome idea,” to “Here’s how I will implement this at my institution?" Whether you’re bursting with ideas or not sure how to get them, there are concrete ways to move forward. Having a good idea is only one part of the process. Specific leadership skills and practices can help you prioritize and enact your ideas. Presenters will share strategies for finding that next awesome idea and lead participants in exercises to adapt and implement projects at their institutions.

Participants will:

• identify strategies for getting inspiration in order to generate new ideas
• explore reflection methods in order to capture and share good ideas
• start developing an action plan in order to prioritize and execute new projects

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Stick it to the Wall: ACRL Framework Poster Collaboration
Nancy Frazier (Instructional Services Librarian), Jill Hallam-Miller (Blended Learning Librarian) and Ben Hoover (Evening Library Services Specialist) @ Bucknell University

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education has prompted academic librarians to consider information literacy in groundbreaking ways since its release in 2015. At Bucknell University, we made Framework concepts accessible to our students by creating a series of posters for display in our library instruction lab, where students are likely to see and interact with them. Sharing the posters with our colleagues at other institutions, and licensing them for reuse and remixing was a top priority for this project. Each of the six posters represents a “frame” (e.g. Research as Inquiry), and contains questions designed to introduce students to Framework concepts. We want students to reflect on the poster questions as they engage in the research process, either as part of an information literacy session with a librarian, or independently when they use the library lab.

In this interactive workshop, we will provide a very brief overview of our creative design process and show examples of how we’re using the poster concepts. Participants will work in small groups to view the posters, and brainstorm and share ideas for reusing, remixing, and re-conceptualizing them for their own information literacy and library instruction. Each small group will share with the larger group ideas generated through discussion and brainstorming. Participant input will be captured and shared as an addendum to our poster LibGuide, where everyone can access and continue to build upon this evolving repository.

Link to posters here.

Participants will:

• learn how the posters were created, shared, and licensed for reuse and remixing
• brainstorm possibilities for adapting the posters or the poster concepts for use in your own institution and instruction
• contribute ideas and suggestions for reusing or remixing the posters, which will be compiled in a shared repository

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

A Surrealist Reframing of the Research Pyramid
Mary Fairbairn (Outreach Librarian) @ Furman University

The research pyramid has been a standard metaphor for the library research process for decades, but why are we using a burial metaphor to describe a process we’re trying to bring to life for our students? Using surrealist games to liberate the mind from traditional ways of thinking and to stimulate creativity, this workshop will guide participants through a deconstruction (or detonation) of the stale pyramid analogy and construction of new metaphorical structures to employ in their instruction sessions and tutorials, more relevant to the particular discipline/content of courses.

Participants will:

• come away with at least one new pedagogical tool for teaching the research process
• experience the benefits of surrealist games for stimulating creativity and escaping traditional ways of thinking

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Weaving Librarian Expertise into the Work of a Faculty Development Center to Enhance Teaching and Improve Student Learning Outcomes
Theresa McDevitt (Government Publications & Outreach Services Librarian) and Stephanie Taylor-Davis (Professor & Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence) @ Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Presentation (.pdf)

Cross-disciplinary teams have been widely used to bring together people with unique skills and create opportunities for increased productivity, creativity, and innovation. Are you interested in working with your campus’ centers for faculty teaching excellence and/or scholarship to achieve common goals relating to pedagogy, research and publications and not sure how to get started? Have you worked successfully with such faculty development centers and would like to hear how such collaborations have worked at other institutions? Would you like to share your positive experiences with others and work in small groups to develop ideas for further collaborations? If so, this interactive session is for you!

The session will open with a group ice-breaker and overview of the findings of studies of the benefits of cross-disciplinary groups to boost creativity and productivity. Then a case study of the successful results of an academic library/Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) collaboration at a mid-sized public university will demonstrate ways that librarian leadership, library spaces, equipment, resources and services facilitated the work of the CTE, and how participation by librarians in the CTE group(s) furthered the mission of the library. Then the potential of such partnerships will be explored through small group work using real-life scenarios to identify how libraries can help solve the challenges facing faculty development centers or how the personnel of faculty development centers can assist in addressing library challenges. The session will culminate with large group sharing of the results of the small group discussions.

Participants will:

• compare and contrast the historical and emerging roles, responsibilities, and expectations of libraries and faculty development centers in higher education to discover overlap in missions, values, and goals
• identify the unique and complementary knowledge and skills that librarians and faculty bring to the development, implementation, and evaluation of programming to enhance and diversify teaching approaches and learning outcomes
• apply problem-solving skills in collaborative groups to explore the value and contribution that academic librarians can make in partnership with faculty development center staff, to lead and empower faculty to employ new teaching models and methods, incorporate information literacy standards in course and assignment design, and engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning and how this might be effectively communicated

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Are you HIP?: Building the Value of Libraries and Library Instruction with High-Impact Practices
Ngoc-Yen Tran (Undergraduate Instruction Coordinator) @ University of Oregon
- Presentation (.pdf)

There is growing evidence that, when done well, High-Impact Educational Practices (HIPs) programs and activities have been shown to be beneficial in increasing rates of retention and engagement amongst students from many backgrounds. Therefore, it is no surprise that higher education institutions are developing activities firmly rooted in the philosophies of the HIPs. Examples of HIPs include common intellectual experiences, learning communities, and service learning. These practices are broad and depending on the institution, they can take on many different forms or activities. In order to encourage participation, these activities are often combined with one another and offered in a number of iterations across the student curricular and co-curricular experiences. Examples of HIP activities include the development of living-learning or academic residential communities in the residence halls, a common reading program requirement for all first-year students, week-long spring break service projects, and requiring seniors to write a thesis or develop a capstone project as a culminating experience.

As campuses engage with these practices and develop these programs, how can libraries and librarians contribute to these campus initiatives, especially as it relates to awareness of library resources and services and/or information literacy? In this session, participants will learn about HIPs (what they are and how campuses are developing activities), see and contribute to examples of how libraries are currently participating in HIP activities, and collaboratively develop ideas for how they can employ HIPs into their libraries and their work as teacher-librarians.

Participants will:

• know about High-Impact Educational Practices
• identify HIP initiatives related to information literacy topics on their campus
• devise ideas for how they can employ HIPs into their own work as teacher-librarians

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Assessment Remix: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Assessing Instruction
Candice Benjes-Small (Head of Information Literacy & Outreach) @ Radford University

You know what you’re teaching, but are you having any effect? In this session, you will learn about the observational assessment technique, which brings together qualitative and quantitative data as well as self-reflection to help you determine whether your one-shot sessions are successful. Observational assessment can be used for formative (how am I doing) as well as summative (how did I do) purposes, and can be employed by a solo librarian looking to evaluate her teaching as well as by larger groups of librarians evaluating a wider information literacy effort. It’s flexible, cheap, and actionable--what’s not to love?

Participants will:

• be able to discuss environmental factors that may affect instruction
• be able to distinguish observational assessment from other types of assessment
• be able to identify the benefits of observational assessment

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Becoming Legit: Reimagining Instructor Support through Communities of Practice
Jonathan McMichael (Undergraduate Experience Librarian) and Laura Dimmit (Research and Design Services Assistant) @ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

We all hope to grow our instructional programs, and celebrate when we reach more departments, more classrooms, more students. But with growth comes a set of new challenges, and an opportunity to reimagine how we support our own development as educators.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Undergraduate Library, we provide comprehensive instruction for the first-year writing program, where we create customized lesson plans for each of the over 160 sessions we teach each semester. This requires high-level pedagogical understanding that can be challenging to the novice instructors that make up a majority of our teaching team. In order for our team to meet these instructional demands, we needed to push beyond the stages that would normally halt instructor development. Utilizing Lave and Wenger's model of communities of practice, we developed a roadmap for enable “legitimate” educators in a more reliable and consistent way. Communities of practice, which are informed by theories of social learning, provided explanations for many of the challenges we encounter in training and supporting new instructors.

