Information Literacy Instruction

What to Cover

High school visits to UNM represent a range of topics. In our experience, however, there are a few necessary and important points to cover for any visit.  

  • When will students arrive, take lunch, and depart? [Pre-Visit]
    • We've noticed this will change closer to their visit. This information will also help you plan when to help students to wrap up (especially if they're scanning).  If students are taking lunch and continuing after lunch, there may be some logistics to work out (i.e. does the room need someone to stay during lunch to protect backpack etc. Note: this should be someone with the group). 
  • Ask for a topic list if students are bringing projects [Pre-Visit]
  • How will students save their work? [Pre-Visit]
    • This is a good point to bring up 1) before the visit and 2) day of visit before researching. Students must download a pdf of the material to USB drives or Google drive. Learning Services has a handful of loaner USBs to transfer scans to computers (they should all be returned by the end of the visit).  Sending themselves permalinks will *not* work once they are off-campus.
  • Remind students to bring pencils/pens and paper [Pre-Visit]
    • This is handy for many warm-up activities.
  • Location of bathrooms
  • Log-in information for computers 
    • Ask a member of the Learning Services team if you don't remember 
  • Citation tools 
    • In databases or in EDS

Structuring the Class

Here's a basic format for high school instruction. Different high school groups will have different priorities (and different time allotments), so feel free to structure the session as makes sense.  

  • Warm up activity (see "Warm Up Activities" section for ideas)
    • 10-15 minutes 
  • Give log-in information 
    • 5 minutes 
  • Instruction activities (See "Instruction Activities" section for ideas)
    • Try to embed instruction in activities 
    • If lecturing, try to regularly intersperse lecture with activity/discussion 
  • Tour of the library homepage 
    • Especially useful if they need books 
    • Most will automatically use the Quick Search 
  • Citation tools 
    • In databases or in EDS
    • 5 minutes
  • Saving work
    • It's useful to give students a few minutes to figure out how they're saving work. You may even need to show students how to download an article to the desktop and transfer it to their device. Permalinks do not work once they are off-campus.
    • 5-10 minutes 
  • Free work time 
    • This is an important part of many high schools' visits. Note: If finding and scanning book chapters is a priority, consider structuring the session so students do this right away. Otherwise, it's easy to run out of time. 
  • 15 minute warning 
    • If people are still scanning chapters, you may need to give a half hour warning instead