Information Literacy Retreat, June 1, 2007


Information Literacy Retreat Notes, Chemeketa Community College, June 1, 2007

Please take a moment to complete the OCCLA IL Retreat Survey

 

OCCLA held a retreat at Chemeketa Community College on June 1, 2007 for Oregon colleagues to participate in conversation about Information Literacy (IL) standards and practices in our community colleges. The retreat provided an opportunity for Oregon community college librarians to come together to discuss IL instruction and practices in our institutions. To help frame the conversations, the day began with a kick-off panel addressing several cooperative initiatives across the state that are likely to influence the formation of IL standards in Oregon general education. Following the panel were activities focused on defining lower-division IL and sharing current instruction practices. Participants included representatives from 14 community colleges and 4 four-year institutions. These are the planning committee's notes from the retreat. Please contact Michele Burke at mburke2@chemeketa.edu or 503.589-7633 if you have clarifications or questions about the notes. 

Thank you!

 

Lynda Kettler, OCCLA President: Welcome

Natalie Beach, CCC Library Director: Introductions (Retreat, Panel Members, Context)

 
Panelists and Topics: The panel provided supplemental information about initiatives and projects which intersect with the potential development of statewide Information Literacy (IL) Outcomes for lower-division/transfer students.
  
 
Jill Rupert – English Faculty, Chair of Oregon Writing and English Advisory Committee, and Community College Faculty Representative to the Joint Boards Articulation Committee (JBAC).
Draft general outcomes for the 6 areas. JBAC not done. All but 4 cc’s have had a mtg with a JBAC member. Draft outcomes still at initial stage and with conversation about what should be done with them and what proficiencies HS students should have when they graduate. Still time for feedback. Contact Natalie or person on your own campus.  Want IL to be an imbedded outcome in the writing curriculum/sequence. So not an IL course, but an imbedded feature, so continue to give feedback.  Marketing and communication about what OWEA is doing.
OWEAC composition course outcomes.DOC 
 
Jim Eustrom – Dean of Students, Chemeketa Community College.
Dual Enrollment programs (for example, CCC with OSU, WSU, …)

Portland Area Higher Ed Consortium =  5 institutions- signed a memo of understanding. Goal was to implement this fall, still moving ahead. The concept will eventually be a model for the state. One 4-yr and 4 cc’s where stus can take classes at all and use same registration form and financial aid at all…so provides different options. Benefits from students = single application, combined searchable course schedule, search by class and then matrix cross references where it is offered at each place even though different course numbers. More and more students are swirling with *less* success, so we want to look at what students are naturally doing and see if we can increase their success. One institution will coordinate financial aid between all. Going slow because trying to work out bugs in advance. This consortium entails coordination/sharing of support services, including library services…so a PSU student might come to salem and need library services. Also automatic transfer exchange. Has an impact on every service element. WOU dual enrollment started with about 30 students. Now we have 150. Things like this grow!

 
Loraine Schmidt – Director of Distance Education and Academic Technology, Chemeketa Community College.
Director of Distance Ed at CC and manages statewide collaborative piece. Also the Oregon CC Distance Ed state-wide group (e.g, does joint licensing for telecourses and collective reporting).  Also coordinates professional development activities. Positive place for CCs to go when want to provide a class online. Host provider enrolls student locally, pays instructor, host retains the FTE and provider school retains fee payment. Distance Ed has experienced enormous growth. Telecourses starting to die away, but there is an increasing need to have media and video in online classes (and blended online classes). Think about future efforts to collaborate on statewide licensing. This group also coordinates communication between faculty. Fairly easy to pick a topic and pull a group of people together. For more information, see Oregon Colleges Online  
 
Anne-Marie Deitering – Undergraduate Services Librarian, Oregon State University.
2006 fall OSU Information Literacy Summit with CCs that partner in dual enrollment. Survey at end of Summit and at OWEAC meeting.