In this session, we will describe how each stage in our training program supports instructor growth by moving them closer to full participation in the authentic work of teaching. Lave and Wenger describe this as “legitimate peripheral participation”, and it allows new instructors to feel ownership of the teaching process. Through these observations, participants will understand how communities of practice can help instructors at all levels improve pedagogical practices in their institutions.

Participants will:

• become familiar with the community of practice model, and how it influence instructor development
• develop a plan for establishing or enhancing communities of practice at your institution
• observe how a community of practice has shaped instructional development at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Undergraduate Library

Intended audience: some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic

"Breaking" Good: Becoming Integrated into Student Learning Communities
Michele Santamaria (Learning Design Librarian) and Tatiana Pashkova-Balkenhol (Undergraduate Research & Instruction Librarian) @ Millersville University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Wishing that you didn’t have to primarily rely on instructors booking sessions to connect with students? Wishing that you weren’t teaching students the same thing one-on-one, again and again, because the session was not booked? Maybe there are ways of reconnecting with students and other campus stakeholders to make everyone’s information literacy wishes come true. Join us for an interactive discussion about how to reach underserved and diverse student populations beyond the library instruction classroom. We are not saying it is easy, but we are saying it is worth it; learn from our experiences and do it better.

Participants will:

• be able to identify stakeholders who work with under-served and diverse student populations in order to establish successful partnerships
• be able to take away strategies and techniques to assess immediate needs of under-served and diverse student populations
• be equipped with a toolkit to create deeper connections with under-served and diverse student populations at their own institutions

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Built to Trash, Built to Last: Creating High-Impact Screencasts When Time Is Scarce and Change Is Constant
John T. Oliver (Information Literacy Librarian) @ The College of New Jersey

With any technology it's easy to get swept up in the bells and whistles. But what about the actual signal? We care most about student learning, right? Although it might be satisfying to make big-budget screencasts that sparkle and shine, what happens when they become outdated? "High-quality" and "disposable" are not mutually exclusive design features. Applying current best practices and evidence from the learning sciences, this presentation would explore ways to plan and produce more effective digital learning objects while spending as little time and money as possible.

Participants will:

• identify high-yield instructional-design techniques that improve online-learning outcomes with minimal investment in resources
• explore assessment methods to inform continual refinement of online instruction

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Code for Change! Practical Techniques for Making Your Assessment Data Actionable
Annie Armstrong (Reference & Liaison Librarian and Coordinator of Teaching & Learning Services), Catherine Lantz (Reference & Liaison Librarian Information Literacy Librarian), Annie Pho (Undergraduate Experience Librarian) and Glenda Insua (Reference & Liaison Librarian) @ University of Illinois at Chicago
- Presentation (Prezi)

While assessment data can lead to valuable insights, improving instructional pedagogies and programs based on findings can be difficult without a follow-up strategy. Our four-librarian research team collected a wealth of data through a multi-pronged assessment project to study the behaviors of first-year students completing an in-depth research paper for an English composition course. By collecting student bibliography assignments at multiple stages of the course, assigning online research journals at four strategic points, and conducting open-ended interviews at the end of the semester, we sought to gain a holistic and detailed understanding of how students pursue the research process. With so much data collected, we determined that viewing it through the lens of action research would allow us to identify and prioritize modifications to our instruction program. In this session, we will explore the benefits of action research to library instruction, describe our action-oriented data analysis process, and involve participants in a qualitative data coding exercise to model the process of making assessment data actionable.

Participants will:

• explore the potential of action research to enhance the impact of assessment projects on libraries and campus learning communities
• analyze a qualitative data sample using a coding scheme guided by action research tenets in order to discover how data analysis can influence pedagogical and programmatic improvements

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Connecting through Cultural Diversity: Leveraging Campus Initiatives in the Creation of Library Embedded Curriculum
Emily Crist (Library Assistant Professor) and Megan Allison (Library Support Senior) @ University of Vermont
- Presentation (.pdf)

This session will present a case study from the University of Vermont on a multimodal library exhibit inspired by the university’s first-year common read, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. The presenters will discuss how the library engaged with the larger university initiative, connected with faculty across a variety of disciplines about their work and research surrounding resettled New American refugees and immigrant communities, and created embedded curricular tie-ins addressing information literacy goals and encouraging students to consider themes of diversity and cultural competency in the broader context of their future professions, their community, and current events.

Participants will:

• recognize how library-embedded curriculum can connect faculty and students to the library
• identify opportunities to connect the library to broader campus initiatives and faculty research
• learn how concepts from the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education can be integrated into exhibit space and related course materials

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Crafting the Question: Get the Most Out of Your Student Response System
Ann Agee (Academic Liaison Librarian) @ San Jose State University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Socrative, Poll Everywhere, clicker -- no matter which student response system you use, the key to its effectiveness is in the questions you create. This presentation explores how to craft questions that engage students and help assess their understanding. Participants will be introduced to the anatomy of a multiple-choice question and learn to differentiate between effective and ineffective questions. Illustrations will focus on topics covered in a standard information literacy session, and participants will learn how to incorporate student response systems into lesson plans to better achieve student learning objectives.

Participants will:

• be able to create effective multiple-choice questions for use with a student response system within an information literacy class session
• be able to identify the different types of questions that can be used to assess and engage students
• be able to create a lesson plan that includes student response systems in a meaningful way

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Creating a Framework Tutorial: A Transformative Process
Allison Hosier (Information Literacy Librarian) @ University at Albany, SUNY
- Presentation (.pptx)
- Handout (.pdf)

Since the introduction of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, there has been much discussion as to how to apply the frames at the core of this document to the variety of instructional situations in which librarians might find themselves. Questions about the flexibility of the frames are especially important to librarians who use online learning objects, such as tutorials, as a means through which to reach students. What role do such online learning objects play in helping students learn these core concepts? Learn how the presenter grappled with these issues and experienced her own fundamental shift in understanding about threshold concepts as part of a project to integrate ideas from the Framework into an online tutorial.

Participants will:

• be able to apply ideas from the Framework to online learning objects they create as part of their own instruction
• be able to articulate the value of online learning objects as part of teaching the Framework’s core concepts

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

The Credible Hulk: Smashing Student Expectations through Instructor Credibility
James Gilbreath (Assistant Professor & Research and Instructional Services Librarian) @ University of Alabama and Katherine Eastman (Library Director) @ Brown Mackie College

Establishing credibility with students continues to be difficult for academic public services librarians given that librarians are rarely the instructor of record and have little leverage to command student investment in library instruction. Some successful strategies to encourage student confidence are embedded librarianship, anticipatory sets, and informed learning. The theory of threshold concepts was developed by academics researching in the field of undergraduate economics instruction. Thus, what methods do other disciplines use to increase student perception of instructor credibility? This session will examine techniques used in a variety of disciplines to open a discussion of useful tactics for instruction librarians.

Participants will:

• develop a cursory understanding of the tactics, theories and rationales explored in the academic and quasi-experimental literature of several disciplines
• engage with other members of the audience through active learning exercises intended to demonstrate the efficacy and relative ease of implementing presented material
• weigh the benefits and costs of implementing these tactics, and consider how the presented frameworks could be applied at attendees' home institutions to improve student learning outcomes

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Dread Data No More: Crash Course in Data Visualization for Librarians
Liz Johns (Librarian for Education) @ Johns Hopkins University
- Presentation (Google Docs)

Dreading data? Presentations just not looking pretty? Get out of the data dumps in this data visualization crash course for librarians. Librarians are increasingly asked to use data to demonstrate their own efforts, progress and growth, and/or share information about student learning. Librarians need to be able to effectively present data to their communities, whether they are working with the new dean in the School of Arts, the science department with whom they have had a meaningful, long-term relationship, or the student government association who wants to know where their library fee is being spent. Outreach is already difficult enough, but through effective visualization techniques, messages can be more easily conveyed, grasped, and supported.

