Peaks, Valleys and Vistas: How Online Learning Can Reshape the Information Literacy Instruction Landscape

Peaks, Valleys and Vistas: How Online Learning Can Reshape the Information Literacy Instruction Landscape

Westminster College's first-year composition courses have generally been taught in person, with two accompanying information literacy instruction sessions. However, several composition courses have recently been taught online, and the librarians wanted to make sure that the corresponding online information course stayed engaging and interactive. The college's instructional designer and a librarian teamed up to implement the three pillars of the Community of Inquiry theory for online education as well as activities that addressed the new ACRL Information Literacy Framework. The online IL course will now consist of a combination of interactive tutorials, moderated discussion forums, and activities that help merge the ACRL standards and the framework's threshold concepts. Objectives for the session will include offering examples of how the framework can work for in-person and online information literacy instruction; presenting the Community of Inquiry model as a theoretical basis for online learning; and providing resources for Instructional Design best practices.