IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Spring Conference 2025

Thank you to all who were able to attend this year's IPAL Instruction Interest Group meeting! Especially now, connecting with friends and colleagues feels so important! We had 15 people attend the Instruction Interest Group session held Wednesday, May 28, 2025, at Drake University's Cowles Library in Des Moines. 

We started with a little orientation to the session and our activities, and outlined our expectations for everyone to get the most from our time together. We then went around the room and introduced ourselves. Because conferences are about connection, we wanted a way for people to be able to identify others who would be open to folks reaching out after the conference—What better way to indicate this than by having everyone self-select by wearing stickers? That way if something came up later in the conversation, we could be sure to get that person’s contact information for a follow up conversation.  

We spent the bulk of the time exploring Table Topics. What are Table Topics, and how do they work? 

• Participants joined a group discussing a topic they had an interest in. (There were prompts for each topic to help get the conversation started.)
• Each table appointed a note taker for their table.
• We structured the session to emphasize participation -- Conversations are made richer by everyone's expertise and experience!
• We wound up doing 3 rounds. At the sound of the buzzer, attendees had the option to pop over to another group to discuss a different topic but everyone was so engrossed in their conversations we all wound up staying put at our original tables!

We've brought together the notes from each group and posted them in the embedded Google Doc below. There were so many rich conversations happening during the entire session, and it's particularly nice to find folks who are also interested in what you're interested in to be able to share around the table. The topics were: 

• Navigating change
• Campus
• Curriculum
• Legislative/administrative pressures
• How are you staying informed? Finding balance? Advocating for your needs?
• Neurodivergent working, learning, & teaching
• What works for you? 
• What has helped you grow with your colleagues and students?
• Tech tools to make life easier *including AI
• Tools and tricks we just can’t stop telling people about
• Things that have changed how you work, teach, stay organized, communicate, and/or learn
• Professional development ideas
• How do you stay up to date with instruction approaches? How are you staying fresh?
• Articles/books you're consuming
• Info-lit-themed common read suggestions for groups of colleagues?
• What resources do you revisit time and again for inspiration?
• Whole person station
• Self-care and recharging – what works for you? Others in your orbit?
• What strategies, tools, resources (books, podcasts, mindfulness or wellness approaches) help you find balance?
• How do your hobbies help? What are your comfort hobbies? Jump-start hobbies?
• Let’s talk about boundaries!
• How can we support each other in chaotic times?

Throughout the session, participants also had access to some fidget toys, bubble wrap to pop, and coloring books to help de-stress or focus throughout our time together.

Thank you again to everyone who participated! There were so many important and supportive conversations happening throughout the session, all made possible because of your participation! We are grateful to have such caring, innovative, and dedicated colleagues throughout Iowa! 

Instruction Interest Group May 2025 Drake by cstone

 

Link to 2025 IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Table Topics Notes in Google Drive.

IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Spring Conference 2024

Thank you to all who were able to attend this year's IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group meeting! It was wonderful being able to connect with so many new faces and reconnect with friends and colleagues we’ve known for years! We had 31 people attend the IL Interest Group session held May 29, 2024 at Iowa State University's Parks Library in Ames. 

We divided time into a few segments: 

• We started with a little orientation to the session and our activities and outlined our expectations for everyone to get the most from our time together. We went around the room and introduced ourselves and then took a brief moment for mindfulness (you’ll find the videos we used embedded in our slides below). Those who participated in person also had access to Cara's stress-relief box which has some fidget toys and coloring books to help de-stress or focus throughout our time together.
• Then we transitioned into Table Topics - We've brought together the notes from each group and posted them in the embedded Google Doc below. There were so many rich conversations happening during the entire session, but it's particularly nice to find folks who are also interested in what you're interested in and share around the table. The topics were: 
• Whole Person Station: self-care & recharging.  
• AI & You: your campus, your work, your tools, your instruction
• Instruction Motivation: what fills your cup, keeps you coming back, outreach, prep process, delivery, assessment, debrief/reflect
• Tech Tools to Make Your Life Easier
• Share & Tell Instruction: ideas, favorite lesson plans, lessons learned, things you wish you could try
• We were so enjoying the Table Topics conversations that we opted to extend them into the Solution or Sympathy time. 
  

Thank you again to everyone who participated! There were so many important and supportive conversations happening throughout the session, all made possible because of your participation! We are grateful to have such energized, creative, and committed colleagues throughout Iowa! 

   

 

Link to 2024 IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Table Topics Notes in Google Drive.

IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Spring Conference 2023

Thank you to all who were able to attend this year's IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group meeting! We so appreciated being able to connect with so many new faces, and touch base with friends we’ve known for years! We had 21 people attend the IL Interest Group session held May 24, 2023 in Dubuque, IA at Loras College. 

We broke our time into a few segments: 

• We started with a little orientation to the session and our activities and outlined our expectations for everyone to get the most from our time together. We also took a brief moment to breathe deeply together (shout out to so many of the free videos from Headspace that are available on YouTube – you’ll find the one we used embedded in our slides below). Those who participated in person also had access to some fidget toys, coloring books, and candy to help de-stress or focus throughout the session.
• Then we transitioned into Table Topics - We've brought together the notes from each group and posted them in the embedded Google Doc below. The topics were: 
• Self-care and recharging
• Building community in trying times
• Tech tools to make your life easier
• Chat GPT & AI
• Instruction ideas
• As facilitators, it is always hard to stop when we’re hearing all of the fantastic conversations happening in the Table Topics time—But we did, switching gears to allow time for the Solution or Sympathy activity where participants wrote down instruction/library-related questions or concerns; shared the questions anonymously to see if the group has experienced something similar; and offered up possible solutions, or sympathized to let the person who submitted the question know that at least they're not alone.
• We wrapped up our time together by celebrating the big and little things in the Wins: Now and Later segment. We asked for your successes, to share something you're proud of--whether it was a major project or a singular moment. We enjoyed celebrating our colleagues’ accomplishments!

Thank you again to everyone who participated! These sessions are truly so valuable because of what you bring to the conversations! We are grateful to have such intelligent, creative, and invested colleagues throughout Iowa! 

Link to Table Topics notes in Google Drive.

IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Spring Conference 2022

Thank you to all who were able to attend this year's IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group meeting! It was wonderful to see familiar faces, and get to know folks who are new to Iowa's academic libraries! We had 17 people attend the IL Interest Group session held May 20, 2022. 

We broke our time into 3 segments: 

• We began with our familiar Solution or Sympathy activity where participants wrote down instruction/library-related questions or concerns; shared the questions anonymously to see if the group has experienced something similar; and offered up possible solutions, or sympathized to let the person who submitted the question know that at least they're not alone.
• We celebrated the big and little things in the Wins This Year segment. We asked for your successes, to share something you're proud of--whether it was a major project or a singular moment. We enjoyed celebrating each others' accomplishments.
• Then we transitioned into Discussion Groups (AKA Table Topics) - We've brought together the notes from each group and posted them in the embedded Google Doc below. 

Thank you again to everyone who participated! These interest group sessions are so rich and meaningful because of what you bring to the conversations! 

IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group Spring Conference 2021

Thanks to all who were able to attend this year's IPAL Information Literacy Interest Group meeting! Especially now, it felt great to connect with wonderful colleagues from around the state! This was a new conference format being fully online, but the conference planners did bring back some familiar elements by continuing to combine the Iowa Library Association ACRL conference with the IPAL conference. We had 28 people attend the IL Discussion Group breakout room on May 21, 2021. We began our time together with our familiar Solution or Sympathy activity where participants reflected using Padlet. Then we transitioned into New, Old, & On-Trend - an activity where participants reflected on new things they tried this year and wanted to keep, things they used to do but now realize energy is better spent elsewhere, and those things that we used to do/are still doing that aren't going away anytime soon. This year instead of more breakout rooms, we transitioned Table Topics into an asynchronous format for folks to share and reflect. All are linked in the embedded Google Doc below. 

 

Politics round up

Happy Election Day!! Or as I like to call it in Iowa, happy election campaigns reprieve day! As a former politics major, this day was always important to me. Being informed and being active in our own government is something I try to advocate for in all of my classes.

Today's post is going to look a bit different than my typical ones. I'm going to do a round up of some of my favorite government and political resources and tools. Knowing most of my students don't come in with much background in politics, government or civics, my favorites balance content with context.

General:

• iCivics.org--iCivics is a non-profit started by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner to teach students about the political process, usually through games. It covers drafting bills, the Supreme Court arguments, the Bill of Rights, immigration, the race to the White House and more. Free accounts are easy to create and the games are both informative and fun to play. Teaching resources are also available.
• Constitution Center--If you can get to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, go! It's amazing. In the meantime, check out the interactive Constitution on their website. Their educational resources are located here. They also have a goldmine of Constitution Day activities.
• Our Documents--An actual government site that hosts great quality scans of 100 milestone documents important to American history. They also have text transcripts for each document. 
• DocsTeach--Aimed more at history teachers, this site can also be useful when trying to find primary documents on political topics. It looks at how to engage students in historical documents.

