Science and Technology Section (STS): Science Information Literacy Chat

February 2016. Discussion Leader: Bonnie Fong
As an academic librarian, do you feel you're teaching your students all the
information literacy (IL) skills they need to succeed? Or do you think there's
a gap in student knowledge you'd like to fill? This month's chat will focus on
identifying opportunities to teach (more) IL skills. The discussion leader
will begin by sharing her experience working with a chemistry professor to
redesign a seminar course to incorporate a lot more IL. This will be followed
by a conversation among attendees about their attempts to increasing their
teaching of IL - a bit like crowdsourcing for additional successful methods.

March 2016. Discussion Leader: Irena Holden
Celebrate Pi Day with conversations around mathematics! When University at Albany decided to move general education competency requirements (information literacy among them) into the majors, Department of Mathematics and Statistics came up with their own unique model. Learn more how Irina Holden worked on creating and teaching an eight-week, one credit course, Information Literacy in Mathematics and Statistics. The course piloted in Spring 2015. Make sure to bring your own teaching experiences to the discussion!

April 2016. Discussion Leader: Sarah Hood
If the eyes are a window to the soul, then the syllabus is a window to the faculty’s mind-map of their course. Come join us as we engage in a discussion of one librarian’s journey into the world of course syllabi at a small, private, liberal arts institution. Using simple and inexpensive online tools, Sarah Hood will explain how she was able to glean valuable information as part of an ongoing effort to collaborate with faculty on her campus to provide the highest quality information literacy instruction.

October 2016. Discussion Leader: John Meier
In the field of mathematics, scholars are using established (Wikipedia) and
new (MathOverflow) websites as often as the general public. Teaching
scholarship as a conversation, authority as contextual, and the research
inquiry process in modern science is more important than searching techniques.
Let's discuss new approaches to library instruction that focus on more than
the literature discovery part of the research cycle. You can tailor your
approach to the audience, and use small changes to adapt to different
contexts.

November 2016. Discussion Leader: Stephanie Ritchie
PICO is understood to support evidence based practice/medicine research, part of the medical and health sciences disciplines. However, very little use of the PICO framework is found outside of these disciplines. The idea to use PICO for research question and search strategy formulation in other disciplines has been explored in the recent past, but did not seem to generate wide use outside of traditional medical and health fields. With the release of ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and the Research as Inquiry frame, the use of PICO for information literacy instruction may again be of interest.

December 2016. Discussion Leader: Rebecca Kuglitsch
The scholarly conversation in the sciences has developed over time, and using
historical sources can highlight how conventions of the scholarly conversation
have developed, where they began, and who they might exclude. Using historical
sources can help students realize that these conventions were created, rather
than being inevitable. This can help students feel more comfortable learning,
challenging, and working within scientific conversational conventions.