Sessions

As learning continues to move online, it is increasingly imperative that librarians make content accessible to learners with disabilities. If we are to expect students to become information literate, librarians need to facilitate accessible learning. The demands of being a librarian or instructor do not always permit ample time to create instructional videos for the various tools used by students and researchers, and librarians will often fall back on those created by the providers of the tool, perhaps without considering quality or accessibility. This hands-on workshop will take participants though rubric creation and assessing a video tutorial in groups.

Participants will be able to:

• Use the presented rubric in order to identify the elements of an accessible online tutorial
• Accurately assess videos for use at their institutions and create accessible instructional videos themselves
• Apply the accessibility features of the rubric to their pedagogy in order to create inclusive and accessible learning environments

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

As learners navigate increasingly complex information wilds and explore new forms of creation, libraries are discussing and supporting a variety of literacies, including data, invention, health, information, media, visual, and digital literacies. How can librarians chart a path through varying definitions and priorities for these literacies in relation to existing instruction programs? This interactive workshop will give participants opportunities to explore new or unfamiliar literacies. Using design thinking strategies, participants will reflect on the current landscape of one literacy at their institution and create a prototype output to help them start conversations with collaborators and stakeholders.

Participants will:

• Recognize common principles of design thinking
• Reflect on the landscape of multiple literacies at their home institution
• Apply design thinking strategies to create a literacy-related prototype (e.g. a definition, drawing, or plan)

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

What could your community look like if everyone was adequately cared for and nurtured?  Every aspect of instruction librarianship requires the performance of emotional labor. In cultures of overwork, this emotional labor is not reciprocated, leaving library workers at risk of burnout. While a growing body of literature suggests individual strategies for performing self care to mitigate these negative effects, care cannot exist in a vacuum.

We propose that caring for our communities can be sustaining, not draining. This workshop examines the organizational and structural forces that cause burnout, and introduces community care as a way to nurture our communities and ourselves. 

Participants will:

• Define self care and community care at a sociopolitical level in order to acknowledge the structures of power that impact mental health and contribute to teaching burnout
• Recognize the relationship between teaching and community care in order to identify strategies they can implement in their local contexts
• Create a zine as a learning artifact in order to develop a reflective practice for their own self care

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Have you ever felt left out of professional conversations on assessment? Do you feel like you don’t have the authority to respond to the latest listserv debate, or that you’re too inexperienced to present your ideas at a conference? The data suggests you’re not alone! Join us in this interactive workshop examining barriers to participation in professional conversations on information literacy assessment. The presenters will facilitate discussion and activities, based on data collected from their national study of instruction librarians, and together we’ll explore strategies to empower librarians and brainstorm recommendations for professional organizations to better support engagement with assessment.

Participants will:

• Identify and reflect on key barriers to participation in the professional conversation on instruction assessment in order to foster more inclusive and productive dialogue within that conversation
• Apply recommendations for opening up the conversation on instruction assessment in various professional settings (conferences, listservs, etc.) in order to increase active participation among librarians at different levels of experience
• Describe instruction librarians’ lived experience with the professional conversation on assessment in order to contextualize their experience within the larger professional culture of instruction librarianship

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

As the number of people with disabilities gradually increases each year, librarians are apt to face more and more interactions with students with disabilities in their library instruction sessions. This workshop will look at how librarians can incorporate Universal Design Learning (UDL) in their library instruction specific to individuals with invisible disabilities, as this group is often overlooked when UDL accommodations are incorporated. This workshop will provide with hands-on experience incorporating best practices for UDL in library instruction by helping participants reimagine aspects of their instruction lesson plans and practice techniques.

Participants will:

• Recognize instances where Universal Design Learning (UDL) may be necessary to accommodate individuals with invisible disabilities
• Compare methods and techniques of UDL to determine which are appropriate to incorporate into their pedagogies
• Have the opportunity to practice UDL techniques and formulate alternative lesson plans for library instruction that are intentionally accommodating

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

The advantages of the flipped class are many--it saves time, enables self-paced learning, and allows time for practice. Additionally, it allows instructors to integrate formative assessment mid-lesson, after the content has been shared but before the guided practice has begun, enabling librarians to adjust instructional content as needed. The structure of the flipped class also poses a unique challenge--students are not in class when the assessment occurs, thus appropriate technology must be used. In this workshop, attendees will explore how to craft assessment questions and select the right technological tools for the job of formative assessment in the flipped classroom.

Participants will:

• Construct assessment questions based on student learning outcomes appropriate for a flipped class model
• Select appropriate technology options for various types of assessment questions

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Librarians who work with students often cite this as one of their favorite parts of the job. However, even the most student-centered librarians can make negative assumptions about students’ desire to learn and do good work. We don’t often scrutinize our own unconscious habits and language that shortchange students. By adopting a philosophy of setting and maintaining high expectations for all students, we can avoid undermining ourselves and create mutually positive learning experiences. In this session we’ll explore strategies for conveying and supporting a completely achievable high performance standard in library instruction classrooms. Workshop attendees will learn through specific examples and scenarios, share their own experiences and challenges, create plans together, and renew enthusiasm for tackling the tough spots in library instruction!

Participants will be able to:

• Name multiple strategies for setting achievable, high expectations in the library instruction classroom
• Describe how they would adapt one of these strategies to a classroom activity or lesson plan of their own

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Sometimes when designing instruction, we develop outcomes and assessments only to realize that it’s just not working. This can happen with learning objects and is painful when a learning object, like a video, can require many hours of work to create and maintain. By providing a chance to observe the use of a learning object and receive feedback, usability testing offers a way to identify opportunities for improvement in a thoughtful and systematic way. By the end of this workshop, attendees will have participated in a basic usability test and reflected on how usability testing could be useful to them.

Participants will:

• Recognize the value of usability testing when designing and implementing learning objects
• Role-play a brief usability test scenario, including active testing and data analysis
• Develop ideas for how usability testing could be implemented at their home institution

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Feeling pressured to prove the value of your instructional efforts? Wandering in a forest of confusing assessment ideas? Action research may be the map you need! In this interactive workshop, the presenters will discuss how action research can serve as a framework for addressing tricky problems that librarians encounter in their classrooms. Participants will identify instructional challenges encountered in their own teaching and learn how to apply action research principles to more effectively assess student learning. Attendees will investigate assessment methods for their own instructional dilemma, including hands-on practice with rubrics and will leave the session able to identify the next steps they should take to carry out their very own action research project.