Consider this an information literacy session for you! The presentation will review data visualization basics - what it is, why to do it, and when to do it. Attendees will test their knowledge through a few scenarios in which they decide whether or not to visualize data. If you’re tired of watching your colleagues scroll through spreadsheets, get tips on how to help your colleagues create effective charts and graphs to get their point across. If you are one of those librarians showing an Excel document to your teaching faculty, come to get a refresher in basic charts and graphs, discover the best ways to use them, and learn how to convey meaning in a more effective way.

Participants will:

• determine when quantitative data should be visualized for easier viewing and understanding
• distinguish between strong and weak examples of data visualization
• develop a rubric for developing effective data visualizations for their own use

Intended audience: brand new to the topic.

Engaging Diverse Learners: Creating Accessible IL Instruction with Universal Design for Instruction
Emilie Vrbancic (Instruction Librarian) @ University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Instruction librarians often see a range of student learning abilities in the library classroom, however we rarely know about students’ learning diversity before delivering instruction. To discover how librarians could account for this lack of information and to build inclusive information literacy instruction, the presenter conducted a study where principles of Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) were applied to the design, content, and delivery of a series of information literacy sessions. The presentation will discuss the process of designing instruction centered on principles of UDI, share findings from student surveys, and outline future plans in utilizing UDI in information literacy instruction.

Participants will:

• gain insight into creating inclusive teaching environments in library instruction
• be able to identify how principles of Universal Design for Instruction can be used to create accessible information literacy instruction
• analyze if Universal Design for Instruction is a viable pedagogy for their instruction practice

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Everything We Do Is Pedagogy: Critical Pedagogy, the Framework and Library Practice
Jeremy McGinniss (Library Director) @ Summit University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Historically library education has been largely viewed as occurring in the classroom. Much of the discussion around the Framework’s use has been considered in terms of classroom integration. This presentation will discuss and demonstrate how engaging with critical pedagogical practices offers an opportunity to see everything the library does as pedagogy.

This presentation will connect the Framework with critical pedagogy, viewing current examples of academic libraries and personal experience through a critical pedagogical lens. Viewing each decision the library makes, from collection development to development of physical spaces to website design, as pedagogical opportunities radically changes one’s approach and view of library practice. This presentation seeks to serve as a point of praxis mapping ways that Framework concepts and critical pedagogical ideas can be located throughout library practice, not just in the classroom. To that end, this presentation will provide opportunity for participants, drawing from their own library practice and experience, to begin to map, connect and dialogue with pedagogy as library practice.

Participants will:

• begin to rethink and reframe the library’s role in institutional pedagogical approaches
• develop and connect pedagogical thinking with library initiatives

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

From Theory to Praxis: Reframing Adult Learning Theory through Professional Development
Melinda Malik (Head of Reference & Instructional Services) @ Saint Anselm College
- Presentation (.pptx)
- Handout 1 (.pdf)
- Handout 2 (.pdf)

Being aware of and understanding adult learning theories may better equip librarians to more effectively facilitate students’ development of information literacy skills and competencies. However, many librarians have no formal training in adult and/or other learning theories and models.

In the spring of 2015, a group of librarians participated in a professional development program to explore adult learning theories and examine how they incorporate them in their work with graduate students. The program consisted of providing readings, inviting reflection, and participating in two workshops to engage librarians with various adult learning theories. Through a qualitative analysis of reflective narratives, the researcher sought to better understand how librarians approach their work with adult learners, as well as provide them with an opportunity to learn how to incorporate adult learning theory into their interactions with graduate students to better support and facilitate student learning.

This presentation will include an overview of the adult learning theories used in the professional development program (andragogy, transformational, and narrative), a description of how adult learning theories were incorporated into the instructional design of the program itself, and a summary of the study’s findings. The researcher will also suggest implications in using adult learning theories to inform practice in information literacy reference and instructional settings and to engage with the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

Participants will:

• reflect on their personal learning experiences and identify ways in which adult learning theories connect with them in order to reframe their meaning
• recognize the value of professional development programs on adult learning theories in order to implement similar programming that will better equip librarians to incorporate learning theories in reference and instructional settings

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Future ReImagined: Shaping Teaching Through Design
Dominique Turnbow (Instructional Design Coordinator) and Amanda Roth (Instructional Technologies Librarian) @ UC San Diego
- Presentation (.pptx)

There’s a trend in academic libraries to enlist librarians with instructional design experience to assist with developing information literacy instruction. Many institutions look for someone who has the knowledge and skills to design, develop and deploy e-learning objects while also taking on more traditional public service responsibilities. Recognizing the varied expertise of instructional designers and the various skills associated with the development of e-learning objects such as sound instructional design practices, technology proficiency, creativity and graphic arts, our institution has sought to create a team of instructional design librarians. The result has been the ability to create innovative and effective in-person and online instruction across the organization. Attendees will learn how two instructional design librarians are able to systematically work together to address the instructional design needs of a large university library.

Participants will:

• gain an understanding of what constitutes instructional design and how the skill set of an instructional designer differs amongst individuals
• learn a systematic method for designing, developing, and deploying e-learning objects

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Gearing Up: Using Technology to Reinvigorate Instruction
Maggie Nunley (Teaching & Learning Librarian) and Paula Roy (Teaching & Learning Librarian) @ University of Virginia
- Presentation (Google Docs)

Meet three librarians who are not afraid to let technology disrupt a traditional approach to designing and delivering information literacy sessions. During this session, learn how embracing technology aligns with a constructivist approach to course redesign.

The Framework states, “students have a greater role and responsibility in creating new knowledge;” we’ve taken this to heart and found that technology helps to incorporate the Framework into our instruction. Attend this session to learn how four (free) web-based platforms, the Framework, and a constructivist approach to course design can provide a fresh approach to teaching; bring your device to join the fun!

Participants will:

• gain an awareness of 4 web-based tools that help deliver instruction in new ways
• apply constructivism to course redesign
• evaluate current practices to identify areas of improvement

Intended audience: some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Grappling with Information Issues: ReImagining the Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Course
Christy Stevens (Head of Reference & Instruction) @ Cal Poly Pomona

This presentation revisits Shapiro and Hughes’ foundational 1996 article, “Information Literacy as a Liberal Art,” which invites educators to broaden their conception of information literacy (IL) beyond a set of discrete skills that help people to be ""effective information consumers"" to include the ability to think critically about information, information technologies, and our information society. It then explores the extent to which this conception of IL instruction has informed practice in IL credit-bearing courses, a context that is arguably much better suited to thinking deeply and critically about information related issues than “one-shot” library instruction sessions. Evidence is discussed that suggests that all too often, credit-bearing IL courses focus primarily on what Shapiro and Hughes describe as “tool literacy”, “resource literacy,” and “research literacy” at the expense of “critical literacy.” The presentation ends with a practical focus of the development of Cal Poly Pomona’s credit bearing course, The Information Diet: Information Literacy Skills for Academic Success and Healthy Information Habits, exploring the ways that it enhances students’ research skills in and through the process of grappling with controversial information and technology questions that are immediately relevant to both their personal lives and their ability to function as “intelligent shapers of the information society rather than [as] its pawns” (Shapiro and Hughes).

Participants will:

• be able to articulate the benefits of librarians teaching credit-bearing information literacy courses that focus on information related issues in order to contribute to campus-wide efforts to develop what Shapiro and Hughes describe as “a multi-dimensional and thoughtful information literacy curriculum"
• be able to design or transform a credit-bearing information literacy course in order to enhance students’ abilities to critically analyze issues revolving around information, information technologies, and our information society

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Growing Your Instruction as the World Becomes Smaller: International Students and the Academic Library
Susan Avery (Instructional Services Librarian) and Kirsten Feist (Instructional Services Specialist) @ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Presentation (.pptx)

Is your instruction program ready for the changes coming your way? The 2015 Open Doors Report showed a 10 percent increase in international students in this country for the 2014-15 academic year. In the past ten year the number of international students attending a higher education institution in the United States has grown 73 percent. Libraries and instruction programs need to be prepared to address the changes in our student populations. As one of the top five destinations for international students, the University of Illinois has grappled with adapting its instruction program and learning objects for a number of years to meet the needs of a changing population. Come and learn some effective strategies for working within your library and institution as you welcome international students in your instruction classroom and beyond.

