Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Teaching Information Literacy With Authentic Problems: Creating And Using An Online Module, Heather Leary, Wendy Holliday, Anne R. Diekema

Heather Leary, Ph.D.

The American Library Association defines information literacy as a “set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.” Students in an academic setting need to learn how to learn about all kinds of information. Committed to finding innovative ways to teach students information literacy skills, Utah State University’s Library Instruction Program created a free online course to teach these skills. This presentation will explain the course, why and how it was created, the problem based approach using authentic scenarios, the value it adds to library instruction, and how it can be integrated into a curriculum.

Information Literacy: Finding And Using Information, January 2009, Heather Leary, Anne R. Diekema, Wendy Holliday

Heather Leary, Ph.D.

This course is for learning information literacy skills, especially those related to using an academic library and the Internet for college-level research. The course uses a modified problem-based learning approach to give you an authentic and hands-on experience with the subject matter. The purpose of this course is to help you learn about information, the tools that can be used to find, evaluate, and share it, and to practice the skills you have learned.

It is designed for students and teachers in higher education, but can be modified easily for other learners. The course assumes basic Internet capabilities (browser navigation …