Participants will:

• Examine an instructional issue they face in their own practice and brainstorm relevant data collection methods for assessment in order to engage with the action research process
• Identify the challenges and benefits of using rubrics in action research in order to effectively develop and apply rubrics to their own instructional challenges

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Manipulatives (shapes, blocks, etc.) are great tools for tactile and kinesthetic learning. Sadly, while they are staples of the elementary school classroom, they are rarely present in higher education. But in the academic information literacy classroom, manipulatives can reduce stress, increase creativity, help students understand abstract concepts, and increase overall engagement.

This workshop explores the benefits of incorporating manipulatives and offers examples of successful activities to try in your classroom. Participants will also have a chance to interact with manipulatives, exercise their sense of play, and test some of the strategies presented during the workshop.

Participants will:

• Understand the benefits of tactile and kinesthetic learning in information literacy instruction
• Gain first-hand experience using manipulatives
• Identify and design ways to use manipulatives in their own classrooms

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

In an overwhelming information landscape absent of clear signposts, collaborative storytelling helps students understand how different kinds of sources are incorporated into scholarship, and how scholarship is subsequently received. This session will illustrate a structure wherein students analyze a source individually, are introduced to different types of sources by their peers, and work together to create a narrative of an ongoing scholarly conversation. This strategy demonstrates the efficacy of stories in learning, and meets a variety of information literacy learning goals: defining different kinds of sources, evaluating sources relative to their potential use, and deploying sources within a disciplinary context. This session will provide an opportunity to try out this method yourself, using examples drawn from courses across the humanities and social sciences.

Participants will:

• Understand how stories can help make sense of different types of unfamiliar sources in order to increase comprehension of the creation of information as a process
• Work in groups to create a narrative of scholarship within a disciplinary setting in order to see this strategy in action
• Develop an outline of ideal sources for a class or subject they often teach in order to apply this strategy to their own setting

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

A brief overview of structured academic controversy (carefully constructed and deliberative discussion process that promotes civil discourse and critical thinking) and argument mapping along with information on activity learning outcomes, activity preparation, and activity directions will be shared.

Participants will be divided into groups of 4 to simulate in one session how the activity unfolds in a one-credit Introduction to Library Resources class over the course of three class periods. Ten minutes will be left at the end to share experiences and impressions regarding the place of structured academic controversy and argument mapping in promoting critical thinking, source discovery, source evaluation and integration and inspiring an increased awareness of both sides of a controversial issue.

The learning outcomes for the session are identical to those developed for the student experience in a 1 credit Introduction to Library Resources class.

Participants will be able to:

• Articulate background knowledge related to the controversial issue
• Collaboratively synthesize multiple perspectives to formulate a position that can motivate decision-making
• Use EBSCOhost databases to discover peer-reviewed journal articles that can be used as evidence to support both sides of a controversial issue

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Student success is measured by the ability to perform college-level research to the level of faculty expectation within the student’s major, and increasingly within introductory writing courses that are requirements for a student to proceed. In response to this dilemma, librarians at a four-year university launched a 7-week workshop series tailored to student research needs in partnership with an academic department struggling with student success. This two-part presentation discusses the instructional design process used by librarians in creating the workshop series and then partners attendees to mock-up a workshop series based on a program or academic area they identify.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify information literacy needs and apply strategies to create a framework of instruction and services in order to better reach students
• Consider methods of obtaining faculty and campus buy-in for alternative information literacy instruction models

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Students are often excited when presented with archival materials, but many approach the materials without thinking critically about them and how they might be applied in an original research project. In this interactive workshop, we will introduce the Question Formulation Technique (developed by Rothstein and Santana, 2011) and demonstrate how it can be modified for teaching and learning with archival materials. Workshop participants will be asked to take on the role of a student researcher, exploring archival materials and developing potential research questions.

Participants will be able to:

• Design learning activities which empower students to generate their own research questions
• Implement active learning exercises that engage students with archival materials and other primary sources

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Instruction librarians are like swimmers competing in a medley relay race; we are often experts in different styles that can help our whole team go the distance together. This workshop will focus on two strategies we specialize in to help students develop mental models about information: concept-based online tutorials and analogy-based search demonstrations. After being introduced to both techniques, participants will engage in a number of instructional design and teaching activities, including card-sorting, story-boarding, and analogy-mapping. By the end of this workshop, participants will have experience with methods for using both techniques at their own institutions. Ready, set, swim!

Participants will be able to:

• Articulate the principles from cognitive science and information literacy pedagogy that make concept-based tutorials and analogical instruction effective for library instruction
• Apply instructional design techniques for developing their own tutorials and analogies, including card-sorting, story-boarding, and analogy-mapping
• Identify instructional scenarios or environments at their own institutions in which use of conceptual tutorials or analogy-based library instruction would be appropriate

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Practicing critical information literacy requires dedication to flexible and responsive teaching, reflective practice, and engaging in dialogue. While there is a growing body of literature on critical information literacy, there is limited discussion on using critical pedagogy values in the assessment of student learning. This workshop will focus on developing a critical-inclusive assessment practice based on the Critical-Inclusive Pedagogical Framework (CIPF). After being introduced to the Framework, participants will engage in self-reflection and work with the presenter to develop an assessment based on the CIPF.

Participants will:

• Be able to discuss critical-inclusive approaches to information literacy assessment
• Develop an assessment aligned with the Critical-Inclusive Pedagogical Framework

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Working on a graduate research thesis/dissertation or capstone can overwhelm graduate students who are living in a liminal space as they move from being a student to becoming an emergent scholar. When students embark on the information seeking process to explore meaning in their disciplines, they require support beyond just learning how to access library resources. This session will demonstrate how librarians can apply Kuhlthau’s Model of the Information Search Process (1991) as a framework to go off-roading and design a more holistic and strategic model for graduate student research support. Participants will engage with their peers to develop a deeper toolbox to widen their lens for graduate students beyond traditional library tools and strategies, and help their graduate students move from confusion to confidence.

Participants will:

• Develop awareness of the Kuhlthau (1991) model of the Information Search Process and how this process can be applied to a graduate student population
• Expand their pedagogical toolbox to include other tools that could help alleviate graduate student research process stress
• Reflect on their own institutional context and how this model could be applied and implemented in their graduate teaching and outreach

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Felicia Smith, Head of Learning & Outreach at Stanford University Libraries, will present her unconventional and successful interactive activities used during information literacy sessions. She will discuss her outdoor classes, using mobile devices.