SurveySlides.ppt

 

Does your campus have a definition of IL? About half and half. Elements from the ACRL description of information literacy are common. Some had big broad statements and others had more like lists of outcomes. Only three that came up mention ethical use of info. Some bit of fuzziness about outcomes as opposed to an actual definition. Also some confusion about definition of IL at institutional level, as opposed to a definition in a course.
 
Required? About half and half. If so, where? Spread out all over the writing sequence.
Who teaches? Librarians, faculty, or both together (most together).
 
How to communicate to adjuncts and college now instructors? Most use curriculum guides/ syllabi/ websites. Then there’s also a combo of orientation, department meetings, mentoring, and combination. Only one person mentioned College Now specifically.
 
At OSU-  the question is interesting because they have been working on integration for about 6 years.
 
2001- faculty. Originally hesitant about giving up that much of the curriculum, but now they are converts and are asking for the library to do more instruction (at a time when librarian numbers are dropping). Writing partners have become advocates. Richenda put together a list of outcomes trying to teach in WR 121 and there were 24, so too much for one class and need instead to approach campus wide. Give a base from which to build later in the curriculum. How many students are missed? All that transferred in or tested out. By targeting WR121, we miss about half of our students.
 
Discussion following panel
Question to Jill- what does the OWEAC group think about information literacy and where it should be? Jill-  we love it, we want it and we want to work with you. Moving to a 4 credit.
 
Donna to Anne-Marie, with the College Now teachers…any sense why IL not being taught or why CCs or college people not keeping up on College Now happenings?
 
OWEAC made a statement on dual credit (credit in college now programs for highschool and college). There is concern about College Now coming from OWEAC members. Jill Rupert to email outcomes. 
 
Kathleen to Jim- what about our license agreements for PAHEC?
  
Terri for Anne-Marie: Is OSU looking at administering an SAT type test that measures IL skills? What a cohort of students can and can’t do. Taking a break now to determine if it is a viable project. Piloted at PSU a few years ago, thought it might be a good tool if other depts. want to administer, but they were not going to administer in the library. Thought good to put computer and info lit- test it. Good because they had to demo that they could do the actual work, not just checking boxes. Huge commitment.
 
Shannon- comment on ETS testing program. Took a long time to take the test.
Results were useless because measured the cohorts skill level without telling what the skills were or were not….no level of detail. That may have been a problem with the initial testing phase. ETS is supposed to measure individuals.
  
Is that the direction we should go? A pre-test and a post test to make sure IL was imbedded there? Consider: Does this contribute to student learning, not just skill mastery? We have to go beyond ETS skills and questions. We need to contribute to learning. Also depends on who is asking the question. How does IL contribute to the learning process? So testing yes, but that’s not enough
 
 
 
Break out Session #1:
Defining Lower Division Information Literacy (Donna Libby, Klamath CC).
Defining Information Literacy...what does an information literate student look like? What skills?What are the differences between lower & upper division competencies?
 

GROUP 1

Students will:
  1. Be able to define an information need.
  2. Know how information is produced, organized, and accessed.
  3. Understand the ethics surrounding information (plagiarism; copyright)
  4. How to construct a basic search strategy.
  5. Include healthy “Habits of mind” (Costa & Bennick, K-12 language) in their search strategies. Including curiosity, persistence, respect for intellectual authority, intellectual carefulness, and the ability to evaluate information critically. 
 
GROUP 2
Levels of IL = Foundation, Intermediate, Discipline-Specific, Expert (Instead of freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). See Portland State University's Developmental Information Literacy Matrix
 
Coming from a C.C., students should have Foundation and Intermediate levels of:
...thinking critically and reflecting on the research process
...searching and retrieval
...resource evaluation
...ethical and legal use of information

 

GROUP 3

·         Develops appropriate and manageable statement to begin research.
·         Develops and refines ability to discriminate among results (DB) to modify topics.
·         Learns that existing information can be combined w/ original thought.
·         Identifies and uses appropriate sources for the topic.
·         Creates an annotated bibliography
·         Understands that citation means an item has been read.
·         Does not distort the author’s meaning
·         Successfully evaluate the authority of the sources cited.
·         Can locate materials in library online.
 
