This essay assignment asks students to reflect on their research process, evaluate on their sources, and reflect on social justice implications in reference to Catholic social teaching.

Environmental science students critically analyzed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website and its treatment of climate change during the Trump, Obama, and Bush presidencies. This library “warm-up” activity was designed to raise awareness of data fragility and the long-term accessibility of government websites. As future science professionals, it’s important to think about how this impacts scientists and their work. Students were introduced to several tools including: The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, End of Term Archive, and Data Refuge. What happens when government web pages are hidden, moved, or deleted?

This assignment is designed to encourage students in introductory-level religious studies classes to check the assumptions they bring to the subject matter and to develop their critical inquiry skills in this area through close examination of primary text passages. The primary textual sources used may be contemporary or historical, depending on the course context.

The assignment consists of two sequenced exercises:
Part one. In-class writing exercise analyzing an unidentified passage (1-2 pages)
Part two. Reflection and expanded analysis of the identified passage using scholarly sources (3-4 pages)

Document includes student learning objectives, assignment description (for instructors), assignment instructions with checklist (for students), additional questions for reflection or discussion, and example primary source passages for use in the exercises.

This activity was created to introduce first-year students to library resources they can use for their annotated bibliography assignment. In pairs, students are assigned a task card that requires them to find an information source. After finding a source meeting the criteria of their task card, the student teams input their answers into a Google Form. Formative assessment takes place during class, allowing the librarian to modify instruction on-the-spot based on the responses from the form.

Summative assessment takes place at the end of the semester, when a rubric is applied to a sample of student responses from the activity. This assessment provides a more thorough picture of where students may have succeeded or struggled with the activity, and may provide ideas for how to adjust the activity in the future.

This recipe is from The First-Year Experience Cookbook, edited by Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan and written by Elisa Slater Acosta and Katherine Donaldson.

Students in an introductory Women's and Gender Studies course are required to critically analyze and edit an article in Wikipedia. Through class discussion and an active learning exercise, students begin to understand how and why women and many racial groups and individuals are underrepresented or systematically marginalized in Wikipedia. Students learn how to use the "Talk" tab to evaluate Wikipedia articles and learn about authority and power structures within that community.

Students will participate in a game-based learning scenario based on Net Neutrality. Participants will each assume the role of an individual vested in the issue (Chairman of the FCC, President of the U.S., CEO of telecommunications company, or Supreme Court Justice). They will form alliances, discuss issues, formulate a strategy, and briefly share their viewpoint with the hope of winning the game. The learning experience is student lead.

Created by M. Brown-Salazar Saint Mary's College of CA This lesson was developed to have graduate level students explore social justice issues in information found on the internet. It is based on Dr. Safiya Noble's work: Algorithms of Oppression. Simplified, we asked students to consider that when we seek information, we need to examine the perspective/privilege of the voices/sources of information and identify/understand whose voices are represented and whose voices are missing and how that impacts/influences our understanding. Students were asked to consider issues we uncovered in relationship to themselves personally, as students and also also professional practitioners. We used clips from a lecture by Dr. Noble to stimulate discussion and asked to students to critically examine results of google image searches as an illustration of inequities. Students completed a survey as assessment.

Created by M. Brown-Salazar & G. Kessler Lee Saint Mary's College of Ca Library This lesson was developed to have students explore social justice issues in information found on the internet. It is based on Dr. Safiya Noble's work: Algorithms of Oppression. Simplified, we asked students to consider that when we seek information, we need to examine the perspective/privilege of the voices/sources of information and identify/understand whose voices are represented and whose voices are missing and how that impacts/influences our understanding. We used clips from a lecture by Dr. Noble to stimulate discussion and asked to students to critically examine results of google image searches as an illustration of inequities. Students created a shared file with images and thoughts that represented what they learned.

In an effort to provide students with an open space to learn about and discuss recent national concerns over “fake news,” the library offered four sessions of the workshop “Keepin’ It Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News” during a campus-wide Inauguration Teach-In on Friday, January 20, 2017. During this session, students had the opportunity to talk about how misleading news sources (encompassing misinformation, disinformation, click-bait, propaganda, etc.) have affected their views on civil discourse, specifically relating to the recent U.S. presidential election. By the end of the session, we hope students became more confident in their ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the internet.

This assignment is designed to help students develop a thoughtful research topic. Students go through a series of steps, questions, and background reading to help them better understand and refine a research topic.