Felicia uses professionally developed instructional videos as part of her flipped classroom workshops. She will explain the funding, narration, story-boarding and promotions/marketing procedures involved in the video production.

During her classes, she conducts a scavenger hunt, aptly called the Amazing Race, which utilizes “amazing” books that contain lots of profanity in their titles.

Lastly, Felicia will share her new proposed project to use Oculus Rift technology to teach Information Literacy, in Virtual Reality. She will share examples of her game design planning, including specific vendor requirements and projected costs, based on scope.

Participants will:

• Build on successful scavenger hunt and mobile based concepts for use in their classes
• Understand detailed steps for professional video production including story-boarding
• Learn specific planning details and costs involved with a Virtual Reality project

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Come follow our instruction team on a journey toward programmatic assessment of student learning. We’ll stop at major roadside attractions you won’t want to miss! Our first attraction will give you a taste of the local flavor and describe how we organized a diagnostic assessment of senior capstone papers in psychology. From data to intervention - we’ll take you through our route. Our final stop is a faculty toolkit filled with assignment design tips and online learning objects. Participants will leave with their own unique tri-folded road map to fill with ideas and dream destinations for assessment at their own institutions.

Participants will:

• Reflect on assessment results to create meaningful learning experiences guided by evidence
• Apply assignment design principles to developing a faculty-led toolkit for information literacy instruction

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

It’s 2019. You work at a library and are interested in collaborating with campus partners to create interactive media. Maybe you have grand plans, maybe you aren’t sure where to start. Either way, this presentation will help you make those plans a reality. Join us to learn how a team of librarians without any formal experience in media production collaborate with a group of library student employees and campus partners to produce award-winning instruction, outreach, and reference media that is culturally responsive, student-centered, and relatable to the institution’s student body.

Participants will be able to:

• Articulate the role and value of partnering with library student employees on grassroots media projects
• Examine how grassroots media projects are being used across instruction, outreach, and reference service areas and imagine potential projects that would benefit their home institution
• Adapt and apply a process for partnering with student employees to apply culturally responsive pedagogy towards media production

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Information literacy skills are imperative for academic, personal, and professional success. Unfortunately, many students are daunted by the vast information ocean before them. Unmotivated to seek out credible sources, students often rely on “floaties” or risk-averse strategies to engage with information. This session explores an interdisciplinary approach to motivating students through employing motivational theory to an online library module for new swimmers, aka first-year student. In addition to discussions of design and assessment, this session will give participants the tools they need to motivate students to ditch the life jackets and dive headfirst into the vast information ocean and beyond!

Participants will be able to:

• Articulate a basic understanding of self-determination theory, a leading theory of motivation
• Communicate the value of incorporating motivational theory into their library instruction
• Identify practical strategies for incorporating motivational elements into their own pedagogical practices

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Libraries provide self-guided help on their websites through FAQs, guides, and tutorials. This content, often created to meet immediate needs and located on multiple webpages, can become an untamed wilderness over time. To tame our website wilderness, we took a holistic approach to reflect on, re-envision, and renew our library’s online self-guided help. This trailblazing project has ultimately changed our institution’s approach to self-guided help, informed our instruction, and provided students with a more navigable path to research success. Join us to explore the concrete steps we took, the evolution of our underlying philosophies, and lessons learned along the way.

Participants will:

• Identify strategies for evaluating, organizing, and developing self-guided help in order to implement these strategies at their institutions
• Recognize potential pitfalls in order to avoid them
• Articulate the potential impact of such a project on student success and librarian workflow in order to demonstrate its value

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

After noticing that students and researchers often struggle with structuring their literature reviews and the appropriate level of coverage, two librarians at a large research university designed new components for a workshop to help address those needs. A text encoding exercise was designed to help participants better understand how to integrate all sources of information in their literature review. A topical modeling exercise using the program Voyant was also incorporated in the workshop to draw participants’ attentions to new themes in the literature and get a better perspective on their topics. This presentation will incorporate interactive demos of the tools used and an activity to demonstrate the uses of text encoding.

Participants will:

• Understand the uses of digital humanities tools in information literacy instruction
• Use Voyant to discover new topics in academic literature
• Describe text encoding and its uses in writing a literature review

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Academic librarians are well-positioned to prepare their graduate students to navigate the increasingly volatile scholarly communication landscape. This presentation shares the experience of librarians at a mid-sized liberal arts university in Hong Kong of honing over several years the scholarly communication component of a required common core program for graduate students. An initial face-to-face approach eventually gave way to an online course, and the rationale for this development will be analyzed and explored.

Use of the Mentimeter feedback system will be integrated into the presentation to enable participants to use their mobile devices to share in real-time their experience of supporting their graduate students’ scholarly communication skills.

Participants will:

• Be able to describe strategies for ensuring graduate students are equipped with fundamental knowledge of scholarly communication issues in order to be able to select and adapt techniques for use in their own institutions
• Discover how the institutions of other presentation attendees develop the scholarly communication competencies of their graduate students via a real-time feedback system

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Instruction librarians are often called upon to identify, implement, and assess emerging research services such as virtual reality and digital fabrication. It can be difficult, however, to know where to begin, how to design sustainable infrastructure, and what will position these services to impact the student experience in meaningful ways. A research services philosophy can provide a foundation and guiding structure to address these challenges. Through guiding questions, activities, and examples from presenters, attendees will develop a process to demystify the exploration of research service design, and ultimately, articulate a philosophy for adoption and implementation of new services.

Participants will:

• identify the core components of a research services philosophy in order to choose and determine appropriate scope for services within their institutional contexts.
• articulate how established policies and culture in their instruction programs can inform the development of research services in order to construct a cohesive approach to service design.

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

This session will share how librarians at a mid-sized university ventured outside the library to assess online user needs and, as a result of their findings, bushwhacked the overgrowth to reveal a clear path to the library's online information literacy tools for all users. Presenters will discuss the decisions made at each fork in the path which led to redesigning the library instruction website and utilizing the institutional repository to blaze a clear trail for users. The marketing strategies and assessment efforts that were used to engage our users and make sure they found their way will also be discussed.

Participants will:

• Examine how user needs dictate the presentation of online information literacy resources
• Consider how a user-centered design process could be beneficial to their own institution
• Evaluate the benefits and challenges of using an institutional repository to house information literacy tools

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

In 2017, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) launched a national initiative (DigiPo) to confront digital polarization and improve civic discourse by developing web literacy skills in college undergraduates. Eleven campuses from across the United States were invited to participate in the cross-institutional initiative aimed at challenging the flood of online disinformation that we encounter every day, particularly in our Twitter and Facebook feeds.

