LibGuides: Active Learning Activities for Online Information Literacy Tutorials: Standard One: Identify Information Need

The information literate student determines the nature and extent of information needed

Activities with Examples

See How Research Topics Change
Provide a research topic and a set of limiters such as place, time, population, etc. Let the learner click or roll over the limiters to see how a topic changes and narrows.
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from RIOT - Rutgers
Choose the Better Research Question
Provide two research questions and let the learner choose which one is better. Provide meaningful feedback on the choices.
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From Tutorial for Info Power
Understand Your Assignment with Task Words
Give a list of task words that are commonly found in college assignments such as analyze, criticize, describe, report, etc. and provide more information about what those words mean in terms of the assignment. For example "Justify = Express valid reasons for accepting a particular interpretation or conclusion..."
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from Research 101
Find the Key Theme or Best Keywords in a Research Question
Provide a research question and have the learner roll over the words in the research question to show which words are a key theme or a keyword. A second option is to have the learner type the key concepts from the research question into text boxes and then provide meaningful feedback on their answers. Lastly, you could do this exercise using multiple choice.
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from Tutorial for Info Power
Too Broad, Too Narrow, or Just Right?
Provide a set of research questions or thesis statements and ask the learner to decide if each is too broad, to narrow, or just right.
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from Begin Your Research Tutorial
Understand Your Assignment with Task Words
Give a list of task words that are commonly found in college assignments such as analyze, criticize, describe, report, etc. and provide more information about what those words mean in terms of the assignment. For example "Justify = Express valid reasons for accepting a particular interpretation or conclusion..."
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from Research 101

The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources for information

Activites with Examples

Where is the best place to look?
Present the learner with an information need and ask them to choose which information source is the best place to look. Provide two or three sources for the student to choose from such as library catalog, the web, and research databases and provide meaningful feedback regarding their choice.
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from Researching 101
Popular, Scholarly or Trade?
Show the learner an image of a type of periodical (popular, scholarly, and/or trade) and have the learner mouse over the image to see explanations (using call-outs) of how they can identify what type of publication it is by looking at it.
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from SKIL
Primary Secondary or Tertiary?
Provide a set of resources. Have the student sort the sources (by using drag and drop) into the three categories: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary. Provide meaningful feedback.
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from Beginning Research Tutorial
Customize your topic
Show how different disciplines would approach the same topic by asking the learner roll over the different disciplines to see how the topic changes.
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from Beginning Research Tutorial
Matching Resources to Your Information Need
Give the learner a set of "kinds" of information such as factual, summary, detailed analysis, etc. and have the learner match those types of information with the type of information source that would most likely have that kind of information. Provide meaningful feedback on the learner's selections.
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from Beginning Research Tutorial

Activity Ideas

Popular, Scholarly, or Trade?

Present learner with a set of periodicals with a mix of both popular, scholarly and trade publications. Have the learner drag and drop the popular periodicals into one bucket or column, scholarly into another and trade into another. This can also be done with article titles. Remember to provide meaningful feedback.

Is this source Primary or Secondary?

Provide a research question or thesis along with a set of sources (use images or screenshots along with a description of the resource), Ask the learner to identify which sources would be a primary source for the research question and which sources would be secondary. This exercise could be a drag and drop or click on the source. Provide meaningful feedback.

Should You Use This Source?

Give the learner a research topic/question. Given the topic, provide a variety of sources and ask if the source would be appropriate to use or not.

Where can I find this resource?

Provide images of different types of resources. Have the learner roll over the images to discover where they can find that resource.

What Kind of Information Is It?

Give the learner a set of of information types (such as diary, advertisement, research article, etc) and a table that has Primary, Secondary, Tertiary on the y-axis and Objective, Subjective on the x-axis. Have the learner drag and drop the different information types into the correct place in the table (i.e, a diary entry would be Subjective/Primary).

The information literate student considers the costs and benefits of acquiring the needed information

Activities with Examples

How long will this assignment take?
Link to or embed an Assignment Calculator.
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from University of Minnesota Libraries
Know the steps of the research process
Have the learner drag and drop the steps of the research process in the correct order. Provide meaningful feedback on the learner's choices.
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from the SMART tutorial
Know Your Library Services
Give the learner a set of information needs such as "my instructor put books on reserve"; "I need to find the full-text of this article'; and "the library does not have a copy of this book." Along with these information needs, provide a set of library services that can help the learner fulfill those information needs such as "Interlibrary Loan" and "Course Reserves" and have the leaner drag and drop to match the information need with the library service.
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from Project Information Literacy Online Tutorial (PILOT)

Activity Ideas

When will I get it?

Provide different sources that are located in different places. Have the student match the source to the amount of time it takes to get. Examples - Library book in the stacks = same day; Book from library consortium = 2-3 days; Inter library Loan Request = one week; Article from a database = same day etc.

The information literate student reevaluates the nature and extent of the information need

Activity Ideas

Quiz Idea

Provide a research topic with a set of resources and ask the learner if each resources is appropriate for the topic. Follow each choice with a follow up multiple choice question such as why is the resource inappropriate? or why is this a good resource? Provide meaningful feedback for the answers.

Change the Topic

Provide the learner with a research question and a set of resources that support the topic but suggest that the research question needs to be adjusted. Ask the learner to assess the research question, the resources that support it, and revise the research question to better reflect the kinds of information they are finding. This could be a multiple choice question with 4-5 revised research questions to choose from. Provide meaningful feedback.