During Fall Quarter of 2008, I visited six information literacy sessions in a variety of disciplines held at the Seattle Pacific University Library to gain a feel for how the SPU liaison librarians taught information literacy. I observed the librarians' teaching styles, answered student questions during the practice time, and gave several tours of the library building. At the same time, I took LIS 568, so I was immersed in both the theory and practice of information literacy, which proved to be very valuable during the next quarter.


 My chance to teach information literacy came in Winter Quarter 2009, when I volunteered to help teach some sessions and was given four opportunities. The first was an entry-level biology lab session, where students were assigned to find a news article that referenced a scientific study and then to find the study cited in the article. The students were then asked to compare the two pieces. Having first observed a prior lab session, I prepared for my class by consulting the science librarian's notes and handouts. My presentation focused on how to use the databases to find relevant articles and how to acquire copies of the articles. While I did a good job overall in my presentation, according to the science librarian, my unfamiliarity with the material was apparent in my delivery.

 The second information literacy session I taught was a senior history capstone. The students needed to find primary source materials for the Antebellum period to be used to write a "hypothetical fictionalized biography." In this setting, I worked with the humanities librarian to prepare a new presentation; neither of us had taught the class before. For my part, I covered catalog searches, database searches, online archival collections, using Library of Congress Subject Headings to search, and working backwards from citations. My presentation can be found at the end of this page. While the humanities librarian thought that I did a fine job, I found this second experience to be more stressful than my first one. For the science class, I had followed a prepared lesson plan that the science librarian had used many times, but for the history seminar, I had to prepare a portion of the lesson myself. It was my first time writing an information literacy presentation from scratch and while that made for more stress on my part, it was a valuable learning experience.

 My third session, a business seminar, did not require me to prepare my own material. Instead, I used a group exercise that the business librarian had used before to introduce students to print resources that would help them write a marketing plan, the main class assignment. The students formed groups, were assigned a particular reference book and answered a worksheet of questions about the item. I then led the students in a discussion about how these resources would help them complete the assignment. After this, the business librarian talked about databases and web resources that would also be helpful. The activity was popular with the students; it was referenced several times in the comments students turned in after the session, which can be seen at the end of this page. The business librarian told me that I led a successful discussion and this session was the one in which I began to feel comfortable presenting to students.

 An economics class was my final teaching experience. The students had been assigned a paper and were given a list of topics to choose from. Using a presentation already prepared by the business librarian, I gave a basic tutorial on finding the books and articles the students needed to fulfill the paper's requirements. After this, the business librarian spoke briefly about web resources students would find useful. To keep the students engaged, we used "clickers," remote control-like units that the students used to answer multiple-choice questions I posed to them throughout the presentation (which can be seen at the end of this page). The students' answers were recorded and displayed in graph form, giving both the students and I an idea of how familiar they were with the material. The clickers were popular with students, and, based on the comment forms students turned in after the session, helpful to their understanding of the concepts. These comments are also in a link at the end of this page. Once again, the business librarian was pleased with my performance, and I, too, felt pleased with how I had done.

 The four information literacy sessions that I taught gave me a wide variety of experiences. I used different technologies, such as Powerpoint and the clickers, and I taught in a variety of disciplines (science, history, business). I wrote my own lesson plan for the history capstone and I used other librarians' materials in other sessions - the biology lecture, the business group activity and the economics clicker quiz - so I also experienced making another's work "my own" to teach it successfully. Between the first and last sessions, I became more comfortable with presenting the searching techniques to students. The three librarians I worked with were impressed with my performances and the students responded favorably in their written comments on the sessions. Most importantly, I gained confidence in my ability to teach information literacy concepts and I now have ideas of ways I can improve my teaching for future sessions.


To see some of the presentations I used and a selection of students' comments on my sessions, click on one of the links below:

History Capstone Presentation: Jacksonian America
Economics Presentation (Clickers)

History Capstone Student Comments 1
History Capstone Student Comments 2
Business Seminar Student Comments 1
Business Seminar Student Comments 2
Economics Class Student Comments 1
Economics Class Student Comments 2