In this session, presenters will share how we launched this national project on our campus through collaboration with faculty in a variety of disciplines. Presenters will introduce the classroom activities that we employed to teach undergraduate students to analyze and verify the information they find online, focusing on an innovative technique referred to as “Four Moves and a Habit”. Presenters will explain how this technique is incorporated into a tiered information literacy program through the curricula with assignments in a variety of courses including freshman seminars, writing composition, political science, and environmental science. Presenters will demonstrate how to weave “Four Moves and a Habit” into the traditional web evaluation curriculum and how to engage students in verifying information with gamification and interactive technologies. A pre-test and post-test assessment are incorporated into the project to measure students’ ability to verify, contextualize, and reason about information they find online. Presenters will discuss this assessment and share plans for future applications of the DigiPo curriculum.

Participants will:

• Learn how to weave the “Four Moves and a Habit” fact-checking technique into the traditional web evaluation curriculum
• Take away ideas for creating an active classroom environment with games and innovative technologies to engage students in information verification
• Discover how librarians collaborate with campus faculty to create assignments that cultivate students’ web literacy and critical thinking skills

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Waldorf Education is an alternative and fascinating teaching pedagogy. Grounded in the philosophical work of Rudolf Steiner, this methodology is known for embracing arts-based learning, teaching through play, and providing students with space for wondering. Typically associated with early childhood through K-12 education, the pedagogy offers creative ideas for information literacy instruction. This presentation will introduce Waldorf Education and include a foundational background of its philosophy and methods. Example activities and techniques from the presenter’s own teaching will also be demonstrated. Attendees can expect to gain new ways to engage students and promote active learning in library instruction.

Participants will be able to:

• Reflect on their current teaching philosophy and instructional practices
• Identify and define Waldorf Education and its teaching philosophy
• Explore specific techniques for applying Waldorf Education to information literacy instruction

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

This session will detail an innovative approach to information literacy instruction for multiple sections of a 100-level written communication course grounded in the Reading Apprenticeship framework. Reading Apprenticeship aims to help students develop metacognitive problem solving strategies and involves instructors making their own invisible learning processes visible to students. The presentation will outline the design and implementation of course-integrated information literacy instruction that employed Reading Apprenticeship strategies like “Thinking Aloud” and “Building a List of Reading Strategies” to foster active learning of key concepts like relevance, authority, and diversity of perspectives.

Participants will:

• Gain insight into ways in which Reading Apprenticeship is an evidence-based, equity-focused approach to teaching
• Gain knowledge of the core principles and routines of Reading Apprenticeship and its relevance to information literacy instruction
• Consider how Reading Apprenticeship could apply to their own instructional practice

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

When students explore a results page, what leads them to select a resource for a school-related project? This is the question that drives our IMLS-funded research study, Researching Student Information Choices: Identifying and Judging the Credibility of Online Sources. In this presentation, we detail our journey from designing the research methodology to collecting the data that assesses the behaviors of 175 students from fourth grade through graduate school. Come learn about our innovative controlled research environment and participate in a candid conversation about the successes and challenges we faced during the research design and data collection phases.

Participants will:

• Expand their understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods to better understand students’ “point of selection” behaviors
• Recognize the benefits and limitations of a variety of techniques for assessing the “point of selection” behaviors of students
• Apply some of the methods discussed to conduct their own local assessments

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Requiring undergraduates to integrate data into their projects is a growing trend. Swimming the data seas can be scary, and many look to their subject librarians for flotation support. But librarians can feel just as unsure in these waters. The upshot: both undergraduates and librarians could use early and recurrent exposure to data literacy. Learn about an adaptable, sustainable model developed by NYU Libraries that helps subject librarians increase their own data competency by teaching a data basics module to early undergraduates -- a solution that allows for effective learning to take place at scale and for a chance for librarians to grow as teachers.

Participants will leave with:

• Effective principles for working with discipline faculty as they reinforce curricular goals within a specific major or concentration
• Strategies for developing extensible instructional materials that allow teaching librarians from all backgrounds to lead effective learning experiences with data
• Capacity to tie teaching with data to established Framework dispositions and knowledge practices, especially the idea that knowledge creation can be expressed through emerging formats and modes

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

This session will present a collaborative teaching experience between the library and the department of International Languages and Culture at a small liberal arts college. Research Librarian Pamela Mann collaborated with Professor of Spanish Joanna Bartow to intentionally incorporate critical information literacy (CIL) into a community based learning (CBL) course, Spanish in the Community, with outcomes emphasizing the power that cultural, political and economic systems have in shaping students’ research and knowledge practices. The presentation will include an overview of the theoretical frameworks used to design the course, CIL and CBL learning outcomes, the process of co-creating and scaffolding assignments and lesson plans, assessment and revisions for the next iteration of the course.

Participants will:

• Explore how to integrate critical information literacy into disciplinary classroom practices
• Identify ideas for assignments, projects, lesson plans and learning outcomes to use in collaboration with disciplinary faculty

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

We expanded our library’s outreach to student veterans by hosting a symposium for these students to present their research projects. This approach is distinctive insofar as we address student veterans foremost as competent researchers, emphasizing their strengths rather than their needs. We also collaborate with various campus offices to integrate student veteran researchers into campus-wide research showcase events. We will share our strategies for working with student veteran researchers and for securing buy-in among relevant campus stakeholders.

Participants will:

• Critically examine outreach methods prevalent in the literature of academic libraries in order to develop strategies to reach a population as diverse as student veterans
• Consider the strengths and dispositions of the student veteran population and how to engage them as undergraduate or graduate researchers
• Strategically consider potential collaborators in order to distribute the workload, capitalize on other units’ knowledge and connections, and secure buy-in from relevant campus units

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

As graduate students embark on research projects, they often are not fully aware of what paths they should take or the obstacles they may encounter. Effectively managing research data is a skillset that needs to be honed along the way. Trail guides, including librarians, can establish instructional signposts for relevant data management concepts. To be effective, guides need to be familiar with the knowledge and skill gaps of the explorers. Surveys were conducted at two medium-sized universities to assess perceived importance and knowledge of 12 research data management competencies, with a goal of informing education planning. Results set the foundation for pathways to research data management education. Attendees may share ideas and recommendations for augmenting learning about concepts and practices in research data management.

