Information Literacy Ideas for Adding a Fourth Credit to Gen Ed Courses

In 2009, the Faculty Senate voted to convert General Education courses from three credits to four credits. Information Literacy activities that engage students in learning outside of the classroom will be emphasized as an option for the fourth credit. In that vein, the Libraries are making the following list available to General Education faculty:

1. Leading or following up discussion with information brought in by students. For discussion or lecture sessions, devote the first 5 or 10 minutes of each class to the sharing or articles on either the topic of the previous class session or the current class session. Require that each student complete a certain number of these short information presentations throughout the course.

2. Comparing sources. Version One. Given a topic, have students search for relevant information resources using the Web and compare what they retrieve with the resources found in the library databases. Have students identify different databases for the subject being studied. Have students compare different databases in the subject being studied.

3. Comparing sources. Version Two. Have students examine a Web search using a search engine (such as Google), a free reference source (such as Wikipedia) and a subscription database (such as ABI Inform or America: History and Life) for information resources on a topic. Have students prepare a description of the resources available through these tools and discuss how the tools are similar and different.

4. Research Log. Have students keep a journal or log of their research process. These logs can be either open-ended or fill in the blanks. Have students turn in the Research logs either a stand-alone projects or as a supplement to accompany end of term projects.

5. "Everything but the Paper." Have students complete the research for a term paper except for the paper itself. Have students turn in at intervals: choice of a topic, annotated bibliography, outline, thesis statement, first paragraph, and conclusion.

6. Write for Wikipedia. Students write or update a Wikipedia entry related to the course topic. The entry should be well-documented.

7. Create an online encyclopedia, textbook or other reference source using wiki tools.

8. Scholarly articles. Have students identify 10 scholarly articles from the library databases for the field being studied and obtain at least three full text articles, providing a full bibliographic citation.

9. Learn When and how to find Statistical Information. Have students retrieve statistical resources of relevance to their course. Have them look for statistical trends and postulate the causes of those trends in writing. Discuss in class the most likely causes of the trends.

10. Citation Sleuth: Tracing the Influence of a Published Work. Have students construct a timeline or map that illustrates the influence of a particular piece of published research and then summarize the relationship of the original research with what followed.

Information Literacy and General Education

Information Literacy Ideas for Adding a Fourth Credit to Gen Ed Courses

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