Information Literacy & Pedagogy Toolkit for Librarians

Can you show them all the library resources?
I just need them to be able to use the databases.
Can you talk to them about citing sources?

                                       --instructors everywhere

It can be easy to build a class around these typical show-them-how-to requests, but meaningful information literacy education will only take place by shifting the question from What do I want to show students? to What do I want students to be able to do? That's all a learning outcome is--your educational hope for your students. 

Learning outcomes can be expressed as knowledge, skills, or attitudes you hope students will gain. A good learning outcome is

• measurable or judge-able.
• clear to the students, faculty, and librarian.
• appropriate in scale to the situation/class.
• integrated, developmental, and transferable.

Although there is no one agreed upon definition of learning outcomes among all educators, the following outcome formula is relatively standard in information literacy education circles. 

Observable Behavior: Begin with a verb that reflects the desired skill and appropriate cognitive level. Select verbs that are measurable, observable or "judge-able." Use Bloom's Taxonomy (either the original or revised) as a source of verbs to creative your learning outcomes.

In Order To: Serves as a bridge bridge between the behavior and the rationale.

Reason Why:  Describes the way the student will apply the ability. It creates relevance and connection for the student.

Here are a few examples of the outcomes formula in action:

• Students will develop website evaluation criteria in order to identify information sources appropriate to their research.
• Students will demonstrate the use of Boolean operators in order to develop effective search statements.
• Students will distinguish between primary and secondary research in order to identify primary research articles. 
• Students will select subject-specific databases in order to locate relevant research.