Library Partnerships: Collaboration for Engaged Pedagogies

Academic libraries can be dynamic campus partners in supporting engaged pedagogies. As campuses implement programs such as undergraduate research, service learning, civic engagement initiatives and learning communities, collaboration with librarians to foster information literacy competency skills can deepen student engagement and provide significant lifelong benefits for students.

The Boyer Commission’s report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education, outlines a student ‘academic bill of rights’ that includes opportunities to learn through inquiry rather than simple transmission of knowledge, and training in the skills necessary for oral and written communication. Information literacy is a necessary precursor to being able to learn through inquiry and to communicate effectively. Information literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. “These skills are more sophisticated than traditional library skills. Information literate people are those who have learned how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them.”* The Association of College and Research Libraries has developed a comprehensive set of information literacy competency standards for higher education. These standards can be used as additional learning outcomes for undergraduate research or service learning courses. Building information literacy skills helps students get more out of such pedagogies. As students become information literate they are also enhancing their critical thinking, organization, and communication abilities.

This workshop will review information literacy competencies and provide examples of how the library can support engaged pedagogies such as undergraduate research, service learning, civic engagement, and learning communities. Examples of collaborative programs at the University of Maryland and other campuses will be discussed. Workshop participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and strategize on how to involve their campus libraries. Participants who use a particular pedagogy (e.g. service learning or undergraduate research) will work in small groups, using the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards, to plan how information literacy skill building can be incorporated into their programs.

*American Library Association. Presidential Commission on Information Literacy, Final Report. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1989).

For more information, contact Diane Harvey, Undergraduate Studies Librarian, at:
dkharvey@umd.edu

Documents and Web sites featured in this presentation:

Information Literacy

• Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy page (includes Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education).
  
  
• Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Developing Research and Communication Skills: Guidelines for Information Literacy in the Curriculum
  
  
• Information Literacy as a Liberal Art by Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes (Educom Review 31:2, March/April 1996)
  
  
• Russell Edgerton's Education White Paper prepared for the Pew Charitable Trust, 1997.
  
  
• Reinventing Undergraduate Education (Boyer Commission Report)
  
  
• Evaluating Web Sites and Evaluation Checklist (University of Maryland)
  
  
• Creating Effective Research Assignments (University of Maryland)

Undergraduate Research

• Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research
  
  
• University of Maryland Undergraduate Research Day
  
  
• Mellon Library/Faculty Fellowship for Undergraduate Research (UC Berkeley)
  
  
• Library Prize for Undergraduate Research (UC Berkeley)
  
  
• John Carroll Scholars Program (Georgetown)
  
  

Service Learning

• Research Service-Learning: Scholarship with a Civic Mission (Duke)
  
  
• Where's the Library in Service Learning? by John Riddle, Penn State University - Fayette Campus.
  
  
• Subject Guide: Service Learning prepared by librarians at the Lewiston-Auburn College Library, University of Southern Maine.

Learning Communities

• University of Maryland CIVICUS Living & Learning Program
  
  
• University of Maryland College Park Scholars Living & Learning Program
  
  
• University of Maryland Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program
  
  
• Arizona State University Learning Communities
  
  

Civic Engagement

• University of Maryland Steering Committee of the Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership
  
  

Problem Based Learning

• Riding the Active Learning Wave by Michael Fosmire and Alexius Macklin (from the journal Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship).
  
  

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