The handout Best Practices for Designing Research Assignments was prepared for the CTSI Course Design Institute 2016. Thank you to Courtney Lundrigan for providing the handout.

From Academica Top Ten  Sep 20, 2013 “Allowing students to lead university seminars can improve both attendance and results, reveals a pilot study out of the Avans University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. When only 50% of their students showed up to finance lessons at AvansU, academics decided to invite students to lead the … Read More

I love this succinct post by Barbara Fister on the kinds of knowledge we in the library world (or we over the age of 20!) may take for granted: Tacit Knowledge and the Student Researcher. Having electronic access to materials creates the expectation that everything is a mere Google-search away, but our systems of organization … Read More

Below is a summary of the points made in the white paper: Intersections of Scholarly Communication and Information Literacy: Creating Strategic Collaborations for a Changing Academic Environment We will be discussing the paper at the June 5 Librarians’ Information Literacy Practice Exchange.  In addition to the summary below, take 5 minutes to read Kevin Smith’s April … Read More

Pulled from today’s ARL Assessment posting: Are you a fan of the Library Instruction Cookbook?  Trying innovative methods to embed in projects and courses? We need your gourmet recipes for embedded instruction and reference. Contribute your recipe to the next cookbook in the series from ACRL, The Embedded Librarian’s Cookbook: Recipes for making long-term connections. … Read More

This poster provides food-for-thought for health science librarians who wish to teach deeper information-seeking skills to students who are used to using highly synthesized sources of pre-existing information.  Though most useful for medical librarians, the questions posed in the poster are relevant to many disciplines.

The Ontario government and higher education authorities, along with the highest levels of university administrations, is paying closer attention to the quality of teaching at universities.  In April 2012,  the Council of Ontario Universities released the report Beyond the Sage on the Stage: Innovative and Effective Teaching and Learning at Ontario Universities to highlight examples of … Read More

Google’s new Search Education page has over a dozen lesson plans and online video tutorials that librarians and instructors can use to teach students various aspects of information literacy.  The plans are mainly focused on getting better and more relevent results out of Google, but there are also lesson plans related to evaluation of resources … Read More

Not such a novel idea anymore, the idea of the “flipped” classroom,  where instruction is delivered online, and assignments, activites, and other “homework” are moved into the classroom. Some librarians have tried this, delivering short videos online, and making classroom time more active. http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/09/the-flipped-classroom-defined/  

If you missed Sarah Steiner’s excellent webinar, How to Improve Your Library Instruction: Assessment in Five Minutes, you may wish to look at her slides and suggested resources on the ALA website: http://www.alaeditions.org/blog/199/continuing-conversation-how-improve-your-library-instruction-assessment-five-minutes You can view the webinar archive at https://alapublishing.webex.com/alapublishing/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=4667267&rKey=721456ed07580668