Participants will:

• learn strategies for adapting their existing instructional materials for international students
• be introduced to international student profiles in order to better understand and meet the needs of international students at their institutions

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Hashtag Outreach: Using Twitter as Subject Specialists to Integrate the Library in Classroom Discussions
Carolina Hernandez (Journalism & Communication Librarian) @ University of Oregon
- Presentation (.pdf)

Twitter and other social networks continue to be popular with students, to the point where professors in some disciplines have started to integrate the use of these networks into the coursework. In particular, Twitter has proved to be a popular way to expand on class discussions and keep the conversation going. This presentation will highlight several ways individual subject specialists or liaison librarians can use Twitter to connect to these conversations and promote subject-relevant resources to students and faculty.

Participants will:

• learn how to use course hashtags to follow classroom discussions
• be able to identify opportunities to share subject-relevant library resources
• connect with students and faculty in their subject area and learn more about their projects and research

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Helping Outliers Become College Ready: Using Technology to Cultivate Positive Relationships with Students Enrolled in Remedial Curriculum
Savannah Kelly (Research and Instruction Librarian) @ University of Mississippi
- Presentation (.pptx)

Many lower-division library instruction initiatives focus on first-year writing, but what about students who are less equipped and required to enroll in developmental (or remedial) coursework in writing, reading or math before proceeding through traditional first-year curriculum? What particular struggles do these students encounter, and how can librarians support students’ unique transition into higher education? This presentation will examine our instructional outreach to the Developmental Studies Department at a four-year university, characterize our students’ particular challenges, and describe a photo pilot project that helped our students explore the intersections of library space, studying skills, wayfinding techniques, and academic self-reflection.

Participants will:

• consider first-year students who may be outliers to the libraries’ traditional first-year instructional initiatives in order to consider ways to address those students’ needs
• consider ways to incorporate basic technologies (i.e., cell phones and an Elmo presenter) in their instruction sessions in order to increase active learning and encourage students’ physical exploration of the library

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

High Enough, but not Too Steep: Collaborating to Design Effective Bridges for Developing Information Literacy
Jennifer Jarson (Information Literacy and Assessment Librarian) and Lora Taub-Pervizpour (Professor of Media & Communication) @ Muhlenberg College
- Presentation (.pdf)

We will discuss how we approach digital pedagogy and use digital tools to foster students’ development as information literate researchers. As a media professor and an information literacy librarian, our disciplinary affiliations impact our perspectives on information literacy. We designed an internet censorship project for the course New Information Technologies which provided us an opportunity to connect and bridge our professional orientations to this topic in service of student learning. The assignment has also been a catalyst for collaboration, challenging us to rethink our practices and goals and chart new directions for digital pedagogy and scholarship.

We developed this project to help students advance their understanding of course-related content and develop habits and perspectives of successful researchers. The assignment’s three elements were designed to pace and cultivate students’ research processes, as well as their reflection on their processes: a collaborative Google Doc to organize and annotate sources, an individual web-based photo journal to reflect on research processes, and a collaborative presentation to share findings with peers.

Information literacy is an integral pillar that helps students bridge their learning across both process and content. We draw on our informal and formal qualitative content analysis of student work over four semesters to understand how we can help students reframe their identities and abilities as researchers. Our work documents attempts to leverage digital tools to shift students from being relative novices who feel like they are drowning in information toward becoming information literate learners with agency.

Participants will:

• exchange ideas about integrating or adapting elements of this assignment in order to uncover research processes and promote metacognition in student researchers
• be able to identify ideas for building collaborations among librarians and faculty

Intended audience: some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Hindsight Is 20/20: Garnering Institutional Support for the Implementation of Media Literacy in Science and Business Classrooms
Kelly LaVoice (Business Research Librarian), Kelee Pacion (Instruction Coordinator & Undergraduate Life Sciences Librarian) and Ashley Downs (Food & Agriculture Librarian) @ Cornell University
- Presentation (.pptx)

After teaching secondary education, the shift to college-level library instruction is particularly daunting. As new librarians adapting to a University environment, redefining inter-departmental relationships to form meaningful connections between librarians, faculty, and students can be difficult. In this talk, teachers- turned-librarians will discuss efforts to recreate sustained interactions with students in newly developed, interdisciplinary courses. By partnering with members of the faculty, novel, multi-week and credit-bearing courses have been developed that infuse discipline-specific curriculums with information and media literacy. In harvesting more time with students, we have successfully facilitated their continual creation and evaluation of information.

In this talk, we will discuss how we harnessed previous experiences to inform the development of new courses. Shifting from a secondary education teaching perspective to that of a librarian involves adapting to narrowed situations in which to assess learning and engage with students. The new ACRL framework resonates with this sentiment, and aided our perception that attaining institutional support to pursue information and media literacy courses within the natural progression of a curriculum would enable us to enhance our instruction efforts and the student learning experience.

The takeaways in this talk are threefold: to discuss obtaining institutional buy-in, to illustrate successful marketing for fledgling courses, and to discuss the refinement of learning goals and assessment strategies once the courses were underway. In addition, we will share examples of student feedback and assignments that indicate this format enhances student learning and retention of critical lifelong learning skills.

Participants will:

• examine new strategies for obtaining institutional buy-in to design and offer credit-bearing courses
• recognize the importance of assessment in developing meaningful opportunities to ensure we are able to provide students with a variety of learning opportunities and assessment platforms to absorb and retain content
• evaluate how grounding information and media literacy within discipline-specific curriculum goals make courses more relevant to and popular with students

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

How to Make Information Literacy Real: Reimagining Library Instruction to Prepare Today’s Business Students for the Workforce
Cara Cadena (Business Liaison Librarian) and Beth Martin (Head of Professional Programs/Economics Liaison) @ Grand Valley State University
- Presentation (Google Docs)

The need for businesses and corporations to hire new employees with critical thinking skills is garnering attention throughout the literature. That said, there is a disconnect among business students between information literacy skills in academia and the application of these skills in the workplace. How are two business liaison librarians--both new to our university--helping to reimagine information literacy in order to appeal to today’s students and prepare them for the workforce? This session will detail our challenges as business librarians as well as our multifaceted attempts to reconnect the association between information literacy skills and their application in the workplace.

In the business school, busy professors and overconfident students overshadow the need for information literacy instruction. In order to increase our presence and address the needs of our liaison departments, we collaborated with key business faculty to develop relevant information literacy instruction. Currently we are undergoing research in International Business courses by testing students’ information literacy skills and research behaviors through the lens of threshold concepts. We are also incorporating components of information literacy into micro and macroeconomic courses. We look forward to the opportunity to discuss our research, including the challenges and the literature, as well as share insights from our collaborations. Lastly, we will provide sample information literacy assignments that will inspire attendees to re-frame information literacy as a 21st century job qualification, and be able to think in terms of a prospective employer.

Participants will:

• rethink information literacy instruction from the viewpoint of a prospective employer
• analyze information literacy assignments for workplace preparedness
• explore strategies for collaborating with faculty in designing IL instruction

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Into the Gauntlet: Letting Students Teach One Another
Jessica Crossfield McIntosh (Reference Services Coordinator & Assistant Professor) and Amy Parsons (Metadata Librarian & Associate Professor) @ Otterbein University
- Presentation (.pptx)

As librarians, teachers, and observers, we know students often learn more effectively from peer instruction. Two librarians from Otterbein University will discuss current pedagogical methods for peer instruction, practical ways it can be utilized in the classroom, and reflect on how it has worked so far.

This presentation will offer ideas for creative implementation of peer instruction in terms of information literacy and will include practical examples, handouts, and visual demonstrations. We will discuss strategies for developing methods of integrating ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy with peer to peer interaction.

