The Learning Support team can provide synchronous or asynchronous information literacy instruction sessions for your courses, and can provide guidance on integrating information literacy and active learning into online learning environments. Learning Support librarians will also create customized course research guides, and learning objects that can be integrated into your course on Avenue to Learn. As a continuted response to Covid-19, the team will be creating a series of research centered modules and leading a series of online workshops on library and research skills to assist students in the Spring and Summer terms. Stay tuned for an updated Event schedule.
The Library is your partner in teaching, learning and research.
Vision:
Empower and support all members of the McMaster community in developing the skills necessary for critical thinking, information fluency, and other modern literacies needed to skillfully navigate the complexities of an evolving information landscape.
Mission:
In order to support McMaster University Library’s’ vision of advancing knowledge and discovery, fostering creativity, and building community, the Library’s Teaching and Learning Program seeks to develop critical thinking and support effective contributions to public and scholarly discourse through:
- Providing one-on-one research consultations for students and faculty
- Delivering classroom-based research skills instruction
- Creating learning objects and tools for self-directed learning
- Opportunities to work with and learn from primary sources and historical artifacts
- Teaching use of new tools and technologies as they emerge
- Collaboration with faculty and instructors to develop and implement new approaches to pedagogy
- Outreach and partnership with the broader communities of which McMaster is a part
Information literacy skills are common to all disciplines, and support lifelong learning. They enable learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning.
An information literate individual is able to:
| Objective |
Outcomes |
- Determine the nature and extent of information needed
|
- Articulate a well-formulated question
- Understand the context in which information is created
- Understand how information is organized, indexed and accessed
|
- Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
|
- Identify and access appropriate search tools
- Use search tools to identify appropriate information sources
- Locate and obtain the information in a timely manner
|
- Evaluate information and its sources critically
|
- Determine if the information found is relevant to the information need
- Develop and use criteria in order to assess the information found
- Assess the search process and revise as needed
|
- Incorporate selected information into his or her knowledge base
|
- "[Relate] disconnected pieces of information to discover patterns or make generalizations"
- "[Integrate] previously held beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge with new information" [Gilchrist]
|
- Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
|
[Since the purpose is unique to each program, course or activity, outcomes should be identified by the parties involved at the initial planning stage.] |
- Understand many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally
|
- Demonstrate an understanding of academic integrity and avoid plagiarism
- Use information in compliance with Canadian copyright laws
|
