Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Break The Ice, Build The Momentum: Successful Strategies For Beginning A Library Instruction Session, Carrie Donovan, Rachel Slough

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2010

For information literacy instructors, a common teaching challenge is how to start a class effectively. Without previous exposure to learners, library instructors have little understanding of students' prior knowledge or research needs. At the same time, the reason for a librarian's involvement in a course at all is usually a mystery for students.

The benefits of introductory learning activities, such as warm-ups, are pedagogically sound, but library instructors may be reluctant to incorporate these strategies into information literacy instruction due to limitations of time. Yet librarians still strive to design engaging information literacy sessions that result in meaningful and long-lasting …

Lolcats And Celebrities And (Red Panda) Bears – Oh, My!, Mary T. Moser

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2010

Getting - and keeping - students' attention during library instruction sessions is an increasingly Herculean task. We all know the best practices for teaching: be engaging, ask questions, provide opportunities for active learning. But what if those techniques just aren't enough? By experimenting wildly with the presentation of my library instruction sessions, I have found that a lot of teaching power lies within the unexpected. Often, topics with very little direct correlation to libraries make interesting and engaging platforms for teaching information literacy concepts. Some of the add-ons I have used in classes include: slideshows of LOLcat pictures to impart …