NELIG Annual Program 2005
Making Learning Meaningful:
Getting to the Heart of the Student

Teaching that Touches the Heart of the Student:  a Framework of Learning Theory and Application in Practice
          Irene M.H. Herold - Director, Mason Library, Keene State College
Combining learning theory and practice, this presentation will discuss the psychosocial, cognitive, and cultural development of today’s students while sharing ideas and lessons that speak to them and still meet information literacy goals.  Participants should leave with a sense of how they can be more effective in increasing student learning.
 

Motivating Students with Discipline-Based Information Literacy Instruction: Getting Your Faculty On Board
          Colleen Anderson - Bryant University
          Leslie Simmel - Bentley College
Research suggests a positive relationship between student motivation and problem-based learning in subject contexts. Getting discipline-based faculty to integrate information literacy (IL) instruction in their curricula, however, is not always easy. This presentation reports on research into how much time faculty save and how to make the “business case” that demonstrates they’re better off integrating librarian-taught IL instruction into their courses.
 

“Why are we learning this?” – How students’ beliefs about knowledge and knowing affect how they learn.
          Kendall Hobbs - Reference/Instruction Librarian, Wesleyan University
How can students in the same class write such diverse and contradictory course evaluations? How can students interpret the same assignment in radically diverse ways? Educational psychologists studying college students have delineated various patterns of epistemological beliefs (beliefs about the nature of knowledge, learning, and education) which affect how they learn, and thus how we can more effectively teach them. This presentation will review this research and then look at how it applies to library instruction.
 

Listening to Graduate Students
          Cecilia Dalzell - Instructional Services Librarian, Cole Library, Rensselaer at Hartford
Motivating students to participate in Research Workshops and to use the library’s resources afterward involves planning and follow-up as well as classroom techniques.  This presentation focuses on using student feedback and faculty involvement to keep course-specific Research Workshops interesting to graduate students who are full-time working professionals.
 

Hands-On Active Learning Techniques for Information Literacy
          Amber Tatnall - Library Director, York County Community College
          Judi H. Moreno - Public Services Librarian, Central Maine Community College
This hands-on presentation will employ props and humor to deliver library instruction which keeps in mind students’ various learning styles, (i.e. visual, auditory, and tactile).  Amber and Judi’s interest in active learning techniques was inspired by their attendance at ACRL’s Institute for Information Literacy.
 

No Credit?  No Money?  No Problem!  Using a Forum to Raise Information Literacy Awareness and the Profile of your Library (On Nearly Zero Dollars)
          Brian T. Gallagher - University of Rhode Island Library
          Amanda Izenstark - University of Rhode Island Library
          Jim Kinnie - University of Rhode Island Library.
How can you raise awareness of information issues among both students and faculty on a tiny, shoestring budget, and without a credit course? Find out how your connections inside and outside the library, institution, and community can be used to expand your reach and pique students’ interest.
 

Bringing the studio into the library:  addressing the research needs of studio art and architecture students.
          Hannah Bennett - Public Services Librarian, Arts Library, Yale University
For an art and architecture librarian, one of the most difficult groups to draw into the library are studio art students.  Because these students do not regard the library as logically fitting into their projects, they cannot recognize much less assess their own research needs.  This paper will address how visual literacy initiatives combined with unique public services models can be integrated within a studio art or architecture student’s education.