Academic
Exchange Quarterly Fall 2003:
Volume 7, Issue 3
A
Collaborative Approach to Information Literacy in the Freshman Seminar
Elizabeth Blakesley Lindsay,
Beth Lindsay is
the Head of Library Instruction at
Abstract
This article discusses the collaboration between the
Libraries and the Freshman Seminar Program at
Anyone who has
taught or participated in a library instruction session knows that teaching
students research skills without a specific context is usually a waste of
time. Without a particular assignment or
project, students are not motivated to learn and often do not come away with a
clear understanding of what resources the library can offer. Working with a freshman seminar over the
course of a semester has been rewarding for the students, who have learned both
concrete research skills and higher order critical thinking and information
literacy skills, and also for the librarians. Playing a part in the training
process for the undergraduate students who actually deliver the freshman
seminar has been another successful venture.
Through another course, GenEd 300, librarians
spend eight weeks teaching information literacy and research skills to a group
of students who need that information not only for their coursework, but also
for their upcoming jobs as freshman seminar peer facilitators. This
collaboration between the librarians and the Freshman Seminar Program has
provided the librarians with the opportunity to teach motivated learners, and
the material can be seen having an immediate, real impact.
General
Education (GenEd) 104, known as Freshman Seminar, is
an elective class at
Gen Ed 104 is a
two-credit course which is linked to another course that fulfills a general
education requirement. Recent linked
courses have included GenEd 110 and GenEd 111, the two semester world civilization course
required of all students, as well as 100-level courses in communication,
anthropology, biology, sociology, animal science, fine arts, and food
science. Students enrolled in a section
of GenEd 104 are all also enrolled together in the
linked course, allowing for a true learning community experience. Students choose a topic as an entire class,
then break into smaller groups. Each
group is then responsible for refining and focusing the topic, performing
research and creating a multi-media presentation as a final project. To foster this approach, the class is taught
in a computer classroom, which is arranged with circular tables. This design allows for peer collaboration and
interactive learning. Having no
“discernable `front’ of the room” also reduces lecture-style delivery (Henscheid 22).
The design of
this learning space is also important given that GenEd
104 is different than other freshman seminar courses not only in curriculum
design, but also in delivery and staffing.
An undergraduate leads the seminar, rather than faculty members or
academic services staff personnel. An
undergraduate peer facilitator is responsible for planning activities, using a
course-wide syllabus, facilitating the class sessions and discussions, and
providing feedback, including formal grades.
A graduate student facilitator and another undergraduate, particularly
trained for technological support work, are also involved in the process,
albeit a bit less directly. Jean M. Henscheid notes the reasons for deciding upon this
structure including the financial savings, but more importantly, that a number
of research studies show the value and benefits of peer instruction (21). This also led to the decision to make the
seminar content “strictly intellectual,” as opposed to the content often found
in these courses that is delivered by student services staff or teaching
faculty, to avoid the “course becoming a forum for socializing or personal counseling facilitators are not qualified to
provide” (Henscheid 21).
In addition to
input of the linked course faculty in the final project, all GenEd 104 classes meet with a librarian at least once. A librarian is assigned to each section, and
that librarian works with the peer facilitator to become familiar with the
topic being covered by the group. The
librarian designs a resource guide, which includes ideas for article databases,
search strategies for locating books, a list of useful reference books, and
some high-quality websites. During the
library session, the students learn how to use different resources and gain
practice with defining their topic and selecting search strategies. In previous years, librarians also delivered
a second class session on plagiarism and citation, but the peer facilitators
are now delivering that content.
Librarians are invited to take part in the mid-point project review
process, as well as the final grading process using a critical thinking rubric
designed by the university’s center for teaching, learning and technology.
As Katherine Strober Dabbour points out, “just
in time” or course-integrated instruction, sessions related to a specific
course assignment, is effective, but “just in case” instruction may be viewed
as less effective or less involved in the curriculum (300). Throughout her article, Dabbour
makes a case for employing active learning to reinforce important concepts,
even if there is no specific research assignment. Although we meet with the GenEd
104 students in connection with their project, we see them early in the
semester when they have usually not solidified their topic. In acknowledgement of that, the sessions tend
to combine the specific tools often covered in a course-integrated sessions,
such as the library catalog and article databases, but the sessions also focus
a great deal on effective search strategies across different types of resources
and on evaluating content. We allow time
in the session for the groups to work together, hopefully gaining inspiration
from the array of resources to help them try out strategies and narrow their
focus. We also provide active learning
exercises to reinforce the concepts, knowing that the tools they need may
change as their topic evolves.
Activities used by different librarians include having the groups
brainstorm keywords for their topic, try out searches with those terms, and
report back to the others about their strategy and results. We also often employ guided activities so
that they gain practice with evaluating sources. Critical thinking is an important goal of the
course, and the librarians work to bring critical thinking and information
literacy skills into the heart of the sessions.
Critical
thinking underpins the assessment process for the final projects. The critical thinking rubric is used not only
to evaluate the final projects but also to guide the students through the
process. Students know from the
beginning what the rubric covers, and that knowledge should guide them in
designing better projects. The rubric
consists of six parts, which are all rated on a scale of 1-6. Points 2, 4 and 6 are defined as “emerging,”
“developing” and “mastering.” The six
areas assessed are identifying the problem; identifying other perspectives and
positions; identifying one’s own perspective and position; using and evaluating
supporting data and evidence; identifying conclusions and implications; and
presenting the information in an appropriate manner. Librarians, peer facilitators, graduate
facilitators, Student Advising and
Throughout the
course, librarians assist the students with their research process, but all of
their experiences in GenEd 104 foster information
literacy. The course itself covers a
number of the information literacy competency standards identified by the
Association of College and Research Libraries, including the fourth and fifth
standards. These standards deal with
organization of information, revision, communication of data and research, and
ethical use of materials. The final
project requires them to produce a multi-media presentation, using images and
other media files appropriately, organizing multiple perspectives on the topic,
and using sound design principles. The
librarians’ input ensures that students are able to do all of this after
gaining experience and skill in the areas outlined in the other three
competency standards: determining their information need, selecting and using
information resources and tools, and synthesizing and evaluating the materials
located.