 

GROUP 4

1.      Teach what’s appropriate at each level—can’t force-feed critical thinking, as those skills are just emerging. Differences in younger and older students.
2.      Teach basic web searching—use Wikipedia as an example.
3.      Teach plagiarism avoidance as an ethical process—respecting the work of others, creating one’s own work.
4.      Teach the elements of keyword vs. subject searching.
5.      Teach concepts of popular vs. scholarly
6.      Teach “screen literacy” – how to decipher a set of results
7.      Teach how to use reference works for background information
8.      Help students be aware that there is a “diversity of voice” among resources (using different databases, etc).
 
GROUP 5
v       1st yrs / 2nd yrs
v       “It’s not just about skills!”
v       Know that you don’t know yet
 
v       Research is an art, not a science
v       Begin to think about the authority of source and explore that variety of sources
 
v       Recognize that an answer is not the only answer to a question
v       Explore related topics
 
v       Research “search”—don’t start with the conclusion, but with the idea to search more.
 
 
GROUP 6
v       Students can approach a new learning task or information gap with a positive attitude (emotional intelligence).
v       Students recognize their information need
v       Students recognize that information resources are available
v       Students understand how information is created
v       Students understands how to retrieve and cite information
v       Students are able to use biased information appropriately
 
Also discussed: critical thinking, California Information Competencies for College Students, “failure of imagination,” and information as “constructed” rather than isolated. Also the status of students coming into community college for formal education- hesitation.
 
 
 
Breakout Session #2: Sharing Current Practices (Richenda Wilkinsen, Linn-Benton CC)
 
Talk in groups about instruction practices at your institution. Participants will share information about current practices in IL Instruction. What works? What does not work? Small groups will capture information and report out to the whole group.  
 
 GROUP 1 and GROUP 3
v       Chemeketa Community College has no all campus definition. The competencies are integrated into writing, university studies, freshman inquiry
v       Not required, no credit.
v       Do lots of library presentations
v       Western Oregon University not integrated into writing curriculum
v       Net and sweat
v       College survival
v       College now poses problem
v       IL taught where faculty are willing
v       Some cc’s lots of collaboration
v       Some have assessment
v       Capacity limits often must simply say “yes”
v       Writing instructors at COCC require IL class (2 credits)
v       Nursing Program
v       Faculty Resource Center includes library component
v       Orientations to GTA serves all 3 of student “hats”
v       Grad Assistants mentors
v       Connections with tutoring program orientations to tutors
v       Adjuncts are a challenge
v       Pathfinders and web pages
v       Second level reference
v       Personal research- class assignment and evaluation
v       College hours- talk about a variety of topics
v       Important to be involved in non-library activities
v       Library involvement in course proposals
 
 GROUP 2
v       Building relationships with faculty (one-on-one instruction for students, credit class, one shot)
v       Credit classes (1, 2, and 3 credits)
v       Embedded in program
v       University studies (nursing, writing 121, integrated media studies, bridge program)
v       Research labs drop in (mostly P.R.)
v       Active learning students have to report back
v       Target specific classes that every student in the major has to take (undergraduates)
v       Distance education is a problem
 
