Services for First Year Students

Information Literacy and First Year College Students

Background

This wiki entry has been added to help promote and improve information literacy education for first year college students.

For more on general Information Literacy Instruction, see the entry [[1]]

Library Instruction-Why?

ACRL statements and standards about information literacy apply to first year students particularly.

See the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm.

See also the accompanying document: Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: A Model Statement for Academic Librarians http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlstandards/objectivesinformation.cfm.

From the ACRL document: "As educators, we understand that the unprecedented growth in the creation and availability of information means that we cannot teach students everything they need to know; rather, we aim to teach them to find information as needed and analyze it critically. Individuals who are information competent will be able to assume greater control over their learning and decision making in every stage of life."

Types of FYE seminars and examples of library interaction

In 1992, The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition established definitions for the five most common types of first year seminars on college campuses. These definitions are still applicable today and in fact, this type of course in all its variations is more prominent than ever in higher education across the country. The five types of seminars include:

Click on the seminar type to see instruction examples from various colleges and universities.

* Basic study skills seminar

We have added 2 more categories to account for contact outside of FYE seminars:

Contribute your FYE Seminar Instruction Examples to this Wiki: Here's How

Use this format!

Institution name (use 3rd level heading)

Institution name (linked to institution homepage): type/ fund / size /// Contact: your contact name (linked to your contact info) (+see below for categories)

Next line: Name of your example as a 4th level heading

Next line: Learning outcomes (bold)

Next line: Description (bold) of your example. Include links to files, web sites, etc. Tell us how many students or classes you used this approach with. Note successes, assessments. Include things that didn't go so well, too, and tell us why. We're interested in how to do things, especially if it involves outside help or funding. With whom did you collaborate and how did that go?

Next line: Assessment (bold) Description and results of any assessment efforts that have been made regarding student learning as a result of activity.

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+ For type, use "2" for 2-year institution, "4" for 4-year institution, "4+" for graduate.

For fund, use either "pub" for publicly funded or "priv" for privately funded.

For size, use "v. sm" for up to 999, "sm" for 1,000 to 4,999, "med" for 5,000-19,999, "lge" for 20,000+.

Ex: Chatham College, 600 students,private, 4-year libearl arts college = 4/priv/v sm.

Ohio University, 21,000, public, grad and medical colleges = 4+/pub/lge.

See wiki help for tech support.

Ways to Discuss Ideas

At the top of this wiki is a DISCUSSION tab. Get to the portion of the wiki in which you would like to start a discussion and click on the DISCUSSION tab to pose your question. If you clicked on that tab right now, you will see that it relates to the page you are currently visiting in the wiki.

The other way academic librarians can discuss instruction and outreach issues related to the first year experience is to join the FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCES LIBRARIANS group in Facebook.

References

See [ACRL bibliography]http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/about/sections/is/publicationsacrl/tmcfyebib.cfm

SAILS at https://www.projectsails.org/

Tobolowsky, B. F. (2005)The 2003 National survey on First-Year Seminars: Continuing innovations in the collegiate curriculum. Columbia, SC : National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, University of South Carolina.