Information literacy skills
and the input of librarians are also crucial elements in the peer facilitator
training program. Becoming a peer
facilitator involves much more than just applying for the job. After an
intensive application and interviewing process, students who are selected to
become facilitators enroll in Education Administration (EdAd)
497 and GenEd 300 for training. EdAd 497 is team
taught by faculty and graduate instructors from the Student Advising and
Another
component of their training comes from their enrollment in GenEd
300. GenEd
300, Accessing Information for Research, is taught by librarians and has
several different faces. There is a
version taught online for distance program students, and the on-campus course
is offered in several ways. Different
sections are offered to focus on humanities, social sciences, sciences, and
education. Sections for health sciences
and music are in development, and sections for special populations, such as
The GenEd 300 section for the facilitators covers some
theoretical material not handled in the other sections, such as research
processes and methodologies and the use of information. The first few weeks of the course are devoted
to readings and discussions about how students seek and use information and the
role of the internet in research and communication. The students are given the chance to examine
their own views and approaches, and to consider how those have changed since
they were freshmen. The readings include
the Pew report on college students’ use of the internet (Jones 2002), an
article on faculty assumptions about undergraduate research (Leckie 1998), a newspaper article on student and teacher
attitudes toward using the internet (Harris 2002), and a research article
regarding the “information age mindset” (Frand
2002). Students write a brief paper
addressing their views on how the information age and technology have affected
education and will affect their future teaching.
The curriculum
then moves into practice with examining and using process models, such as the
Big Six and concept mapping, for their own work and for helping their future
students organize their projects. GenEd 104 students tend to choose broad, unwieldly topics, and approximately two weeks of the
syllabus will be devoted to exercises in asking the “right” questions,
formulating arguments, examining assumptions, and focusing the larger topics
into workable ones. The peer
facilitators gain the tools and knowledge they will need to do this from GenEd 300 and EdAd 497.
The course also
addresses practical matters, such as an advanced session on the library catalog,
in-depth use and analysis of the article databases, and detailed active
learning regarding finding materials, whether they are in print, available
electronically or outside the library system.
In addition, the students learn how to effectively use internet search
engines and a good deal of attention is paid to evaluating sources,
particularly web-based ones. Even the
savviest students learn during these class sessions. Many of these students, even those who
consider themselves excellent researchers, always use the same search engine
and are surprised to learn that different engines provide different
materials. These upper-level
undergraduates hone and expand their information literacy and competencies as
they gain concrete tools and strategies that will enable them to help other
students become information literate.
GenEd 300 also provides the facilitators with
the training and materials they will need to teach their students about
plagiarism and citation. A series of
active learning activities have been designed by librarians to help students
explore definitions of plagiarism and determine whether selected passages have
been handled properly. Discussions and
practice with citation formatting occurs throughout the class, including
database searching activities and formal papers.
The final
project for GenEd 300 has taken different forms as
the EdAd 497 syllabus changes. Most recently, students chose a topic of
interest and worked as a group and independently. Topics included grading, motivating students
and the benefits of freshman seminar programs.
The small groups made an oral presentation to their classmates about the
topic and their findings. In an
individual written paper, students addressed their topic and findings, and also
examined their research process, recounting their strategies, analyzing their
results and noting what could have been more effective or still needs to be
done.
Collaboration
between the librarians and the Freshman Seminar Program has led to improvements
in the students’ final projects and also to an increased awareness of and
competency in information literacy skills among the students. The librarians have also benefited
professionally and personally from being involved with the seminar groups,
providing tailored instruction and research assistance and playing a crucial
role in the assessment of the final projects.
Further, the librarians’ involvement with training the upcoming peer
facilitators has added to the importance and value of the libraries’ involvement
with the educational process. Through
work with the seminars and with GenEd 300, the
librarians are making an impact in an academic program that strives to create
information literate, critical thinking citizens.
References
Association of
College and Research Libraries. Information Literacy Competency Standards
for Higher Education.
Dabbour, Katherine Strober. “Applying Active Learning Methods to the
Design of Library Instruction for a Freshman Seminar.” College
& Research Libraries 58 (1997): 299-308.
Frand, Jason L. “The Information Age Mindset: Changes in
Students and Implications for Higher Education.” Educause Review,
September/October 2002: 15-24.
Harris, Mikal J. “The Net
Set.”
Henscheid, Jean M.
“Peer Facilitators as Lead Freshman Seminar Instructors.” In Judith E. Miller, James E. Grocchia, and Marilyn S. Miller, eds., Student-Assisted Teaching: A Guide to Faculty-Student Teamwork.
Jones,
Steve. “The Internet Goes to College:
How Students Are Living in the Future with Today’s Technology.” Pew Internet and American Life Project. September 15, 2002.
<http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_College_Report.pdf> May 27, 2003.
Leckie, Gloria.
“Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering Faculty Assumptions about the
Undergraduate Research Process.” Journal
of Academic Librarianship 22 (May
1996): 201-208.
“Preparing
Freshmen to Excel.” In Bridges to Student Success: Exemplary
Programs 1998.