Searching for information in library resources is often like exploring a new land. You often won’t find what you're looking for the first time you search. Complete this tutorial to learn strategies for rethinking your search for better results.
Library databases work differently from Google. Learn how to create a search strategy for these databases.
Understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, and between popular and scholarly sources.
Annotated bibliographies have become a popular assignment in college courses and a way to scaffold research papers. Gathering a bibliography before turning in a completed research project allows students to focus on searching strategically and get feedback on the sources they obtained. Annotating that bibliography requires them to think critically about the sources they choose and their relationship to the research at hand.
This scaffolded assignment was developed for senior Dietetic students enrolled in a research methods course. The lessons were collaboratively created via a librarian-faculty partnership.
A toolkit with various instructional materials to teach media and news literacy. Includes an online activity "Fairness and Blanace" where students watch a short video on journalistic standards and answer discussion questions.
In this hands on activity, students will find and compare/contrast news stories on a single current event/topical discussion to learn the importance of lateral reading and understand how bias can influence information production.
Reading charts and infographics is part of everyday life, yet telling a story with data can be tricky. Luckily, data visualization is a skill that everyone can learn! Data visualization is the practice of translating information into a visual context, helping humans understand complex concepts and making it easier to identify patterns and uncover insights. In this workshop, learn the basics of designing data visualizations, selecting appropriate graph styles, and how to identify misleading data visuals.
During this activity, students work with their lab partners to apply Mike Caulfield’s “Four Moves and a Habit” to a piece of science information they have found on the open web.
During this activity, students work with their lab partners to apply Mike Caulfield’s “Four Moves and a Habit” to a piece of science information they have found on the open web.
The assignment was created by Librarian Paizha Stoothoff in collaboration with a Professor teaching Literary Los Angeles. In lieu of a physical tour, students worked on a 3-week project to create digital maps (see assignment attached for details about what maps included).
This assignment was created in lieu of a physical tour of Literary Los Angeles (for a Literary L.A. course). Students worked on a 3-week project to create digital maps (see assignment attached for details about what maps included). The library workshop occured in week 1, after students formed groups and shared to a discussion post in Canvas what author/region/text they would focus on. The Liaison Librarian and Archivist led the library session.
Digital timelines enable us to tell stories visually by connecting non-linear moments: events, reactions, and experiences. This assignment includes a lesson plan and worksheet for teaching with timelines. Timelines work best when they are created as a project for a course, since they take time to develop.
This is session 1 of 3 sessions that I do for Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine in Pharmacy. For this session I had about an hour so the majority of the session is group work. Included are the materials to build the activity, an overview of the lesson (since so much was group work, I wouldn't call it a lesson plan), and the rubric for assessing /grading the activity. This was designed for Zoom/online synchronous teaching. A guide was created to assist with the work in the class (with links to all class activities) and be a place for students to refer back to later.
This lesson is intended as a one hour, single-session overview of one aspect of information literacy: evaluating the trustworthiness of resources, particularly online. The lesson is designed for a group of 10-25 adults in a public or academic library, or is also suitable for high school students. Instructor will teach students how to investigate a source and apply three small but powerful information literacy tools to evaluation: SIFT, PIE, and SMELL.
The Penn State Berks Privacy Workshop Series focuses on privacy issues for students in the past, present, and future. The Privacy Workshop spotlights privacy practices and concerns in the current moment; Digital Leadership explores future implications of past and current digital behaviors; Digital Shred provides tools to evaluate
Developed in order to move students away from an outdated checklist approach to evaluating online content, we developed this tutorial to teach students how to read laterally and think critically. This tutorial consists of several small chunks of microlearning activities including an assignment. Students can complete as much or as little as they feel they need.
In this activity focused on evaluating sources, students respond to the question "What makes a source 'good'?" by collectively brainstorming a list of characteristics they should look for in evaluating a source, then using their list to evaluate different types of sources on the same topic (e.g., a scholarly article, an op-ed, and a news article). As a class, students discuss whether their source was "good" based on the class's list of characteristics and for which types of information needs or settings their source might be most appropriate.
When writing a research paper, it can be easy to overlook the human side of scholarship – how being cited in a study (or not) can have real, material consequences, and how social structures can systematically exclude certain people from scholarship. This activity and lesson explores these ideas and gives students strategies for making their literature reviews more inclusive.
All told, this lesson takes about 50 minutes to an hour -- 20-30 minutes for the readings and pre-workshop activity, and 30 minutes of discussion.
How can we facilitate first-year student engagement with critical Framework concepts, especially in a one-shot class? This active learning activity is designed to teach source evaluation in a 50-minute class. The activity, which incorporates elements of problem-based learning and uses a flipped classroom approach, was added to our institution’s first-year experience course.
