Teaching the Teachers: Information Literacy Workshops for University Faculty

Abstract

In the spring of 2009, librarians at the James E. Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University partnered with the university’s Learning, Teaching, and Innovative Technology Center (LTITC) to provide a series of librarian-led faculty development workshops. This series of three workshops was sponsored by the LTITC as part of their regular First Tuesday Series. The workshops focused on teaching faculty to incorporate information literacy principles into their existing courses. The three sessions covered: creating alternatives to the undergraduate research paper, teaching students to evaluate information sources, and preventing student plagiarism.

This presentation will focus on the partnership with the LTITC and how the library was able to use the LTITC’s marketing, publicity, and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning community to do library outreach. The presenters will discuss their partnership with the LTITC, the topics they chose for the workshops, and the impetus to demonstrate good teaching methods in their presentations to faculty. The presenters will also discuss some new collaborative relationships and other benefits that have developed as a result of the workshops. While this program took place in the academic setting, it can be scaled to work in educational institutions at any level.