Library and Information Science 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 …

Making Information Literacy Stick: Finding Success In Library Instruction, Dunstan Mcnutt

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2010

Making Information Literacy Stick is an interactive workshop focused on making the ideas we present in the classroom unforgettable. Drawing from Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick (2007), I will present their formula for sticky ideas: SUCCESs (Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions, and Stories). Many of these elements work well with prescriptions from the critical information literacy literature, honing in on the students' own experiences. In the spirit of this style of instruction, librarians will break themselves into groups of 5-10 so that they can share their personal experiences relevant to the formula's elements. In the hopes that the …