Participants will:

• Identify areas of high interest and need for instruction in research data management for graduate students and disciplinary faculty
• Explore options for addressing instructional needs in topics of research data management

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Library outreach to students is often led by librarians; however, student-led outreach programs can be highly successful. Our library has created a student-led, student-driven outreach team called S.O.S.- Student Outreach to Students. This ambassador program utilizes students to actively promote services and resources to other students. Such an outreach model aligns with the service approach of campus partners, who also offer peer-driven support. These students create library communication strategies, elevate the library's social media presence, and develop outreach projects and events. This session is an opportunity to learn about the successes and challenges of a student-centered program.

Participants will:

• Discover the program's unique features that focus on a peer-to-peer model of outreach and education
• Learn about the SOS program's structure, goals and accomplishments
• Understand the challenges, successes and solutions faced by the student ambassadors

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Student success is not only a university goal, it is a primary goal of many academic library instruction programs. How do we find the best trail to lead us through the forest of instructional development? Looking externally, we identified tools used by other disciplines to improve instruction through peer coaching, observation, and the incorporation of evidence-based practices. This presentation highlights three tools that create an innovative stepped program helping librarians understand what is happening in the classroom, and work within a community of practice. Attendees will leave the session with an understanding of the benefits of supportive peer-observation and coaching.

Participants will:

• Examine peer-evaluation and coaching tools that can be used to build communities of practice and encourage instructional development
• Reflect on their current instructional practices and use of evidence-based practices

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

This presentation will offer the Peritextual Literacy Framework (Gross & Latham, 2017) as a way of teaching the ACRL frames. The PLF is based on Gerard Gennette’s concept of the peritext, i.e., those parts of a text that surround but are not part of the main text. The PLF organizes these various elements into categories based on function: promotional, production, navigational, intratextual, supplemental, and documentary. This presentation will introduce the PLF, discuss connections between the categories of the PLF and the ACRL frames, and work through two examples using a peer-reviewed journal article and an article from a popular magazine.

Participants will:

• Describe the Peritextual Literacy Framework (PLF)
• Discuss how the PLF can be used to teach the frames
• Identify a specific opportunity for using the PLF to teach the frames within their institutions

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

A common element in research paper prompts is the source requirements, which often read like a library grocery list: 2 books, 3 peer-reviewed articles, 2 other credible sources. Students need to find the minimum number of sources, and they need to identify and make sense of potentially unfamiliar information formats. We developed an escape room-like workshop based in the ACRL Frame “Information Creation as a Process” in which attendees learn about the purpose of various formats, the process that went into their creation, and the typified products that we recognize. We explain why these learning outcomes make the workshop appropriate for first year students, and how we’ve also used it as professional development for student employees to reinforce information literacy competencies and support team building.

Participants will:

• Identify techniques for creating a framework-based mystery room in order to apply this method to their own instructional setting and users’ needs
• Recognize how game-based information literacy training complements and supports student employees’ day-to-day work helping patrons find information

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Information literacy one-shot sessions are a library mainstay, but do these sessions move students from novice to expert researcher? Are we continually following the same worn trail instead of pushing students to forage past the brush and bramble into the clearing of information-literate adulthood?

By creating a 4-year, scaffolded plan for information literacy, librarians can promote transformational student growth. Learn how these librarians led their colleagues through this process, and then have the opportunity to begin strategizing a plan for IL renewal at their own institutions. So stop teaching and re-teaching the same basic skills. Collaborate with your institution’s library instruction team to blaze new trails and create a discipline-agnostic set of IL outcomes for all undergraduate students, from first year to capstone level.

Participants will:

• Apply the developmental-learning model to information literacy outcomes
• Practice collaborative decision-making techniques used to build consensus among colleagues
• Learn how to overcome challenges to leading program renewal

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Glamping is a style of camping that marries luxury with the outdoors for a rich and enjoyable experience of even the most rustic outdoor connoisseur. Join Instruction Librarian, Shannon Simpson, and Expository Writing Faculty, Aliza Watters, as they share how they co-designed and delivered a completely unique research and writing course with all the amenities of both the framework for information literacy and the pedagogies of writing. In this session, presenters will share how their partnership was forged, how they designed an innovative course, some of their unique and replicable lessons, and the work and responses of the amazing students.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify at least one person or department on their campus with which they can potentially collaborate on a research and writing course
• List at least one shared goal between a writing pedagogy and those inherent in the framework of information literacy
• Locate lesson plans used in the course

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

With the rise of ‘multimodality’, students are increasingly creating digital projects that require an understanding of copyright that includes Creative Commons, to both search for and appropriately remix the original work of others. In this session, learn how two librarians collaboratively developed their student-centered pedagogy to apply active-learning strategies in the classroom for these special creative copyright sessions. In their approach, the librarians engaged the student-as-producer to make creative copyright more accessible and applicable to their projects. These instructional interventions build on the traditional lecture-style session on Copyright Law to support non-traditional projects.

Participants will:

• describe how to use student-centered pedagogy and active learning strategies with creative copyright lessons in order to engage student learners
• be able to identify resources in order to help students ethically use and reuse creative works
• to explain how collaboration can integrate diverse expertise in order to strengthen pedagogy

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic; At least some experience with the topic

Marshall McLuhan's seminal work "Understanding Media" has been studied ever since its publication in 1964, because it shook up our understanding of media and their effects on us. In this presentation we will describe our use of McLuhan's "Understanding Media" as the foundational text in a semester-long course designed to teach critical thinking and information literacy. Attendees will learn about McLuhan, his work, and other materials we use to help prepare the students for learning in a future that will be dominated by uncertainty and change.

Participants will:

• Apply "the medium is the message"
• Understand supercomplexity as a higher educational concept
• Identify ways that attendees can develop a course at their institution

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Our current public discourse about science, news, history and politics is fundamentally at odds with how new information is produced and disseminated. Although uncertainty (“not knowing for sure”) is an integral part of discovery in most academic fields, we are often told that any uncertainty makes something unreliable. Traditional source evaluation methods may reinforce this discourse. We propose “productive uncertainty” as a conceptual frame to help librarians theorize the role of “not knowing for sure” in information literacy. Our presentation will help librarians understand how uncertainty works in most scholarly fields, and by extension, teach students not to fear it. We will explore the literature and theoretical background of productive uncertainty, discuss how the concept informs our work, and provide practical examples for implementation.

