TIPS For Creating Assignments That Foster Information
Literacy Goals
Are the information literacy
goals for your course clear? Are they integrated with other course goals
and directly related to the course content and assignment?
Develop your students' knowledge of key information sources within
a discipline by encouraging the use of selected resources. Librarians can
help recommend the appropriate new and old resources for your assignment.
Once students have found the
information, do you teach them how to evaluate or comment on it? Do you
have them analyze it, question it, and compare it to information found
in other sources?
Ensure that students have a reasonable expectation of successfully
completing your assignments. Introduce a variety of sources and technologies
that students encounter when researching new topics. Librarians can help
provide you with insights into the challenges your students will experience
and how to avoid the most obvious pitfalls.
Do you pose a problem or question
that encourages students to develop a search strategy that explains a phenomena,
clarifies a viewpoint, defines an issue, or answers a question?
Avoid assignments that are too prescriptive and inhibit students from
developing information literacy skills. Librarians can steer you away from
exercises that are totally presecribed or totally open-ended and cause
more frustration than learning. Librarians will also help you to create
exercises that develop skills in progressive steps and that encourage researching
and revision.
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This page was last updated August 23, 2005.
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