Participants will:

• learn practical methods for using peer to peer collaboration in one-shot and credit bearing courses
• develop their own ideas about incorporating peer to peer instruction in their pedagogy
• consider the compatibility between peer to peer instruction and the new ACRL Framework

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Making Information Literacy Flexible and Re-Mixable: Instructional Designers and Librarians Collaborate in the Canvas Learning Management System
Catherine Baird (Online & Outreach Services Librarian) @ Montclair State University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Montclair State University librarians and instructional designers engaged in a conversation to reboot information literacy instruction and capture it in an online environment on our campus. Using simple learning materials (web pages, short videos, slideshows, quizzes, discussions), we created series of open educational resources (Canvas modules) that could be copied, re-mixed, and re-used in individual courses across a variety of disciplines and based on the needs of the course instructor. Learning experiences were designed following an inquiry-based pedagogical model to enhance critical thinking and allow students to apply their understanding to multiple, real-world research challenges.

Participants will:

• evaluate the collaborative design process that resulted in the creation of the information literacy learning modules
• determine the adaptability of the information literacy learning modules to different contexts, e.g., different courses, disciplines or institutions
• examine the validity of the learning experience of the information literacy modules

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Making the Case for Credit Courses: Results from a Study on Student Perceptions of a Required Library Research Course
Lyda Ellis (Head of Instructional Services & Associate Professor) and Dr. Brian Iannacchione (Assistant Professor) @ University of Northern Colorado

Integrated credit courses give students in-depth knowledge and skill-building, while providing opportunities for librarians to introduce threshold concepts. The presenters will discuss a one-credit information literacy course required by the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) at the University of Northern Colorado. The research examines students’ perceptions of the course on their success in research and writing intensive Criminal Justice courses as well as the possible impact of the course on student GPA. A CCJ faculty member will discuss the faculty perceptions of the course on student success in the program.

Participants will:

• recognize the impact of a library credit course on student success
• be able to reflect on the viability of credit courses at their home institution

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Making the Invisible Visible: Metacognition and the Research Process
Susan Ariew (Academic Services Librarian for Education) @ University of South Florida
- Presentation (.pptx)
- Handout (.docx)

Metacognition, an awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes, is a part of metaliteracy can be leveraged to increase the effectiveness of information literacy instruction. When students struggle with their research topics, information search processes, and their ability to use research effectively, much of that journey is invisible to their teachers and librarians. This presentation focuses on how to make the “invisible” more visible by asking students to reflect on their process, and by adjusting instruction to address cognitive processes experienced by students. Presenters will share teaching strategies directly tied into metacognition and how those strategies can enhance library instruction and student success.

Participants will:

• define the concepts of metaliteracy and metacognition
• discuss examples of how librarians can use cognitive apprenticeship to support metacognition
• identify teaching strategies that incorporate metacognition into teaching information literacy

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Mentoring Teaching Librarians: A Discussion of Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Best Practices in Supporting New Instruction Colleagues in Your Library
Steve Cramer (Business Librarian) @ UNC Greensboro and Lisa Louis (Head of Research & Instruction) @ Texas A&M - Corpus Christi
- Presentation (.pptx)

Did you have a mentor in your early career? Do you wish you had? Are you mentoring a teaching librarian now, or would like to serve as a mentor? Two librarians who have been mentors and mentees will lead a discussion of benefits, possible hazards, and recommended structures. We will compare an official program to an informal one, and consider the value or peer-mentoring and recruiting a mentor from another library. Participants will come away with concrete ideas for starting a mentoring program.

This program will illustrate the opportunity for new teaching librarians to learn from the past experiences (good and bad) of veteran librarians, as both new and veteran librarians work together to build the future of information literacy. Mentoring can reinvigorate an information literacy program by providing safe feedback and suggestions that result in better teaching, less stress, and improved morale and job satisfaction.

Participants will:

• describe and compare different libraries’ experiences with mentoring of new instruction librarians
• be able to identify topics that can be addressed via mentoring
• explore ideas for creating a mentoring program and making mentoring more effective

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Mixing It Up: Teaching Information Literacy Concepts Through Different ‘Ways of Learning’
Lorna Dawes (Assistant Professor) @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Presentation (.pptx)

The new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy has propelled librarians into new approaches to teaching that concentrate on the concepts and not the procedures or tasks that relate to the effective use of information. Traditional teaching methods like database demonstrations; lectures, tutorials and small group discussions by themselves are not the most effective ways to the foster the critical and analytical thinking that we want students to master.

It is known that students vary their learning strategies in response to the context of their learning environment (Richardson, 2010), and Davis and Arend’s “Facilitating Seven Ways Of Learning” (2013) outlines an approach to teaching that will encourage these different ways of learning.

In this session participants will identify two information literacy learning outcomes in an assignment, and will then use a series of questions outlined in the book to identify appropriate ways of learning, These ‘ways of learning’ will then be used to inform the selection of suitable teaching strategies and activities to teach each learning outcome. The session will also model how a variety of teaching strategies such as quick writes, think-pair share, visual polls and JIT questions, can be used to facilitate student learning in both the one-shot and semester class.

Participants will:

• understand the relationship between learning outcomes, ‘Ways of learning’ and student learning strategies
• identify learning outcomes in information literacy instruction scenarios that will foster ‘deeper’ learning
• use a set of questions to identify ‘ways of learning’ and identify corresponding teaching methods to teach the learning outcomes

Intended audience: brand new to the topic.

Modeling the Research Process in the Natural Sciences: Utilizing Data, Observation, and Theory to Improve Library Support
Kate L Ganski (Teaching & Learning Lead) @ University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- Presentation (.pdf)

Students in large, introductory science courses do not expect to do research or learn information literacy skills. Yet as this session will demonstrate there is a need for modeling research in these courses. Speaking from three semesters of collaboration with a biological sciences professor, a model for teaching and assessing information literacy within a discipline will be shared with the aim of learning from our successes and failures in order to improve integration in natural science courses. Session will include a discussion of instructional design and learning theories useful for improving student retention of information literacy concepts within their discipline.

Participants will:

• analyze presenter’s successes and failures in order to envision a model for collaborating on student learning beyond the large, lecture classroom
• apply instructional design and learning theories to information literacy integration models in order to improve student learning

Intended audience: some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors: Partnering with Undergraduate Research Offices to Present Scholarship as a Conversation
Elise Ferer (Librarian for Undergraduate Learning) @ Drexel University, Elizabeth “Beth” L Black (Associate Professor & Undergraduate Engagement Librarian) @ Ohio State University and Matt Upson (Director of Library Undergraduate Instruction & Outreach) @ Oklahoma State University
- Presentation (.pdf)

Using the frame “Scholarship as a Conversation” Librarians at three different institutions collaborated with their Offices of Undergraduate Research to prepare undergraduates to take part in the research conducted by faculty and graduate students happening outside of course assignments. Presenters will share their instructional collaborations and will include portions of the workshops they developed to demonstrate how Scholarship as a Conversation provides support for students throughout the continuum of beginning to think about getting involved in undergraduate research through becoming creators of knowledge shared with others.

Participants will:

• describe the different ways in which presenters worked with their Undergraduate Research (UR) offices in order to identify collaboration opportunities at their own institutions
• articulate the value of using the frame “Scholarship as a Conversation” to guide instruction with undergraduate researchers in order to formulate instructional activities or interventions

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

One Tutorial, Two Universities: How Technology Can Be Adapted to Meet the Needs of Multiple Libraries
Betsy Williams (Health Professions Librarian) and Rita Kohrman (Educational & Juvenile/YA Literature Librarian) @ Grand Valley State University and Eric Kowalik (Instructional Designer) and Valerie Beech (Business Reference/Associate Librarian) @ Marquette University
- Presentation (.pptx)

How many times have you participated in this scenario?

     Student: I can’t find this article in the databases (she shows you a citation).
     You: Oh, this citation is for a book. Let’s check the catalog.

