The traditional lecture is very efficient for presenting a large amount of information in a short period of time. How much do students learn from the lecture? Although more conjecture than empirically derived (notable exceptions include Baddeley, 1981; Giles, Johnson, Knight, Zammett, & Weinman, 1982; Johnstone & Percival, 1976; Weiland & Kinsbury, 1977), most experts agree that students have limited recall for information presented in lectures, calling into question the efficacy of the lecture for student learning. The research literature now abounds with demonstrations and reviews of active learning, experiential learning, and constructivist learning (e.g., Biggs & Tang, 2011).
How much information should students learn anyway? Given that information (“bad” information as well as “good” information) is widely and easily accessible, shouldn’t we be helping students develop information literacy skills so they can find and critically evaluate information for themselves (cf. Association of College and Research Libraries, 2000)? Given the relationship between information literacy and academic readiness and performance in first year courses (Smith, Given, Julien, Ouellete, & deLong, 2013), developing information literacy strategies is an important goal for university instruction.
In this interactive workshop, I will first model implementing information literacy skill development into a lecture and then engage the participants in a discussion on helping students develop information literacy skills to foster active, personally-motivated, life-long learning. The course I will use is AN SC 496, Research on the Human-Animal Bond, a fourth year lecture and lab course on social science research methods taken mainly by students in agriculture (the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta). I have chosen this class because fuzzy animals tend to evoke emotion over critical thinking and because most STLHE participants will be able to relate to the topic. However, I use the same approach in very large (500 student) introductory psychology classes and the approach is relevant to a wide range of introductory and upper level lecture and seminar courses.