This is a fun, hands-on activity that can help with brainstorming a topic and/or reserach question. Can also function as an ice-breaker! The results can be informative...and also sometimes entertaining!On the slip of paper (attachment), students write their name and a Population that they'd like to focus on. then they hand it off to another student, who fills in a Place. They then hand it off to a third student, who fills in a Problem. Finally, the slip is returned to its original owner who must formulate a research question based on those three pieces of information. 

This Worksheet is based on Mike Caulfield’s S.I.F.T. Method. Students will first need to have a familiarity with that. I highly recommend the “S.I.F.T. For Teachers” video playlist on his YouTube channel and/or his website.This activity would probably take most of a class period. Could also be done online via a Discussion.

This is a good way to get students thinking about the conceptual differences between data, information and knowledge – which is an important first step to understanding how data, information and knowledge are created, disseminated and consumed. 

List of nearly two dozen short (~5 min) videos that deal with various topics related to Misinformation & News/Media Literacy. Prompt Questions included for each video. Great to use for a class activity/assignment.

This think-pair-share activity worksheet allows students to apply search terms to their own research topic and can be used after a class discussion or class lecture on library and database searching. First, students think on their own about potential search terms for their own topic. Then, they pair up and discuss how they thought of those terms and how they might use Boolean operators to connect those terms. Lastly, the pairs share with the class about what they talked about in their pairs. This resource is suitable for in-person and synchronous online instruction and takes about 10 minutes for students to complete the entire think-pair-share process.

This LibGuide is used when teaching a 30 minute workshop for Honors students who are required to research an immigration story from their own family tree.  They have to research their geneology to the point where they find an ancestor who immigrated to the United States. They will try to find why that immigrant came to America and whether they are part of a particular wave of migration, i.e. slavery, Irish potato famine, industrialization, etc...Since everyone's family story is unique, and some students know their history and others are still building their family tree, we start the workshop with a Choose-Your-Adventure type quiz. Students are encouraged to pick where they are in the research process and are ultimately led to 3-4 resource suggestions that are likely to work, whether searching for obituaries in local newspapers, searching Ellis Island records, or regional migration research from a variety of resources. 

This LibGuide is used when teaching a 30 minute workshop for Honors students who are required to research an immigration story from their own family tree.  They have to research their geneology to the point where they find an ancestor who immigrated to the United States. They will try to find why that immigrant came to America and whether they are part of a particular wave of migration, i.e. slavery, Irish potato famine, industrialization, etc...Since everyone's family story is unique, and some students know their history and others are still building their family tree, we start the workshop with a Choose-Your-Adventure type quiz. Students are encouraged to pick where they are in the research process and are ultimately led to 3-4 resource suggestions that are likely to work, whether searching for obituaries in local newspapers, searching Ellis Island records, or regional migration research from a variety of resources. 

Learning Outcomes:Students will see best practices on citations for their poster session or honors paper, including key database and RaptorSearch examples.Students will receive a demonstration of the relationship between their reference list and their in-text citations.Students will see examples of how to better integrate citations into their writing, including examples of paraphrasing, summarizing, and incorporating multiple sources or switches among sources.

This activity is designed to help students understand the difference between background sources and scholarly sources. Students will read a quick overview of the key differences between these source types, and then they will be asked to classify five sample sources. For each source, they will make an initial judgment based on a screenshot and then take a closer look at the full source to see if their gut instinct was correct. Correct answers and explanations are provided for each source.This activity is suitable for in-person, synchronous online, and asynchronous online instruction. It is self-paced and takes most students between 10 and 15 minutes to complete. The activity is hosted on Microsoft Sway, and it can be completed on a computer, tablet, phone, or any device with an internet connection.

These materials accompany the book chapter “Using Critically Appraised Topics to Teach Evidence-based Management to Graduate Business Students” from Teaching Business Information Literacy published by ACRL Press.