Information Literacy Curriculum Guide

COR 100

Design and objectives

The sequence has been designed for two face-to-face sessions with flipped components that consist of short videos to be watched before class and short quizzes to assess students’ understanding of the concepts introduced; the function of the face-to-face sessions is to reinforce concepts addressed in the videos and to complete active learning activities to help solidify learning.  The face-to-face sessions have been designed to allow for a degree of practice, another significant aspect of transference of learning.  The sequence has been created according to and aligns with the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

The objectives of the scope and sequence are as follows:

1. Students will be able to describe specific ways college-level research differs from what they have experienced before.
2. Students will develop familiarity with the library's physical and virtual spaces, which should help minimize library and research anxiety.
3. Students will be able to describe the rudiments how information is created, disseminated, and organized-i.e. peer review, scholarly/non-scholarly sources, fundamentals of LC classification, etc.
4. Students will develop a foundational sense of the social nature and ethical use of information.
5. Students will learn a simple heuristic process to evaluate information.

The sequence has been set up with the over arching metaphor of thinking about information and research in terms of ecosystems (see below).  The link for the materials is: https://stmartin.libguides.com/InformationEcosystems

Session 1

Big Questions: How is college-level research different from what I’ve experienced? What library resources are available to me?

Learning Objectives: 1, 2, 3

ACRL frames addressed:

• Research as inquiry
• Searching as a strategic exploration
• Scholarship as conversation

Before library visit

• Take the pre-quiz
• Watch the following Video segments

• Information creation as process“Information ecosystems” (3:37)
• “Quick Introduction to the Research Process” (4:18)
• “Feeling Overwhelmed?” (1:08)
• “What Is Scholarship?” (1:20)
• “Scholarly Arguments” (1:39)
  • Check in 1
•  “The Physical Library” (2:23)
• “Quick Introduction to LCC” (4:15)
• “The Digital Library” (2:50)
• Deep web v. surface web (3:50)
• “The Open Web” (2:59)
  • Check in 2

(Viewing time 26:19)

Library visit

• Tour of the library's physical space, including "treasure hunt" activity to reinforce the Library of Congress Classification scheme.
• Tour of the library virtual space, including the following:
  • The library website, including 24/7 chat help
  • Basic searching in Saints search
  • Research guides
  • Hours and contact information

After library visit

• Take the post-quiz

Session 2

Big questions: Where do I find information appropriate for my research?  How do I identify good information and use it ethically?

Learning objectives: 2, 3, 4

ACRL frames addressed:

• Authority is constructed and contextual
• Information creation as a process
• Scholarship as conversation
• Information has value

Before library visit

• Pre-quiz
• Watch the following video segments:
  • Scholarly v. non-scholarly sources of information (2:08)
  • Scholarly journals (2:36)
  • Scholarly books (1:45)
    • Check in 1
  • Non-scholarly periodicals (2:25)
  • Non-scholarly books (1:11)
  • Primary and secondary works (2:20)
  • Using Wikipedia for academic research (3:36)
  • Evaluating websites (5:47)
    • Check in 2

(Viewing time: 21:48)

Library visit

• Presentation/activity on plagiarism
• Website evaluation activity
• At least two of the following:
  • Activity on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources
  • Activity on recognizing scholarly v. popular information sources
  • Using Wikipedia responsibly

After library visit

• Take post-quiz

Information ecosystems

The COR 100 information literacy sequence consists to two linked sessions that employ a structuring metaphor of information ecosystems to lay a more consistent framework that will introduce students to the expectations of college- and professional-level research.  This sequence introduces students to the concept of interacting with information sources similarly to organisms in an ecosystem and is a bit more conceptual in approach, addressing concerns addressed by the current literature on the information literacy of college students in general and first-year students in particular.  These concerns could be generally grouped under what Allison J. Head and her colleagues at Project Information Literacy call an incomplete sense of “context” regarding college-level research; they break down the concept of context into four general components:

1. Big picture: students struggle with the big picture in their research, not always seeing the need for academic information sources or having the background knowledge necessary to understand these sources
2. Information gathering: students have a hard time “finding and securing relevant sources,” relying instead on what has worked in the past, i.e. Google, Wikipedia, etc.
3. Language: many students struggle with the vocabulary associated with both their disciplines and the language of research itself
4. Situational: many students struggle with knowing when they have enough quality information to make a defendable claim (i)

Furthermore, information literacy scholars have identified five areas of concern that seem to affect first-year students particularly strongly:

1. Library anxiety (discomfort with using library resources and approaching librarians)
2. Over estimation of information seeking skills
3. Misunderstanding the organization of information
4. Developing topics and search strategies 
5. Evaluating information sources (ii)

This scope and sequence has been designed to explicitly help students build a better context of college-level research by fleshing out key abstract principles associated with our information ecosystem.  These principles can help students transfer their learning about information finding from one context to another.  Buckland and Mulligan point out that “engaging in abstraction highlighting the importance of principles of underlying new learning” is a key element that contributes to transferring knowledge to novel situations. (iii)

The UNI 101 curriculum has been modified to take advantage of the power of metaphorical thinking (metaphor, simile, analogy) in learning.  There is a rich literature on the function of metaphorical thinking and its value as a pedagogical tool.  Tate claimed that metaphorical thinking is extraordinarily powerful because “the brain is a maker of meaning...constantly searching for connections and patterns.” (iv)  Additionally, as Lakoff and Johnson showed, metaphorical thinking comes naturally to us and is so central to our thought processes that we hardly notice when we engage with it (v) and Wormli noted that metaphorical thinking usually involves visualizing, allowing learners to see differences and similarities, and asserted that “If we want students to understand a topic, we have to become more adept at showing them how to picture it.” (vi)    Teaching methods that use metaphorical teaching can be very useful at communicating abstract concepts more concretely because meaning is created by activating what students have learned in the past to serve as a kind of bridge to the new concepts—note the very metaphorical nature of this claim. (vii)   Beyond connectivity, metaphorical thinking can create personal meaning through taking advantage of associated meanings with objects (viii) and by disrupting thought if the metaphor is jarring enough, inviting learners to see/construct the world differently. (ix)