Classroom-level

Lesson plans

Why is Metacognition Important to Information Literacy?

Four short screencasts under 90 seconds about the role of metacognition in information literacy instruction.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

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All Rights Reserved

The Gossip Activity

This is a lively small-group activity suitable for intro-level classes in one or two-shot sessions, but easily adaptable for use with high schoolers. The goal of the activity is to demystify information evaluation and get students to generate their own criteria by which to evaluate the reliability of information and information sources. Students will also discuss the ways in which these criteria are contextual and may vary by situation.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Alien Babies and Angelina Jolie: Evaluating Sources Using Tabloids with a Taste of News Literacy

The following activity is meant to demonstrate the concepts of authorship and authority to first year writing students. Students will use their prior knowledge and everyday experiences with subpar information to draw parallels between evaluating academic and popular sources.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

ISTC 301/501: Integrating Instructional Technology

As part of a collaboration with Claire Holmes and Lisa Sweeney at Towson University's Albert S. Cook Library, I infused our lesson plan for ISTC 301/501 with ACRL Framework Concepts. The original lesson plan was conceived of by Holmes and Sweeney as a way to integreate information literacy instruction concepts for teachers into ISTC 301 and SPED 413 in our College of Education. The attached slides illustrate one way to include information literacy instruction, the ACRL Framework, and teaching standards in college-level instruction. The aim for this lesson plan was to encourage College of Education students to include information literacy instruction in their lesson plans at the k-12 level so that students matriculating from their schools would be familiar with these crucial theories before arriving in higher education or the workplace.The lesson was structured as follows:Introduce digital citizenship and information literacy conceptsModel lesson planning using library resourcesCreate lesson plans using Common Core State StandardsStudents were encouraged to reflect on their own experiences as researchers, apply their learned research skills to their k-12 classrooms, use library resources to enhance their lesson plan creation, create a lesson plan in smaller groups to share with the classroom, incorporate lexile levels from multiple grade levels, and use open-source lesson plan materials focused on information literacy.Discussions about "Scholarship as a Conversation" and "Searching as Strategic Exploration" were included to highlight the importance of authority and of using sources from a variety of locations. 

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Discipline(s): 
Education

Type of Institution:

License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License CC-BY-NC-SA

Outcomes, Performance Indicators, and Dispositions

This document lists the outcomes, performance indicators, and dispositions developed for the Threshold Achievement Test for Information Literacy (TATIL). This test has four modules inspired by the six frames of the Framework: Evaluating Process & Authority; Strategic Searching; Research & Scholarship; and The Value of Information. 

Resource Type(s):

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

What to Do with What You Find

A guide to helping student know how to use (or not to use!) the different kinds of information they may find.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License CC-BY-SA

Evaluating Online Sources Activity

This is an activity we use in our Freshman-level writing class information literacy instruction one-shots. The activity presents four online resources and asks students to use the "Evaluating Online Sources" rubric to evaluate their assigned resource. Students vote using an online form on whether they would use a resource in their paper and then the instructor discusses each resource in depth with input from the group that evaluated it. Instructor will ask students to describe their resource and answer the questions asked by the rubric and then discuss the suitability of the resource. Exercise takes ~20 minutes.

Resource Type(s):

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific

Type of Institution:

License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Questions for Understanding Information Artifacts

This resource introduces students to rubrics for evaluating information, including SCARAB, CRAAP, and Reuters Source Guide. Furthermore, it provides a framework of questions to ask about a piece of information under consideration. 
Discipline(s): 
Interdisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Writing a Summary in Three Steps

This example of an article summary, as one might find in a literature review of annotated bibliography,  enumerates the steps to ethically and accurately complete a typical research task.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Multidisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Discussion Activity for Visual Literacy

This exercise asks students to respond to two videos, sharing with their classmates what feelings and ideas the images and music evoke in them.  The first video is an ExxonMobil commercial and the other is a humorous critique of advertising stock footage.  Be warned that the critique does contain one mild swear word.

Resource Type(s):

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution License CC-BY

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