Helping students understand citations seems to be an on-going activity, but learning about citations can be boring and requires attention to detail. In order to address this problem, we created a fun tutorial using drag-and-drop technology that can be used in an online environment or in the classroom. The tutorial helps students identify the elements of a citation, place them in the correct order, and distinguish among citations for articles, books, and book chapters. In this presentation, we will share how Marquette University Libraries created the tutorial using Articulate Storyline, added it to GitHub as an open source download, and how Grand Valley State University Libraries adapted the tutorial. We will also share the peaks and pitfalls we experienced along the way, including results of our student and faculty surveys. You’ll have an opportunity to go through the citation tutorial and discuss how it, or any of the other open source Storyline activities, could be adapted for information literacy instruction.

Participants will:

• be able to use technology in order to actively engage students in learning information literacy concepts
• be able to adapt that technology in order to incorporate it into their teaching
• go through the tutorial and generate recommendations for other applications and future development

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Playing with FIRE: Gamifying Library Instruction in a First-Year Experience Program
Kathrine Aydelott (Instruction Librarian) @ University of New Hampshire and Kellian Adams @ (Green Door Labs)

Gaming pedagogies have the potential to revolutionize library instruction not only by implementing new motivations, methods, and formats but by delivering instruction directly to students without librarians having to ask faculty instructors for class time.

This presentation will outline University of New Hampshire’s FIRE program and its game-inspired pedagogy, introduce Green Door Labs’ Edventure Builder game-design platform, and present Dimond Library’s “Unlock the Door” game that guides students through the use of library resources to find information using citations.

The game designer will introduce the game-design platform, discuss the possibilities for text-based and location-based games, and present ideas for library and research-inspired games for libraries large and small. The librarian will outline the challenges involved in designing a library instruction game that is low-impact on the library, describe the game-design elements that work both for and against library instruction, and discuss the logistics for supporting a game that could handle hundreds of players at a time.

Participants will:

• discover the ways text and location-based games can revitalize library instruction and reach new audiences
• introduce Green Door Labs’ Edventure Builder game-design platform and gaming options
• learn about University of New Hampshire’s experience using games in a First-Year Experience program

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

The Practice and Promise of Critical Information Literacy in Library Instruction
Eamon Tewell (Reference & Instruction Librarian) @ Long Island University, Brooklyn
- Presentation (.pdf)

Critical information literacy is an approach to teaching that strives to recognize education's potential for social change and empower learners to identify and act upon oppressive power structures. As an approach that acknowledges and emboldens the learner's agency in their education, critical IL has much to offer librarians interested in rethinking their teaching. Wishing to learn how academic librarians bring critical IL into their instruction, the presenter conducted a survey and followup interviews. Based upon respondents' contributions, this session will illustrate some of the many ways that librarians incorporate this vital approach to teaching the complexities of information into their practice, and discuss how professional and workplace systems hinder or encourage such efforts. The findings shared will aid instruction librarians in applying strategies for questioning dominant paradigms to their own work, while simultaneously drawing attention to the very real difficulties of doing so. Attendees will learn what critical approaches to instruction can look like and consider the potential benefits and challenges involved in this demanding pedagogical perspective.

Participants will:

• describe ways that academic librarians have incorporated critical information literacy into their instruction
• articulate challenges faced in actualizing your own ideal instruction, including how barriers to such instruction might be dismantled

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Recycling the First-Year One-Shot Workshop: Using Interactive Technology to Flip the Classroom
Crystal Goldman (Instruction Coordinator) and Tamara Rhodes (Instruction Librarian) @ UC San Diego
- Presentation (.pdf)

Librarians at UC San Diego teamed up with a writing program coordinator on campus to re-imagine the one-shot library workshops provided to all of the college’s first-year transfer students. An online tutorial on database searching made up of multimedia and active learning experiences was created for students to complete the week before the library workshop.

After learning about the research process, database search strategies and how to access full-text articles, students were asked to select a topic, find two relevant scholarly articles and bring them to the library instruction session. During the workshop with the librarian, students learned how to construct an open-ended research question, which was a required element of their final paper.

Participants will:

• understand how to use the flipped classroom pedagogical model to enhance their own teaching
• understand how active learning is incorporated in the online library instruction tutorial
• gain insight into the design decisions made with regard to the flipped classroom and tutorial content, based on instructional needs and library resources

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle: Turning interactive instruction into game-based camogogy
Bethany Tschaepe (Online Instruction & Instruction Librarian), Jovanni Lota (Information Literacy Coordinator) and Megan Hopwood (First Year Experience & Instruction Librarian) @ University of Houston-Downtown

Murder! Mayhem! Learning! Fun! This session focuses on the efforts of the University of Houston Downtown Library to recycle their Augmented Reality program to increase their pedagogical reach beyond the classroom. Combining their past experience with augmented reality and using examples of other libraries' "murder mystery" events, the librarians recycled established practices into a new way of delivering library instruction, engaging users, and collaborating across campus departments. Join us to start upcycling good ideas into great ideas, and take library learning outside of the classroom.

Participants will:

• be able to evaluate their current use of instructional technology as a means for library learning/engagement
• have a basic understanding of camouflaged pedagogy (camogogy)
• be able to formulate an “upcycling” program of their own from past outreach and learning efforts

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Reinvigorating a Library Workshop Series: Moving Workshops into the Online Environment
Mandi Goodsett (Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian) @ Cleveland State University
- Presentation (.pptx)
- Handout (.pdf)

Do you offer library workshops that often have low attendance? Do you aspire to use technology to make learning engaging, but encounter budgetary barriers? This session will describe how attendees can refresh library instruction by supplementing in-person library workshops with online ones through collaboration with campus partners and the use of interactive, free online tools. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss challenges of working in an online environment, develop a plan for transitioning a workshop onto an LMS, and explore tools for creating interactive online learning objects.

Participants will:

• discuss the benefits of, and barriers to, transitioning workshops to an online platform in order to determine the plausibility of creating an online workshop at their own libraries
• develop a practical plan for transitioning information literacy workshops to a learning management system in order to begin transitioning to online workshops upon return to their institution
• identify and use a number of interactive online learning tools, including Microsoft Office Mix, for creating engaging online instruction in order to create low-cost or free interactive tutorials for online library workshops

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

ReInvigorating Partnerships: A Case Study of Two Feeder High Schools with Varying Information Literacy Preparedness and Resulting Academic Library Interventions
Caitlin Gerrity (Assistant Professor of Library Media) and Scott Lanning (Associate Professor of Library Media) @ Southern Utah University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Our academic library provides information literacy instruction via a required general education course, which consists of a pre-and-post test to measure baseline information literacy skills and growth in the course. We observed a statistically significant difference in pre-test performance between our two main feeder high schools. In this case study, we explore the school library program pedagogical factors that might explain the difference in student achievement between these two schools. Additionally, we consider interventions and strategies to support the school library program in the lower performing school through outreach and support. Through a participatory session, attendees will collaborate to provide solutions to common roadblocks to student preparedness.

Participants will:

• be able to identify the benefits of using pre- and post-test assessment data to identify areas for improvement
• be able to implement similar outreach and collaborative efforts between school and academic libraries
• learn the basics of the case research method

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

ReModeling the Library Tour: Active Learning through Active Spaces
Matthew Pickens (Instruction Librarian) @ Missouri University of Science & Technology
- Presentation (.pptx)

In the summer of 2015, Curtis Laws Wilson Library at the Missouri University of Science & Technology had the opportunity to present to a large group of incoming freshmen attending a summer learning program. We enthusiastically accepted, but there were logistical, conceptual challenges to overcome. Our presentation spaces are small and the time we had with the students short.

Since the students wouldn’t fit in any of our spaces and we had minimal time to accomplish our objectives, we decided to make the space fit the students and to change our instructional methodology. We turned from focusing on the classroom as instructional space and instead made the entire building instructional space. Inspired by Halloween haunted houses, we decided to break up the large group into smaller, more manageable groups. Each group would begin at different locations within the library, receive instruction from a librarian, and then move on to the next location.

