Effective Library Assignments
Much of this content was reworked from or inspired by the "Effective Assignments" page from the University of North Carolina Wilmington Library.
Working with or incorporating the library in your research-based assignments can significantly strengthen students' information literacy skills. However, there are many ways in which assignments may not fully set students up for success in navigating the scholarly conversation or information landscape. This guide is intended as a non-comprehensive overview of some of the best practices in teaching information literacy from a librarian's perspective.
On this page, you will find three principles of information literacy education, each one with specific examples and actions you can take, as well as concrete information about the ways in which a librarian can support you. Other tabs include a collection of examples of effective library assignments and further resources if you would like to do a deeper dive into this subject.
1. Help students identify their information needs
Helping students identify their information needs:
Before students can begin finding sources, they need to understand what information they're actually looking for. This allows them to develop a search plan and strategy, identify an appropriate scope for their research, and target more relevant and useful information.
For experienced researchers, determining information needs is often an intuitive and implicit process. You can help students learn this process by demonstrating your own, making it transparent through concrete examples, and offering frequent feedback.
Small changes you can make:
- Make your own information need determination process transparent by demonstrating or illustrating it
- Example: Demonstrate the process live in front of the class; share a diagram of the process for students to refer to on their own time
- Provide students with guided opportunities to visualize or identify their information needs for an activity, project, paper, or assignment
- Build in multiple opportunities to explore potential sources
- Build in sufficient time and guidance for students to select and refine their topics, including opportunities for feedback and discussion
Instruction Session: From Topic to Search String
I can come to your classroom--or host your class in the library--for one class period to teach a session focused on this skill set.
During this session, students will go through the process of identifying their information needs for their topic and project; generating the keywords they'll need to search for resources to meet those needs; and turning those keywords into a search string using Boolean search skills. The sample topic will be customized to your class.
This session is ideal to schedule towards the beginning of your students' work on their research-based assignment, but once they have already chosen a topic, as they will be developing a search string for themselves by the end of the session.
I am also always happy to visit for multiple class periods for a deeper or more comprehensive dive, and to further customize class sessions.
2. Help students learn from sources
Helping students learn from sources:
When their understanding of research is primarily rooted in assignment requirements, students may see finding sources as an end goal rather than a means of answering a question. Reframing sources from checklist items to places students can go to find the information they need encourages authentic research and stronger source selection.
Small changes you can make:
- Instead of requiring specific source types, discuss source value (usefulness/relevance) and reliability (authority/expertise/accuracy), guiding them to select sources that are sufficiently valuable and reliable for their information needs
- Instead of an annotated bibliography, assign an evaluative bibliography, in which students must reflect on why they selected each source, what they learned from it, and how they plan to incorporate that information in their project
- Example: BEAM may be a useful model here for guiding students in thinking about how they can incorporate the information they're finding
- Instead of talking about "using" sources, talk about "learning from" them or "incorporating information from" them
- Consider if academic or scholarly sources are the only or most appropriate sources for your assignment; some topics or approaches may require information from reliable but non-scholarly sources
- Avoid unnecessarily specifying format, such as requiring only print books; encourage students to select sources based on their contents rather than the container
Instruction Session: Source Use and Evaluation
I can come to your classroom--or host your class in the library--for one class period to teach a session focused on this skill set.
During this session, we will discuss the concepts of value and reliability and connect them with the BEAM model. Students will consider the kinds of sources that might be useful in the course's subject area, brainstorm kinds of information they could use as Background, Exhibits, or Arguments for their own topics, and then begin identifying places they could look to find that information.
This session is ideal to schedule once students have selected a topic for their project. It would still be valuable throughout the early stages of the research process, including once they have refined their topic further, but would be ideal before they have begun actively searching for sources.
I am also always happy to visit for multiple class periods for a deeper or more comprehensive dive, and to further customize class sessions.
3. Encourage good research habits
Encourage good research habits:
As novice researchers, students may struggle with understanding the role of sources and source exploration in the research process. Demonstrating the research process and facilitating their exploration of it can help them understand their role in the scholarly conversation. This can also translate into research skills that are more transferable across courses or even subjects, supporting them throughout their academic career.
Small changes you can make:
- Provide opportunities for students to learn from failure
- Example: Demonstrate an unsuccessful search so that students understand that trial and error is a normal part of the research process; consider demonstrating how to then adjust the search, and/or asking students to adjust it to find more or better sources
- Assign tasks that meaningfully connect to the things your students need to know to complete their research
- Example: Scavenger hunts may make students more familiar with the library layout, but are less likely to provide them with tangible and transferable research skills
- Make sure that tasks have sufficient context and appropriate timing
- Example: If asking students to meet with a librarian, make sure to communicate to them what the intended outcome is for that meeting and to time it at a point in the semester when they will have sufficiently identified or refined their topic to be able to have a meaningful consultation
- Model or explain your own research practices to help students envision or explore their own
- Example: Explain how you select which databases to use or how you navigate through a list of search results
- Model good citation practice by providing complete citations to any sources referenced in the syllabus or assignments, including up to date links, where relevant
- Use phrases like "exploring sources" instead of "finding sources" to re-emphasize that the research process is iterative and that sources are containers of information to develop understanding of a topic
Instruction Session: Database Deep Dive
I can come to your classroom--or host your class in the library--for one class period to teach a session focused on this skill set.
During this session, we will briefly demonstrate the creation of a basic search string and some of the more advanced functions of the library's main search. Students will then work in small groups to explore one of several course-related subject-specific databases in depth before presenting on their database to the class, including demonstrating a search.
This session is ideal to schedule once students have selected a topic for their project, preferably once they have begun attempting to find sources and refine their topic based on those results. It is especially effective when paired with the From Topic to Search String session, or if students complete an activity prior to the session to begin identifying keywords on their topics.
I am also always happy to visit for multiple class periods for a deeper or more comprehensive dive, and to further customize class sessions.
