Teaching & Consultation
WMU librarians offer several types of teaching and consultation, all with the goal of developing information literacy amongst WMU students.
Information literacy in your course
Information literacy is most effective when integrated into course curriculum — one visit to the library per course per semester is usually not enough for a student to become information literate.
As information literacy experts, WMU librarians can help course instructors incorporate information literacy into their course curriculum in several ways:
Instructor consultations. Librarians can suggest specific assignments, teaching strategies, rubrics, and other approaches that painlessly integrate information literacy into course curriculum.
Course-related research instruction. Librarians can provide instruction sessions, held either in the library or where ever the course meets. Research has shown these sessions are most effective when they are integrated with a specific class assignment or project.
Embedded in e-learning. Librarians can create research instruction materials for use in an e-learning platform, provide video or chat-based research instruction, or provide one-on-one research consultations for students using discussion board, email, and chat features.
ResearchPath. ResearchPath is an interactive, online research tutorial designed to introduce students to the general concepts of University research. We strongly encourage all instructors to assign ResearchPath to their students, especially those who have a strong research component in their classes.
Student consultations. Librarians can provide one-on-one research instruction for individual students, but this is most effective for students in upper level course work in which their research is individualized (e.g., senior thesis research). Please note, for research projects assigned to an entire class, it is much more effective for a librarian to provide course-related research instruction to the whole class at once.
Contact Us
For more information about information literacy. or if you would like to try one of the ideas above, contact Dianna Sachs Instructional Services Librarian at dianna.sachs@wmich.edu or 269-387-5182, your department's liaison librarian.