This presentation will discuss the logistical and conceptual challenges we found while planning the tour, the incorporation of new instruction methods into the project, the crises and solutions from the day of the event, and the rewards we’ve found after encouraging this cohort to become fans of the library. Additionally, we will discuss how this experience has changes our perspective on the library and the advantages of more diverse pedagogical styles for both the students and librarians.

Participants will:

• be able to “think outside the classroom” and find sites for student learning in all their library spaces
• be able to think strategically and logistically about engaging large groups within their libraries

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Restructure, Recycle, and Renew: Moving to an Improved, yet Sustainable, Information Literacy Program
Nancy Falciani-White (Teaching & Outreach) @ Wheaton College (IL)
- Presentation (.pptx)

Programmatic change is complex and time-consuming. Yet it is possible, even for smaller institutions, to engage in significant, sustainable curricular development. This presentation will describe the instruction program that has existed at a small, private, liberal arts institution for over a decade, as well as the process of restructuring existing content into a new curriculum, part of a new general education program. This curriculum will be embedded in three core courses that all students will take, and an additional course within each major offered at the college. This restructuring includes both new content and different delivery formats than have been used in the past, as well as attempts to align the content with the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. The presenter will preview the new program content as far as it has been developed, including a demonstration of the First Year Seminar online tutorial that was recycled and adapted during the summer of 2015 from an excellent tutorial developed by another institution. The results of the pilot of that tutorial in Fall 2015 will also be reviewed. The presentation will discuss the multi-year, collaborative process of developing this curriculum, as well as touch on course and programmatic assessment, and the partnerships both within the library and across the institution that will be important elements to ensuring the program's sustainability.

Participants will:

• understand the elements of significant programmatic change
• understand the components of a sustainable library instruction program
• gain insight into the challenges confronting online delivery of information literacy content

Intended audience: some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

ReThink: Connecting Libraries to Metacognition, Student Learning, and Student Success
Amy Riegelman (Government Publications & Social Sciences Librarian) and Kate Peterson (Undergraduate Services Librarian) @ University of Minnesota
- Presentation and Handout (link)

Student success is dependent on many factors. As librarians we make assumptions about student awareness of the services and tools we offer.

Unpacking these assumptions led us towards research on metacognition-- being aware of how you learn. In 2014, we developed tips based on the talent themes from Gallup’s StrengthsFinder, an ongoing campus initiative. These tips gave context to the services and spaces in the Libraries and led us to build relationships with our academic advisers and other student services staff.

In 2015, we created a workshop, Learning How to Learn with Library Tools. The workshop introduced ideas on metacognition, the roots of procrastination and how to be aware of your working memory and its limits. We taught strategies such as the Pomodoro technique, and tools like the Assignment Calculator, citation managers, and the location of specific types of study spaces in the Libraries using active learning methods.

During this session, we will share how we are working to connect existing services and spaces to student success. We will incorporate elements of metacognition and model active learning techniques to help attendees explore and deepen their understanding of student learning and success factors. Attendees will discuss how their own work can be re-framed around aspects of metacognition, student learning and student success.

Participants will:

• be able to define metacognition in order to apply it to library tools
• be able to brainstorm ways to apply metacognition and student engagement to their own instruction programs, services and spaces in order increase student learning.

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Revitalizing Information Literacy Curricula: Leading to Create Change after a College-Wide Assessment
Brandy Whitlock (Professor & Instruction Librarian) @ Anne Arundel Community College
- Presentation (Prezi)

After instituting a set of college-wide core competencies at Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) and creating a map to identify when degree-bearing programs develop and assess these competencies in their curricula, AACC’s Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan established a system and schedule for assessing each of AACC’s core competencies, information literacy among them. Additionally, as a participant in ACRL’s Assessment in Action program, a team from AACC investigated the mechanisms at the college meant to develop and assess this competency, from program curricula to the teaching strategies and research assignments deployed by faculty. The results of the college-wide assessment indicate that AACC’s students still struggle to demonstrate appropriate information literacy skills by the time they graduate, but the results have also provided college practitioners and stakeholders with data that can inform decisions about how to better infuse program curricula with opportunities for developing and assessing information literacy skills, as well as how to foster more effective teaching and learning. To improve students’ competencies, AACC’s Andrew G. Truxal Library has taken a leadership role in “closing the assessment loop,” that is, in modifying curricula and pedagogies in order to maximize students’ information literacy. Presentation attendees will hear lessons learned from AACC’s college-wide assessment—especially those learned from deploying multiple, mixed assessment measures simultaneously—and will discuss strategies informed by the assessment process for leading curricular and pedagogical change across the college.

Participants will:

• be able to discuss the benefits and challenges of deploying multiple, mixed assessment measures simultaneously
• be able to identify strategies for steering curricular and pedagogical change across their institutions

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Rhetorical Reinventions: Rethinking Research Processes and Information Practices to Deepen our Pedagogy
Donna Witek (Public Services Librarian & Associate Professor) @ University of Scranton, Mary J. Snyder Broussard (Instructional Services Librarian & Coordinator of Reference and Web Services) @ Lycoming College and Joel M. Burkholder (Reference & Instruction Librarian) @ Penn State York
- Presentation (.pdf)

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy offers instruction librarians an opportunity to reconsider not only how they teach but also how they think about research and information. This new thinking has the potential to reinvent instructional practices, resulting in learning that is both situated and transferable. The discipline of rhetoric can inform this effort.

This presentation will consider three traditional “steps” of the research process: question formulation, information search, and source evaluation. Traditional approaches over-simplify each activity: broaden the question by including related elements or narrow it by concentrating on a specific time/area/population; follow these steps to find the “correct” number and types of sources; and evaluate information based on the presence of external characteristics.

Yet when information literacy is approached rhetorically, librarians can partner with classroom faculty to teach much more meaningful and transferable information literacy knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Librarians can then guide students in the complex processes of navigating the expectations of disciplinary audiences and developing a critical self-awareness of themselves as scholarly contributors; engaging with search tools, strategies, and processes in ways that are flexible, iterative, and exploratory by design; and comprehending more fully their information sources for deeper evaluation that better meets their own rhetorical goals. In an interactive presentation, the presenters will explore how rhetoric and composition theories have the potential—with creative and strategic thinking—to work in synergy with the Framework, make information literacy more authentic and meaningful, and develop true lifelong learners.

Participants will:

• make connections between rhetoric and composition theories and information literacy in order to consider new instructional approaches to traditional information literacy learning outcomes
• identify new information literacy learning outcomes through engagement with both rhetoric and composition theories and the Framework for Information Literacy in order to address students’ learning needs across disciplines and information contexts
• develop ideas for communicating with faculty across disciplines about situated information practices and research processes in order to collaborate on information literacy curricula, instruction, and assessment

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

This is an Intervention! Using a Campus-Wide Initiative and Assessment to Transform the Information Literacy Program
Anna Carlin (Instructional Technology Librarian) and Charles Gunnels (Office of Undergraduate Scholarship Director) @ Florida Gulf Coast University
- Presentation (.pdf)
- Handout (.pdf)

A university-wide initiative and associated assessment has helped the FGCU Library see how we affect our students’ information literacy skills and can change our practice to achieve better outcomes. Presenters will share the process used in a university-wide, rubric-based assessment for FGCUScholars (Quality Enhancement Plan) that measured student performance in writing, critical thinking, and information literacy during both the first-year and graduating years. Presenters will then discuss how this assessment data has provided evidence for the planning of further collaboration with upper-level course instructors and the identification of areas for librarian, faculty, and student development.

