TxLA Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) Annual Summit 2019: Session Information & Materials

Creating Community on Campus: an Online Book Club Experience 
Mary Havens, Early College High School & Dual Credit Librarian, Austin Community College District
Session 1C, NGL 157, 10:45-11:10

Through a Fellowship at Austin Community College, I was able to create an online book club in an effort to create and foster community at our campus. My presentation will cover the entire process - from selection to campus wide closing event. This information and it’s process can be adapted and replicated by anyone on their campus.
 

Design Thinking for Library Instruction 
Elizabeth Gross, Assistant Professor, Library Science/College of Education, Sam Houston State University
Session 4A, NGL 155, 2:00-2:55

Design thinking allows you and your team to solve problems in an innovative way while actually listening to your students and colleagues. In this presentation, you will get a chance to apply some of the techniques of design thinking to overcome an obstacle you may be facing with others who can help you get to the solution!

Introducing STC Library's Online Orientation Module 
Elizabeth Hollenbeck, Outreach and Instruction Librarian, South Texas College
William Heinrich, Outreach and Instruction Specialist, South Texas College
Session 2C, NGL 157, 11:15-11:40

Distance students cannot be expected to visit the library for instruction, therefore the library has developed a new Online Library Orientation module that can be embedded into any Blackboard Course. This Orientation gives an overview of the library’s tools, resources, and the basic information literacy skills necessary for students to excel on their research assignments. The Orientation is interactive, and includes an optional graded assessment component. The Orientation stands alone, but is also designed to complement a flipped-classroom model of teaching where the Orientation provides a foundation for student learning that naturally pairs with a customized Library Instruction session provided online by library staff.
 

It's All Fun and Games: Fostering an Active Learning Environment in Your Library
Emily Metcalf,  Instructional Services Librarian, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
Patricia Hernandez, Student Success Librarian, Texas A&M University
Session 3C, NGL 157, 1:00-1:55

This presentation will discuss how to inspire and cultivate an active learning environment within an established academic instruction program. The presenters will discuss in-house librarian retreats, student worker training, and faculty relationships as methods for fostering an active learning environment. Audience members will leave with practical ideas on how to build camaraderie among instructors, how to develop active learning techniques to incorporate in their own instruction, and how to create games that will help students achieve learning objectives in a dynamic and interactive manner. The presentation will, of course, include active and engaging elements to stimulate conversation and ideas. While the presenters draw on experiences in an academic library, these tips are applicable to all librarians with instruction responsibilities.
 

‘Making it’ in Today’s Gig Economy: Information Pathways for Success 
Madelyn Shackelford Washington, Coordinator, Music Library, University of Houston 
Session 5C, NGL 157, 3:15-4:10

The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education is an integral part of the co-curricular support librarians provide in the Katherine G. McGovern College of the Arts. Central to the Framework are ‘threshold concepts’, stated there as, “ideas that in any discipline are passageways or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline”. Coming to librarianship after 13 years as a professional singer, choreographer and flutist, Madelyn possesses a nuanced understanding of the information pathways one must traverse in order to ‘make it’ in today’s gig economy. Madelyn introduces information literacy into the classroom in a way that fundamentally transforms the learning experience. It is her intention to further students’ understanding of today’s data-driven performing arts industry through interaction with the concept, “Research as Inquiry”. Using formative assessment techniques, she measures synthesis of the concept while guiding students to “relevant resources central to every step involved in making career decisions” . She directs the act of finding needed information with a series of self-reflective questions: What do I want to do with the rest of my life (professionally)? Where do I want to be (located)? and, what lifestyle do I want? In this session, attendees will (1) learn strategies to help determine the scope of a career-related information need; (2) identify relevant publications that produce information about a job market, and (3) finally determine how to access and curate that information using tools found freely on the web.
 

Pop-up Exhibits as Library and Information Literacy Instruction Opportunities 
Kara Flynn, Research & Educational Services Archivist, Special Collections, University of Arkansas 
Session 2A, NGL 155, 11:15-11:40

We often think of pop-up exhibits as a form of outreach, but through my experience doing a variety of pop-up exhibits of both archival and library materials, I have found that such exhibits can provide library professionals with a new avenue through which to pursue library and information literacy instruction. Pop-up exhibits are a low cost, low time investment opportunity to provide various levels of library instruction that can operate both within, and beyond the library. Pop-ups themselves can be used as teachable moments, but having students create a pop-up exhibit in a more traditional “oneshot” instruction session can also provide a unique research assignment for students that can be put together in a relatively short period of time. As they are portable, pop-up exhibits can provide introductory library instruction in classrooms, or at campus or community events, such as University orientation events, or as part of a public library or other community cultural organization event. My proposed presentation will detail a range of ways in which pop-up exhibits and displays can be used as a form of library and/or information literacy instruction, with the goal that librarians and library staff will be able to take home ideas they can apply in their own library instruction programs.
 

Promoting, Designing, and Delivering K-12 Information Literacy Instruction in School Libraries
Francine Rader, Upper School Librarian, Regents School of Austin
Paige Strickland, K-6 Librarian, Regents School of Austin
Session 4B-1, NGL 100, 2:00-2:25

School librarians are uniquely qualified and have a tremendous opportunity to take leadership roles in the design and deliverance of information literacy instruction. We work at a K-12 independent school that had no information literacy instruction when we were hired. We will share the successes and frustrations we have experienced as we worked to convince our community of the need for this instruction, to create and align the information literacy curriculum, and to cement the librarian's role as a professional educator.
 