Participants will be able to:

• Adapt the idea of productive uncertainty for use when evaluating different source types and material from different disciplines
• Approach source evaluation from a more nuanced standpoint when designing information literacy lessons for students

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Digital and information literacy threshold concepts are complex and can be difficult for students to grasp. Presenters will discuss how they embraced the challenge of preparing students to cross the threshold concept barriers through assuming the role of “threshold guides.” We will discuss experiences designing competency-based online micro-courses to engage students with these concepts. We will emphasize how we leveraged local expertise to teach research collaboratively; how local and distance students were able to benefit from the format and content; and the various strategies and challenges managing a cross-department innovative initiative that allows flexibility for rapid development and change.

Participants will:

• Develop strategies for leveraging campus partners’ expertise and resources in order to create responsive and sustainable online micro-courses
• Discover a user-centered approach for analyzing existing curriculum and student needs for gaps within digital and information literacies
• Develop value statements that showcase the role and expertise of librarians as threshold guides for aspects of digital and information literacy

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Libraries continue to explore ways to be collaborators with undergraduate research experiences. For students to emerge as scholars, they must exhibit information literacy skills and learn how to enter their disciplinary conversations. However, based on the setup of undergraduate research programs, traditionally, libraries might only be used for its space and auxiliary resources. This presentation will showcase how an information literacy award, given to emerging student-scholars, helped to build a robust undergraduate research program across multi-campus library system that includes both large and small campus communities. In giving out this award, the library identified opportunities for intervention earlier and became a key stakeholder in supporting undergraduate research across the Commonwealth.

Participants will:

• Understand the role libraries play in supporting and enhancing undergraduate research opportunities in order to see space where their library could support undergraduate research at their institution
• Articulate best practices when creating support for undergraduate research in order to make the greatest impact and most efficient use of library personnel and resources

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

In a completely virtual library you can’t use donuts and pizza to attract patrons to your library events. But from challenge comes innovation! In 2018 the Walden University Library hosted its first virtual open house for Walden students, faculty, and staff. The open house utilized both live and asynchronous events complete with competition and prizes to bring patrons to our online library. In this session we will share triumphs and setbacks we encountered as we planned and hosted the open house. We will also share how lessons learned from this event will help shape future event planning and assessment.

Participants will:

• Learn the best practices in engaging off-site students
• Obtain knowledge about how to carry out marketing and outreach activities at a distance and communicate it to your population to gain better attendance and engagement

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Just as there are many roles to play at summer camp, academic teaching librarians engage with their campus communities through a broad range of roles. The myriad activities of teaching librarians are conceptualized in the ACRL Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians document. This document serves as a bridge connecting conceptualized roles and strengths to the practical acquisition of information literacy knowledge and dispositions, as conceptualized in the ACRL Framework. Come to this session to explore with us the roles and strengths articulated in the ACRL document. Join us as we develop strategies utilizing the various roles to implement the ACRL framework in the teaching and learning processes on our college campuses. You will leave this session with a personalized action plan to implement at your home institution inspired by definitions of roles and shared ideas to guide your future endeavors.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify the roles and strengths in the ACRL conceptual model for teaching librarians in order to describe the variety of work responsibilities undertaken by instruction librarians when implementing the ACRL Framework
• Recognize barriers and challenges faced when implementing the ACRL Framework in order to identify potential solutions utilizing the roles and strengths as defined in the ACRL document
• Develop an action plan to implement the ACRL Framework through the lens of the ACRL Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians conceptual model in order to more fully describe the roles embodied within campus communities

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Undergraduates in first-year composition courses need to strengthen the practice of inquiry and research papers are a common product of that learning process. However, many new college students benefit from participating first in low stakes opportunities to develop research ideas and questions. An activity we call Research Meditations enables novice researchers to reflect on information and develop questions and ideas for further inquiry, enabling students to envision directions for research. Through individual reflection and group discussion, students practice the recursive art of developing a research idea or question, without the limiting constraints of a full-blown research projects. Participants in our session will engage with the classroom activity through group discussions, learning how they can apply Research Meditations in the information literacy classroom.

Participants will:

• Experiment with the Research Meditation strategy
• Discuss application of Research Meditations in course-integrated information literacy settings
• Be able to integrate Research Meditations into instructional practice

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

This session will present a model for faculty support that focuses on increasing engagement, collaboration, and relationship building. Research sprints provide a unique format for the faculty to work with teams of librarians on their projects, which have ranged from developing course content to building websites and compiling databases of sources. This presentation will focus on the instructional design-related requests received over the last two iterations of the Sprints, describing the projects, support provided by the Libraries and the outcomes. The session will conclude with implications and options for applying this model to other contexts.

Participants will:

• Be able to define the research sprints model
• Analyze at least two research sprints projects
• Evaluate the pros and cons of the research sprints model

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Ready to tackle the whitewater in your instructional practice? Like rapids, spontaneous instances of instruction, or teachable moments, are popping up everywhere, in the classroom, at the reference desk, in chat, or in conversation with library stakeholders. Join our safety talk as we examine the characteristics of a teachable moment, explore the mindset of an individual ready for instruction, share experiences of teachable moments with library stakeholders, and provide insight into creating a culture celebrating spontaneous instruction. Participants will have the opportunity to consider a teachable moment they have encountered and share with a partner to gain constructive feedback.

Participants will:

• Recognize teachable moments in day to day professional practice (Comprehension)
• Identify a learner’s readiness for instruction and facilitate the transfer of specific knowledge (Knowledge/Application)
• Express the value and incremental benefits of teachable moments for self, library, and institution (Comprehension)

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

In the dense academic woods, librarians can clear new instructional trails by helping students learn how to read scholarly sources. In this session, we’ll discuss how face-to-face instruction on reading scholarly journal articles in a single curricular area evolved into an e-Learning resource available for all students at one institution. We’ll outline the rationale for this instruction, logistical considerations, assessment, and practical takeaways that can be implemented at any institution. While reading a scholarly source may feel akin to hiking through miles of dense text, we will share easily adaptable strategies for helping students more effectively understand scholarly content.

Participants will:

• Describe how two academic librarians developed in-class and online instruction on reading scholarly journal articles
• Connect instruction on reading scholarly journal articles to the information literacy concepts in the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education
• Identify three takeaways they can use to translate this instructional content to their own instructional setting(s)

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic

Library instruction and first-year composition courses typically share the same map. But, once students declare a major and move into upper-division coursework, their exposure to discipline-specific research skills becomes scattered at best. This presentation will focus on what one Library did to address information literacy gaps and inconsistencies across the university curriculum. Learn how to use strategic marketing to individual departments in order to develop customized, scaffolded information skills pathways through the majors. Traveling from curriculum mapping to achieving faculty buy-in, this presentation will help chart a course for lands beyond the first-year one-shot!