Participants will:

• be able to identify advantages of becoming part of university-wide programs to enhance student learning
• be able to describe a model of performance or authentic assessment of information literacy using rubrics and written artifacts
• be able to describe ways that assessment data can be used as evidence for making changes to instructional strategies or content in an information literacy program

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Unmediated Archives: Creating an Immersive Experience for Undergraduate Students Across the Disciplines
Peggy Keeran (Arts & Humanities Reference Librarian), Jennifer Bowers (Social Sciences Librarian) and Katherine Crowe (Curator of Special Collections) @ University of Denver
- Presentation (.ppsx)
- Handout 1 (.docx)
- Handout 2 (.docx)

The University of Denver’s librarians and archivists developed a new teaching model that intentionally integrates both digital and physical primary source research into instruction for first-year and upper division undergraduates across the disciplines. We took the lead to change faculty perceptions of what library instruction should be, incorporating primary sources into our sessions, and together we have found that integrating hands-on work in the archives transforms the instructional experience, increasing student engagement and excitement about research. Attendees will learn collaborative strategies, complete an in-class archives activity, and be introduced to digital and physical primary source exercises for undergraduate classes.

Participants will:

• learn strategies for collaborations between subject librarians and archivists to establish joint instructional programs
• learn how to integrate in-class activities with digital and physical archival materials into their instruction with undergraduates
• learn about range of in-class activities to increase student engagement through the use of digital and physical primary sources

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

Upcycle Your Audio: Creating Recorded and Live Web Audio Your Audience Can’t Refuse
Diana M. Finkle (Instructional Designer) @ Clemson University
- Presentation (.pdf)

Do you record voiceovers or other spoken-word content? Do you speak in webinars or other online presentations? Is the type of microphone to get your primary concern when you think about either of these endeavors? If you answered ""Yes"" to any of those questions, you should probably attend this session.

First, the presentation will address the main determinants of audio quality. Although conceptual, this portion includes practical considerations and earnest advice from first-hand experience. Next, the focus will be on recorded voiceovers with an introduction to Audacity. An open-source tool (good for any budget), Audacity can help you record with a headset microphone in a cubicle office during construction but not sound like it! Follow along as the presenter records sample audio, demonstrates some of the most relevant editing features, and exports a file that could be used by itself or in programs such as PowerPoint, Captivate, and Camtasia. Hear how just a little work can make a big difference when we compare the original and final recordings. The Audacity demonstration will even begin at the very beginning (with a Google search) to reinforce that this is a realistic option for even those with limited technological experience.

Participants will:

• be able to recognize and address common barriers to professional-quality audio content
• be able to design content that is appropriate for the topic and audience
• be able to perform basic recording and editing functions in Audacity

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

What Am I Doing and Why Am I Here?: Meaning, the Moment, and Combating Burnout
Megan Browndorf (Research & Instruction Librarian) @ Towson University
- Presentation (.pdf)
- Handout (.docx)

After the tenth instruction session, fifteenth, twentieth, do you find yourself running on empty and screaming out “why am I even doing this?” In this session we will explore how a pivot toward that question, rather than away from it, can help the instruction librarian combat burnout. The presentation will start with the foundational history of information literacy instruction and will then use Drabinski’s concept of Kairos (2014) in library instruction to posit that meaning is a product of the specific social and pedagogical environment and moment in which we teach. This combination will lay the foundation to understand the common disconnection between outside standards and expectations on the one hand and personal purpose on the other. By better matching the affect of our instruction to the reality of our instruction we may be able to decrease the emotional labor which is the root of much public service burnout (Matteson and Miller, 2013). This presentation suggests that a flexible, personal, meaning is an important part to being able to figure out how to approach this emotional regulation and combat burnout in the instruction librarian. Using the literature on the history of information literacy, burnout, and critical library instruction, I will argue that the answers to “what am I doing?” and “why am I doing it?” can be powerful tools for instruction librarians in their self-care as teachers.

Participants will:

• use a philosophical, critical, approach to combat instruction burnout
• examine the roots of information literacy instruction

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

What Can We Learn from a Can Opener? Adapting Design Thinking for Library Instruction
Elizabeth Psyck (Government Information Librarian) @ Grand Valley State University
- Presentation (.pptx)

Design thinking, long a buzzword in the business world, has been adopted by K-12, higher education, and some public libraries. But it also has the potential to revolutionize how we approach library instruction and information literacy. This session will introduce attendees to design thinking as a concept and a process, with an emphasis on how it can be used to develop information literacy instruction. The presentation will follow the process of design thinking, with attendees participating in making design decisions that will impact the final product.

Participants will:

• be able to define design thinking as a concept and a process
• be able to identify design thinking strategies that could be used in instructional design

Intended audience: brand new to the topic.

What Do Undergraduate Students Know About Scholarly Communication? A Research Study & Conversation About Implications in Light of Current Trends
Catherine Fraser Riehle (Associate Professor of Library Science & Instructional Outreach Librarian) @ Purdue University and Merinda Kaye Hensley (Digital Scholarship Liaison and Instruction Librarian & Assistant Professor) @ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Presentation (.pdf)

Amidst movements that recognize and support undergraduate students as makers and knowledge creators (as opposed to only knowledge consumers), there is transformative work being done at the intersection of information literacy and scholarly communication. To contribute to a growing body of scholarship and to inform the development of partnerships, programs, and other work at this intersection, presenters will share key findings of a mixed methods study designed to shed light on undergraduate students’ knowledge and perceptions of scholarly communication topics. We will also engage attendees in brainstorming and discussion about implications, relevant to their own institutions and in light of current higher education and information literacy trends.

Participants will:

• describe how undergraduate student researchers in our study reported to understand and value knowledge of scholarly communication topics
• articulate at least one learning outcome at the intersection of information literacy and scholarly communication
• envision at least one potential opportunity at their institution for supporting students at the intersection of information literacy and scholarly communication

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic, considerable experience with the topic.

Writing the Scripts for Interactive Library Skills Tutorials: Re-Think, Re-Define, and Re-Vise
Christine Bombaro (Associate Director for Research & Instructional Services) @ Dickinson College
- Presentation (.pptx)
- Handout (.docx)

Online information literacy tutorials can provide librarians with the flexibility to “flip” their classrooms and spend precious classroom time teaching more difficult research concepts instead of search mechanics. However, effective tutorials take a considerable investment of time to create, as much as 20 hours per 5 minutes of tutorial. In addition to the technical skills required to create tutorials, it is critical that they are guided by an effective script. At Dickinson College, we found the script writing to be the most challenging part of the process. In the early stages of our writing, we quickly noticed that it was all too common for us to conflate concepts, to attempt to cram too much information into a 4-minute lesson, and to be too verbose or too vague. As we learned to correct these problems, we not only developed useful tutorials that met our instructional goals, but we also discovered ways of improving our classroom teaching.

In this participatory presentation, the audience will learn how to avoid common pitfalls associated with writing tutorial scripts in order to produce a highly impactful online learning object. Working from a predefined goal and using relevant principles of learning, we will outline a script by taking stock of what knowledge needs to be communicated and breaking skill sets associated with the goal into manageable parts. We will make difficult decisions about what needs to be included and excluded.

This presentation will not address the technical aspects of tutorial creation.

Participants will:

• evaluate a script outline in order to meet a specific goal defined for the tutorial
• learn about the best practices associated with writing tutorial scripts

Intended audience: brand new to the topic, some experience with the topic.

You Can Go Your Own Way: Rethinking Credit-Bearing Courses in Light of the Framework
Amanda Foster (Instruction Librarian) and Kyle Denlinger (eLearning Librarian) @ Wake Forest University
- Session Docs (link)

The introduction of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education inspired two instruction librarians at Wake Forest University to conduct a wholesale revision of the learning outcomes, content, and assessments of their credit-bearing information literacy course, which is offered both face-to-face and online. Rather than demanding a prescriptive new learning design, the new Framework-inspired learning outcomes empowered each instructor to develop their own version of the course that reflected their personal style and emphasized higher-level skills and critical thinking, centered on a frame of their choosing. In our case, the face-to-face course centered on the frame “Scholarship as Conversation,” while the online version emphasized “Information has Value” (or, perhaps more accurately, the recently-proposed frame “Information Social Justice”). In this presentation, we will share our learning outcomes, sample assignments, and reflection prompts.

Participants will:

• see examples of credit-bearing courses designed around specific frames
• discuss the role of the Framework in course design

Intended audience: some experience with the topic.