 GROUP 4
v       LBCC= on demand session/ no required sessions. Regularly teach with writing classes, speech, nursing, college success, and history classes. Working with writing department to incorporate IL outcomes and competencies into course outlines. May do credit course. Linked with other classes. Will develop online tutorials with post-test. Will create wikis for history class. Everyone works closely with nursing
v       SWCC = One shot, on demand sessions, one course has integrated IL study skills with library session (assignment = 20 points of grade). Online 1-credit class, very labor intensive but students like them (have an average of 12 students). Required course in some programs and optional in others. Face-to-face 1 credit not being taught right now. Want to integrate IL sessions into writing courses.
v       Lane CC = next week will meet with writing 121 (WR 123 phased out). The idea is to have each section come to the library (45 sessions a term). 3 credit class (LIB 127) that uses wiki, email, and has technology prerequisites. Only 2 class sessions and the rest are done one-on-one/ individually. LIB 127 = 85% success rate… “very effective”. Average 40 students a term. Had tried to move online as a 1 credit, but too labor intensive. Pre/post test tutorial. Elmborg book on libraries and writing centers
v       OSU = required IL sessions and assignments in WR 121, worth 10% of grade and is graded by librarians. Online assignments using blackboard. IL competencies drafted by library and reviewed/revised by faculty and other partners (defines IL at OSU but not adopted as a campus-wide initiative yet). Time WR 121 sessions after have topics.
v       Chemeketa CC = No required IL competencies in courses. Most IL classes are 50minute one shots. Starting teaching circles this fall (library, writing center, study skills, tutoring will work together). Train peer-tutors in research.
v       Cascadia/Bothell = College 101 with basic library info (treasure hunt). Targeted core classes in different subject areas.
 
 GROUP 5
v       Rogue CC = online info lit course (1 credit). Required by and customized for criminlau justice and construction technology. Also 1 generic course (18-25 students volunteer)
v       How to take the course content and make it available to all students?
v       How do we assess the effectiveness of our instruction efforts? Assessment worksheet? Student response clicker
v       Librarians teach college success courses (1 credit not required)
v       Activity- research topic on whiteboard. Create keywords in groups. Groups retrieve articles using keywords. Compare/contrast/discuss results.
v       Activity for general library session for 1st year students: groups are assigned a specific resource (ref collection, specific database (MLA), general database with full text (ProQuest), catalog). Groups explore resources and report finding to class (librarian on hand to correct inaccuracies)
v       Sneak Preview: librarian attends class immediately preceding the BI session and gives a quick (5 minute) plug for the coming session (what will happen, why it is useful, what whey will be able to do after…? Pre-assessment opportunity?
v       How to avoid repetition? Track what LGs have been presented. Tracks/scaffolding- what about non-trad order of courses/
v       Emergency technique for bored classes: keep trivial pursuit cards in classroom and engage class by using library to answer questions or verify answers to questions.
 
 GROUP 6
v       Wiki with IL modules in blackboard
v       One shot sessions
v       Faculty requests, word of mouth, and contacting faculty directly to schedule
v       End of session feedback cards
v       Have same students repeatedly because not required in one set place (how to avoid?)
v       Things tried that didn’t work: draw me a metaphor about the internet and/or databases.
v       Watch out for: the (GED or other) one-shot not scaled down enough for class level (remember to talk to class ahead of time to gauge class characteristics)
v       Challenge: explaining that IL is useful at a vocational/technical level (not just for transfer students)
v       Show a source on internet that may/may have an associated cost, then show library tool to access source for free (e.g., NY Times). This in response to students who want to know hot to find free full-text on the internet.
v       Not the internet v. the library.
v       Use internet comparison: where do you go to find information in the internet? Rent movies? = netflix. Weather? = weather.com….same with database, you wouldn’t go to weather.com to rent movies. You want to choose the best resource for your information need.
v       Wikiality- demo changeability- what does it mean for info to have consensus as opposed to authority?
v       Imbedded IL = labor intensive = especially grading. Use grading rubric. Don’t accidentally volunteer to do the grading without knowing what you are getting into
v       Work with faculty directly (rather than with students) and teach them how to incorporate IL into class instruction
v       Survey students through the faculty (create a survey and ask faculty to administer it to their students at the beginning of the term or class)
 
 

Closing

 

What questions would you like to have on a follow-up survey? (take the survey)

 

OSU Fall Information Literacy Summit, November 16, 2007

Will include librarians, writing teachers, technologists and expanded to include representatives from other 4-year schools. Moving closer to a set document of general outcomes we would like to see from 2-year graduates. OSU would like to have a group meet early in the fall and create a draft that will go to the IL Summit for people to review and react.