Participants will:

• Learn marketing and outreach techniques for selling the idea of a customized information skills program to departmental faculty
• Identify multiple methods of teaching and embedding research and information skills within a major or department

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

This presentation will describe the steps taken to develop a successful faculty workshop around the topic of information literacy, specifically within the context of research assignments. The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy acted as a foundation for discussions while online resources, such as Project CORA and the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox, provided examples of assignments infused with information literacy concepts. The resulting workshop included elements of active learning and discussion and provided an opportunity for librarians to develop deeper collaborations with faculty. Presenters will reflect on successes, lessons learned, and areas for future improvement.

Participants will:

• Be able to identify opportunities to engage faculty in discussions about information literacy in relation to research assignment design
• Recognize best practices for developing a faculty workshop and apply them to projects at their own campuses
• Be able to design activities that engage faculty in discussions around the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Teaching evaluation skills in the highly emotional world of fake news is a daunting task. This interactive presentation will showcase a unique and engaging evaluation lesson designed by a team of librarians at Utah State University. The lesson uses realistic case studies to give students the critical distance necessary to practice evaluation before diving into their personal research and biases. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience a simulation of the lesson’s case study activity and discuss strategies for teaching students adaptable evaluation skills that they can apply in their academic, professional, and personal lives.

Participants will:

• Engage in a source evaluation activity using case studies as a way to authentically address the nuances of this information literacy skill
• Learn about how this activity integrates with one library’s English composition program, and reflect on ways to adapt it for their own institutions
• Discuss source evaluation challenges and share strategies for addressing them, especially in today’s complex information environment

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Collaborating with your campus teaching and learning center is a key way to center the library at the heart of conversations on creative pedagogy and student learning. Librarians at a small college library will share how their collaboration has enabled their information literacy program to ripple across campus – expanding their teaching practice beyond the usual one-shot and shifting faculty perceptions of librarians as classroom partners. The presenters will describe how they have contributed their expertise to teaching center programming and administered a series of center-funded faculty grants for information literacy, digital literacy, and teaching with archival materials.

Participants will:

• Identify strategies for collaborating with a campus center for teaching and learning
• Articulate benefits and challenges of providing information literacy grants to faculty
• Understand strategies for assessing faculty collaborations around information literacy

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

This session presents how a library’s special collection of records from a local mental institution from the 1870s can be used to enhance an introduction to library resources for freshman psychology majors. Presenters will discuss the results of a pre- and post-test that measured student enthusiasm for the research process and using the library. This presentation will reflect on the successes and challenges of this collaboration, along with possible future uses of this collection in other courses. Librarians will demonstrate how drawing connections between special collections materials and academic programs helps to enrich student engagement and learning.

Participants will:

• Learn different library instruction options for freshman courses with no assignment attached
• Come away with ideas for utilizing library special collections for increasing student perceptions of library services and collections
• Learn how to integrate library special collections materials into discipline specific courses

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

What would happen if you engaged your most curious students as collaborators for service design? In this presentation, you’ll learn about the creation of an Undergraduate Library Fellows program that uses co-curricular mentoring and peer-to-peer learning to support library research and emerging modes of scholarship such as: data science, media, digital humanities, GIS and makerspace technologies. Consider how you can give students cutting-edge research opportunities, foster a community of students with library and domain expertise, and pilot new modes of reference and instruction by empowering undergraduates to serve in consultative and teaching roles.

Participants will:

• Identify opportunities to partner with undergraduates in order to support emerging areas of scholarship
• Explore peer-to-peer learning in order to pilot new service models with undergraduates in key consultative and teaching roles

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

In many information literacy activities, we teach our students to understand disciplinary research methods and the authority of academic researchers and publications. In our higher education contexts, this often excludes bodies of knowledge that have been marginalized by Western paradigms, forms of oppression such as colonialism or classism, and even our hallowed academic institutions of libraries and peer-review. This presentation will address the challenges and opportunities that these subjugated knowledges present to information literacy. It will give special consideration to processes of marginalization, the marginalized ways of knowing, and how they extend our understandings of authority in information sources and how to teach students to recognize and evaluate it.

Participants will:

• Be able to define marginalized knowledge, and identify several examples of marginalized bodies of knowledge and ways of knowing
• Analyze and reflect on how they teach students about authority in information sources, and ways they might reorient those teaching methods to account for marginalized knowledge

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

The Embedded Writing and Research Tutors program is an outcome of close collaboration between the library and the writing center at St. Olaf College. In this program, high-potential underrepresented students are cross-trained to provide one-on-one tutoring in both writing and research support in developmental writing courses.

Presenters will share information about the program’s origins, logistics, and training. Data will be presented to capture and synthesize the results of the program during its first two years. Attendees will gain practical ideas for working collaboratively across campus offices to empower student tutors and reimagine services for underrepresented students.

Participants will:

• Learn about a successful collaboration across campus offices
• Understand the benefits of integrating writing and research support
• Formulate a plan for starting or renewing a collaboration on their own campus

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

What does it take to promote IL as a campus-wide endeavor? How can librarians motivate faculty to take ownership of IL instruction? This librarian panel will describe how shared ownership of IL instruction is possible. Librarians will explain how they successfully trained disciplinary faculty to both scaffold IL skills into their courses and teach these skills on their own. Panelists will share their assessment experience and describe how the IL-enhanced assignments contributed to students’ learning. Attendees will be able to adapt these strategies to strengthen librarian-faculty collaborations as well as to prioritize and better maximize their own instruction efforts.

Participants will:

• Explain to stakeholders why faculty-led IL instruction is necessary to student learning of IL
• Apply strategies from our IL program’s shared-ownership model in order to strengthen librarian-faculty collaborations and maximize their own instructional efforts at their institutions

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

During this session, reference & instruction librarians at Carleton College will discuss three established information literacy assessment projects. We will explain how these projects have helped us shape our pedagogy and teaching, as well as describe recently introduced assessment measures. To situate these projects, we will trace the history of academic departments that have included elements of information literacy in their learning goals. We will discuss how we responded to these goals by incorporating different types of assessments during the students’ college experience. These assessment projects have been deeply integrated into the library’s practice after years of refining so that we, as recent hires to the college, are able to work on them where others left off, while also contributing our existing knowledge.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify our various assessment projects in order to determine if they might focus their assessment or instruction on similar measures
• Evaluate their own assessment practices at key stages of the college/university experience in order to determine if they are gathering data from the appropriate points during the student experience
• Identify potential partners in their institutions for assessment in order to potentially participate in similar projects themselves

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

As academic libraries and librarians often focus on providing library instruction to students in first-year courses and seminars, almost every institution of higher education also has in its nearby communities area high schools. Students at high schools have uneven access to school and public libraries, and even as secondary school curriculum becomes more focused on providing students with research opportunities, the infrastructure to support that research is not always present. In this presentation, participants will learn about a variety of instructional design scenarios they could use to grow the research skills of students in local high schools.

