2015 RTL Conference

While students are learning the important content and concepts in a university course, they are also developing essential skills in academic research, critical thinking, and information literacy. These skills are sometimes considered secondary, or it is assumed that students should be learning these outside of class with minimal instruction and no clear marks or credit given.

In this workshop, we will discuss academic research, critical thinking, and information literacy (IL) by providing instruction and guidance on developing, emphasizing, assessing, and providing feedback on research skills, all in the context of the essential content and concepts of a university course.  The workshop will be led by librarians with experience in designing curriculum that employ Backward Design, the new IL Framework from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and a variety of assessment practices.

Faculty, TAs, librarians, archivists, and writing centre staff will benefit from discussing considerations and aspects of teaching and assessment of skills in academic research, critical thinking, and IL.  Participants will consider the benefits of being intentional and transparent in communicating with their students the goals of teaching and assessing these skills.  By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Develop strategies for incorporating teaching of these skills into their courses, including through collaboration across the university 
• Develop a process for collecting and documenting evidence of learning for assessing these skills 
• Determine actions they can take based on evidence of learning
• Create a lesson plan working through learning activities, assessment, and post-assessment actions