Purpose, Process, and Authority: A Contextual Approach to First-Year Students’ Development of Information Evaluation Skills
Jennifer Holland, Research and Instruction Librarian, University of Houston - Clear Lake
​Travis Jones, Research & Instruction Librarian, University of Houston - Clear Lake
Session 1A, NGL 155, 10:45-11:10

Teaching students how to critically evaluate information sources is among the core components of libraries’ information literacy instruction. Yet the checklist approaches to source evaluation that have predominated in library instruction (e.g., The CRAAP Test, RADCAB, CARS) have been criticized as both ineffective in their ability to help students identify inaccurate information and insufficiently sensitive to the contexts in which information is created and used. This presentation reports an approach to evaluating information developed by librarians at the University of Houston – Clear Lake which provides students with a flexible, context-sensitive approach to choosing sources. In order to introduce students in UHCL’s first-year seminar course to strategies for evaluating information and determining how well a source meets a given information need, librarians used cognitive authority, the information creation process, and source purpose as “lenses” through which to analyze relevant information. This approach emphasizes not only the constructed nature of information, but the ways in which the culture, conventions, and norms of different discourse communities determine the types of information that they create and value, building students’ understanding of the varied roles and uses of information. Presenters will provide an overview of the learning experiences they have designed to help students explore the concepts of purpose, process, and authority, and discuss how these concepts can help improve students’ ability to both analyze their information needs and evaluate sources.
 

Real Life Information Literacy
Margaret Dawson, Outreach & Instruction Librarian, Texas A&M University - Central Texas
Session 4B-2, NGL 100, 2:30-2:55

Once students graduate they often lose those resources that they had as students. This program will give the sources and explain how they can continue to be savvy researchers even after they've left the university. The presentation will show free peer-reviewed sources for research and methods to combat misinformation that former students will need in the real world.
 

Ryan and Todd’s Excellent Adventure: An Embedded Librarian and Professor Co-Teach the 1980s
Ryan Samuelson, Information Literacy Librarian, Midwestern State University
Todd Giles, Associate Professor of English, Midwestern State University  
Session 4C, NGL 157, 2:00-2:55

In the spring of 2019 we (an information literacy librarian and English professor) co-taught an upper-level course at Midwestern State University titled “Texts & Contexts: The 80s” which explored the literature, film, culture, technology, and politics of America during the Reagan Era. Working together from the initial planning stages to discussing end-of-semester student evaluations, we found that having an engaged embedded librarian in the class throughout the semester greatly added to student involvement and the development of critical thinking skills—not to mention it was fun! Along with helping to facilitate class discussions, the librarian’s tasks included contributing to the class reading/viewing list, presenting a two-day PowerPoint introduction to the historical and cultural background of the 80s, introducing library resources and research methodologies, organizing out-of-class movie and video game nights, visiting personally with each student at the library to develop an effective research strategy for their projects, and administrating a final assessment questionnaire. “Ryan and Todd’s Excellent Adventure” will discuss these issues, consider changes for improving the next iteration of the course, and suggest tips for co-teaching with your own local faculty.
 

Scalable Information Literacy Instruction: Marketing Credo Instruct Modules to English Faculty 
Melissa Clark, Student Engagement Librarian, Stephen F. Austin State University
Session 5B, NGL 100, 3:15-3:40

Librarians dream of information literacy instruction for every student, but very few libraries employ the staff necessary to make this a reality. The models frequently used in library instruction are not scalable or sustainable, but Steen Library has constructed a model based on the Credo Instruct modules that is. This session will address how the modules were packaged and marketed to faculty, especially those resistant to their adoption.
 

Stewardship of Minds: Building Foundational Information Literacy Skills to Empower Students 
Dean Riley, Director, William Moody Library, Houston Baptist University
Henrietta Verma, Customer Success Manager, Credo
Session 5A, NGL 155, 3:15-4:10 

The ins and outs of citations. How to use databases. Why Wikipedia alone isn’t enough… There’s so much to impart in an IL curriculum that it’s hard to step back and ensure students are learning the fundamentals. In this program, Dean Riley, Library Director at Houston Baptist University, will take librarians on a trip back to basics, looking at what students need to know to be active participants in their own life-long education. Touching on an article he has published in The Christian Librarian, Riley will discuss his “stewardship of minds” approach, which encourages students to embrace information as having intrinsic value. For practical details on how to adjust IL instruction accordingly, Henrietta Verma (librarian and Customer Success Manager at Credo) will introduce Credo’s IL Strategy Handbook, a free resource that details how to launch an IL program or improve an existing one.
 

The Student Learning Process – A Brief Introduction 
Ashlynn Kogut, Education & Social Sciences Librarian, Texas A&M University
Session 3A, NGL 155, 1:00-1:55

Librarians contribute to student learning in many ways, yet we might not always think about the science, theories, and principles that seek to explain how undergraduate students learn within classroom settings. This presentation will describe four research areas aimed at understanding the student learning process (the science of learning, cognitive development theories, learning styles, and constructivist theory) and how this research can inform our learning interactions with students.
 

Two Designers Walk Into A Bar: Crafting Information Literacy Tutorials through Instructional and Graphic Design Collaboration 
Calantha Tillotson, Instructional Services Librarian, East Central University, Oklahoma
Shelby Pletcher, Instructional Services Assistant, East Central University, Oklahoma
Session 1B, NGL 100, 10:45-11:10

Why does instructional and graphic design expertise matter? Detailing their collaboration journey, an information literacy instruction coordinator and the graphic designer she recruited to update their rural academic library's online tutorials will provide participants with the tools necessary to establish their own unique design partnerships. They will specifically explain the differences in expectations, experiences, and expertise between the instructional and graphic design fields and provide tips on how to navigate said differences in order to create visually stimulating and effective information literacy materials. Participants will receive access to more than 10 tutorials and helpful documentation collaboratively built through the presenters' partnership.