Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Librarians As Partners In Service-Learning Courses (Part Ii), Maureen Barry

University Libraries' Staff Publications

In Part I, I described two case studies during which I collaborated with service-learning instructors. Here, I will explore how librarian-faculty collaborations for service-learning courses are similar to or different from librarian-faculty collaborations in courses without service-learning and offer advice for librarians who may have the opportunity to support or become a partner in service-learning courses.

Research For The Greater Good: Incorporating Service Learning In An Information Literacy Course At Wright State University, Maureen Barry

University Libraries' Staff Publications

Like many librarians who teach a for-credit information literacy course, I often struggled to engage students meaningfully. My students seemed to lack any real connection to the curriculum and so were often unmotivated and difficult to teach.

One day, while talking to a faculty member who teaches service learning (SL) courses, I saw an opportunity to incorporate an SL component into my course. My class would require students to provide research to a local nonprofit agency. The class assignments would allow my students to develop real-world connections to the community and the curriculum. I hoped it would engage them more …

Librarians As Partners In Service-Learning Courses (Part I), Maureen Barry

University Libraries' Staff Publications

Service-learning is a high-impact educational practice that engages students (Kuh, 2008) and is a growing trend in higher education (Campus Compact, 2011). In 2008, my coinstructor and fellow library staff member, Cheryl Lauricella, and I incorporated service-learning in our for-credit information literacy (IL) course because we recognized that connecting information literacy to the real world through service-learning would lead to increased skill retention and engagement with the curriculum (Barry, 2011). Before this realization, when I taught my first few for-credit information literacy courses as a new professional, I asked my students to research a hobby or something related to their …