The annual conference of the PA Library Association is coming up fast. It is always a great time of learning from and connecting with other librarians from around Pennsylvania, many of whom have become good friends.
This year I will be presenting a poster about a very successful pilot project with my great Nursing Department faculty. Over the past few years we realized that while the information literacy instruction was adequate, we were still frustrated with lower levels of information literacy in students than we would like to see. This led to sitting around the table and redesigning the information literacy curriculum.
Originally I met with nursing students in a 200 level course and again at a 400 level course. We realized that even though I met with students for an instruction session and a subsequent hands-on session, we were simply throwing too much new information and skills at them in the 200 level course, and they were not retaining nor using advanced research skills in later assignments. We redesigned the curricula to be just a basic session in the 200 level course and added an advanced research skills session in a 300 level course that ran concurrent with a large research paper.
Further discussions led to development of an information literacy assignment in the form of two worksheets that students had to complete as they began a literature search on their topic for the paper. The paper was turned in through the learning management system. I graded the two worksheets on a three point scale and provided the grades and individualized feedback to students and faculty.
The objectives of this added instruction session and assignment were to increase student information literacy skills, access and cite articles from the library collection, reflect on how these skills could improve current and future research projects, and increase student consultation with the librarian. I believe we were successful in three of the four objectives, which is pretty good for a pilot project! Students realized better research strategies as indicated on the worksheets. Consultations increased for this research paper from just a few emails to 36 individualized consultation sessions. Due to time constraints, we did not include a reflection assessment.
Feedback from students indicated that they were pleased with learning new skills to help them more efficiently and effectively access articles. While I taught these skills before, many students never utilized them because they were not required to do so. Feedback from faculty indicated that the literature reviews were much more focused and articles were much more relevant to the topics.
I look forward to sharing this at the poster session (Monday lunch poster session). Stop by to see me if you are there!
TechieLibrarian 