With the ACRL Framework always in mind, I design activities that keep students active and engaged. Nothing takes longer than 15 minutes.  

Padlet Activity

I used to do this as a One-Minute Paper (and I've periodically gone back to that) but I've found post-pandemic that student interest and engagement are higher when I post these questions via Padlet. Padlet is super fun, both for instructor and student. As an instructor you can customize each of your Padlets; as a student, it can be totally anonymous and you can add more than just text to your post. 

Here are some typical questions I might start off class with: 

• • • How do you typically start a research project? What are your first steps?

    • What do you already know about your topic? What do you hope to find out?

    • How do you know if a source is credible or reliable? What tips and tricks do you use?

    • Two Things: 1. What, to you, are the most important things that make a news source credible and reliable? 2. Please include a link to your fave, go-to news source.

    • What is your experience with libraries? (Can be public, school, or....any type of library!) Was it good or bad? How comfortable are you in this library?

    • Google “what is a library database” and check out the results. Then in your own words post a short response of 1. what you think a library database is and 2. what they’re helpful for

The 3 P's: Population, Place, Problem (Formulating/Narrowing a Topic)

This is a fun, hands-on activity that can also function as an ice-breaker!

On the slip of paper pictured below, students write their name and a Population that they'd like to focus on. then they hand it off to another student, who fills in a Place. They then hand it off to a third student, who fills in a Problem. Finally, the slip is returned to its original owner who must formulate a research question based on those three pieces of information. 

The results can be informative...and also sometimes entertaining!

Four Corners 

This is a very common activity (a quick Google search for media literacy four corners will pull up numerous examples and suggestions) and it's a fun and engaging way to kick off a media/news literacy class. I've adapted the one from the New York Times article Teenagers and Misinformation: Some Starting Points for Teaching Media Literacy.  

Station Rotation! 

This is a brainstorming activity where students work in groups that each spend time (approx. 2-3 min.) at 3 different stations. (For fun, I'll set my phone's alarm to go off to a fun ringtone to indicate when to rotate. "Baby Shark" has ben a nostalgic favorite among students!) Questions can be written/posted on whiteboards/chalkboards/large post-it easel paper around the room. Students brainstorm by writing their answers/thoughts on the boards/post-its. Every group will have visited each station once. The real challenge is that by the third rotation, students start running out of ideas - but this can be an opportunity for creative, out-of-the-box thinking! 

Advantages:

• Focuses students' thinking on the lesson topic

• Allows students to initiate their own ideas while building off of/adding on to the work of others

• Involves physical movement, verbal interaction and teamwork

These are typical questions I would post at each station for, say, a news or media literacy class:

• What are some ways you can determine an author’s expertise (and hence, credibility)? Be as specific as possible!

• What are some ways you can learn about a group/organization? (ie. a group or org that created a website or is responsible for its content) Be as specific as possible!

• If you had nothing but a computer with internet access, what are some ways you could investigate a claim someone has made? Be as specific as possible!

The Information Process 

Groups of students are each given a set of six cards, each of which has a Format of information on it (a Tweet, a Wikipedia article, a Blog entry, a News article, a Scholarly Journal Article and a Scholarly Book) and a brief description of that Format. Each group also has a seventh card that has an Element of information creation on it (Time, Editing, Research and Length). Considering their assigned Element, students must work as a group to rank order their Format cards. They then answer the questions below.     

WhiteBoard Activity - Start with "PreSearch"!

This is a typical beginning-of-class activity where students use the WhiteBoards (we have 4 WBs in our instruction room) to brainstorm and narrow a topic as well as finding background information on that topic. It gets students up and moving and gives them valuable, collaborative group work experience. 

Teach Yourself...then the Class! (Database Activity)

This is an activity typically done during the second half of class, after a brief database demo. Students work in groups to complete the research tasks below (one database per group). So that students have a little skin in the game 😏 after about 10 minutes they must give a mini-presentation to their classmates, using the instructor computer. This gives students valuable experience with group collaboration as well as presentation skills and also serves as an in-class assessment tool.  

Mike Caulfield's "S.I.F.T. - The Four Moves"

To see how I use Mike Caulfield's brilliant evaluation activity,  click here then select "S.I.F.T.ing For Truth." 

Station Rotation!

Instructional Videos

Most of the videos I make now are hosted on my institution's LMS (Canvas) via Panopto. But here are some videos hosted on my library's YouTube channel.