Participants will:

• Learn about several different research opportunities or experiences at the high school level that academic librarians could support, regardless of geography
• See several different instructional scenarios and learn about learning activities that can be used to scaffold student learning, and formative assessments to measure the growth of student learning

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Librarians have long pioneered source evaluation as the first step to healthy civic learning. Traditionally, systematic source evaluation focuses on content, but twenty-first century source evaluation must begin reflectively, and begins when the researcher takes personal inventory on their emotions attached to the investigative topic.

This session will detail the IF I APPLY tool, a new method to foster intellectual integrity during inquiry thinking, and a fresh way to introduce students to source evaluation encouraging lifelong learning. The creators will discuss the tool’s success across a variety of teaching settings, and will share incorporation and assessment ideas for individual use.

Participants will:

• Acquire a new education tool to incorporate into their own information literacy instruction
• Learn a re-imagined and re-engineered method of resource evaluation
• Gain a focused assessment strategy to apply to their own information literacy instruction

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

What knowledge and practices about the research process do students bring to the information literacy classroom? What do they think about when they think about research? To answer these questions, we’ve qualitatively analyzed research process maps drawn by first-year students prior to information literacy instruction. This session will describe our assessment process, share key themes, and discuss implications of our findings. Participants will reflect on how students’ conceptions of the research process differ from their own and how this may impact our approaches to the classroom.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe a qualitative research method for information literacy assessment
• Reflect on how their understanding of the research process differs from first-year students’ understanding

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

The information landscape is a wild, rugged terrain, marked by tangled forests, fog-veiled waters, and awesome discoveries. Yet, much library instruction models a process with clear-cut paths, unobstructed sightlines, and easily-anticipated results. Instead of preparing agile, environmentally-attuned explorers, we’re leaving our students feeling frustrated and confused. In this session, we’ll share strategies for preparing students to confront the ambiguities of research with flexibility, confidence, and creativity.

Drawing from research in critical information literacy and scholarship of teaching and learning, we’ll articulate the pedagogical value of centering ambiguity in the teaching of research skills, then offer examples from our instruction practices at Midwestern liberal arts colleges and suggest adaptations for other contexts. Finally, we’ll invite attendees to contribute to this conversation through guided discussion.

Participants will:

• Understand the pedagogical value of modeling adaptive search strategies and metacognitive evaluation in information literacy sessions
• Be able to implement strategies that support students’ understanding and application of the dispositions laid out by the “Searching as Strategic Exploration” frame of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy.
• Be able to design an information literacy instruction session that models adaptive search behaviors.

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

It’s been well-documented that a majority of undergraduates rely almost exclusively on the metaphorical “raft” of Internet resources for research survival, even after receiving library (or “swimming”) instruction. In this session, the presenters will share how predictable information literacy misconceptions influence student information-seeking behavior, undermining the effectiveness of library instruction. Drawing inspiration from fields including strategic communication, behavioral economics, and instructional design, they will make a case for the importance of librarians explicitly highlighting the relevance of instructional content. Finally, participants will learn one effective strategy for creating classroom engagement while doing so, encouraging students’ development from “floaters” to “swimmers.”.

Participants will be able to:

• will define the rational actor paradigm, a concept from the discipline of behavioral economics, in order to recognize its influence on student information-seeking behavior
• recognize the most common misconceptions of first-year college students as identified by research in order to both meet students where they are and help them move toward relativistic thinking about information
• construct engagement questions in order to capture students’ attention, highlight the relevance of upcoming content, and address common student misconceptions about information and research.
  

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Fandom and fan studies aren’t just personal interests outside of the classroom; students are connecting their research with their hobbies. Primary source research runs the gamut from the traditional archive to fanfiction, zines, and music. As fan studies become more commonplace in the classroom how can we teach students to navigate the tricky ethical and fast changing waters of these important primary sources for fan studies research? And how can we as researchers, librarians, and teachers make sure to help students hone their strategies and skills for research in this growing field?

In this session we will focus on how to educate ourselves and our students on issues of ethics and consent in fandom research, specifically regarding zines and online fanfiction.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify strategies for researching fandom across multiple media
• Articulate how to evaluate if a fanfiction/zine collection has been created ethically or with the consent of the original creator(s)

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic

Every summer a cohort of Native American students participates in a “bridge” program at the Indian University of North America in western South Dakota. Librarians from the University of South Dakota provide information-literacy instruction for this program. Realizing that their instruction was not engaging the students, the librarians engaged in action research. This case study describes how to apply anthropological methods to reveal cultural factors influencing instruction. Ways to revise instruction to accommodate students’ identities and needs are discussed. This presentation engages active learning; audience members will have an opportunity to apply methods of cultural anthropology to the presenters’ data.

Participants will:

• Realize that instruction ought to be culturally aligned with the instrumental and relational needs of the target population
• Learn how to apply anthropological methods in action research to reveal cultural factors that influence instruction in both positive and negative ways
• Consider ways to revise teaching to accommodate students’ cultural identities and needs in order to improve IL instruction of Native American students

Intended audience: At least some experience with the topic

Students often scan information sources for sentences they can cite, rather than considering sources in a more holistic way. Consequently, they often take information out of context, citing sources that are inappropriate to the argument they are trying to support. Unfortunately, frequently used evaluation tools like the CRAAP test fail to fully address the context in which the information being evaluated was produced, and completely ignore the context in which the student is currently working. Two librarians teamed with an instructor to address this problem, developing instructional tools and exercises to support students' development and application of better critical thinking skills when choosing and incorporating sources. This presentation discusses our journey so far and provides hands-on experience with techniques and tools we have developed.

Participants will:

• Recognize the problem of contextual evaluation and its symptoms as distinct from other aspects of source evaluation in order to identify how this problem may manifest in the context of their own activities and user populations
• Perform contextual evaluation on source materials using an assessment tool in order to apply and then reflect on the methods described

Intended audience: Brand new to the topic, At least some experience with the topic