Congress:

• OpenCongress--A non-partisan website that bring together information about bills in Congress and Congress members. It provides funding and spending data as well.
• GovTrack--Another non-partisan site that provides summaries of bills, tracks the likelihood of passage as well as provides rationale for why it may or may not succeed. Sometimes a little slow to update, the overall content makes up for that delay.
• Congress.gov--The legislative process videos cover the entire process and rational of how a bill becomes a law. Not quite as entertaining as "SchoolHouse Rock," it does a decent job of covering the content.
• Countable--Summarizes both sides of popular bills in Congress. It doesn't have search function if you're looking for a particular bill.

Supreme Court:

• ScotusBlog--SCOTUSblog does the best, accessible and easily readable coverage of Supreme Court cases I have seen. They not only link to all the relevant court documents for each case, but they include their own coverage like argument previews and recaps, as well as opinion recaps explaining the future implications of the decision. While many SCOTUS websites have a legalese tone, SCOTUSblog has an entire staff position dedicated to writing "In Plain English" articles for their site, breaking down important cases without all the legal jargon. Coverage goes back to 2007.
• Oyez--This site provides links to the Supreme Court audio in a much easier to find format than the Supreme Court website itself.
• CourtListener--This allows users to search ALL of the federal courts opinions and cases in one box. This is particularly helpful when trying to find the opinion of a case before it hits the Supreme Court. The highest state court decisions are also available.

Discussion Points from ILA Meetup - 10/23/14

Eleven instruction-minded librarians gathered after the ILA/ACRL meeting to discuss, brainstorm, and sympathize for the IPAL IL Interest Group informal meetup on Thursday, Oct. 23. We began with introductions and jumped right into instruction ideas. (If I missed anything or my notes are incorrect, please let me know in the comments!)

Jen Bishop, Kirkwood Community College, shared a fun idea: Zombie Concept Map. Focusing on critical thinking in her College 101 courses, students are given the scenario that zombies have taken over campus and that this class of students are the last humans on earth. Students are given 5 minutes to find good hiding spots in the library, and then come back and report back to the class their chosen location, describe it, and explain why they chose that location. (This helps orient the students to areas within the library, and helps get the activity rolling.) Next they are asked to discuss in groups what is most important to know, do, and save during a zombie apocalypse. What knowledge must be preserved? What skills or other knowledge would be helpful? Turning issues into questions to be answered, the students come up with research questions such as: Would I have to kill my dog? By discussing this question, they can shift it to research similar to what they might be doing in classes, looking at human-to-animal disease transfer factors, etc. I believe somewhere in this process a winning group is chosen by the course instructor and the other groups become zombie bait.

I posed a question about online instruction. I have struggled, and have seen others struggle, with making online instruction engaging and helping students achieve higher-level thinking. We've all seen examples where the coursework is standard: read, fill out a worksheet, post something in a discussion, take a test, repeat. We've also seen great examples of engagement and interesting discussion, but unfortunately that sometimes feels like the exception to the rule. We discussed options for two-way communication, engaging assignments/activities, and other ideas.

• Students can create videos as parts of their assignment (can help those who may have stronger speaking skills over writing, and also helps the students -- & instructor -- feel more connected, like they know their classmates rather than just a name on the screen. 
• Sara Scheib (University of Iowa) mentioned that Dan Gall (also U of I) has students do a video assignment where they essentially flip the classroom; the students select a database and create a video teaching that database to their peers. 
• Discussion boards can sometimes be tricky. Some just use them as correspondence between an individual student and the instructor, while others use them to help connect students (students post and also respond to the posts of others). 
• Instructor feedback for every activity helps students feel more connected. 
• Course wikis: good for a running log/discussion (rather than having to go and click into each discussion post), better flow perhaps?
• Can we use full online programs/colleges as models or glean best practices from them to use in our blended or completely online courses? Can they help serve as a model for us?
• Online courses can be helpful for introverts or those less likely to speak up in a traditional classroom; in the online environment each student is individually held accountable for their contribution to the discussion
• Identifying what types of students are attracted to online over traditional study:
• Self-starters?
• Adults?
• Other life circumstances?
• Identifying characteristics of online learners can help us craft a better online learning environment for them
• Tools for feedback:
• Voicethread: record vocal comments http://voicethread.com/ ($) - Creates a thread where students can respond with text, voice, or video.
• Similar technology from Notre Dame: Remix: http://learning.nd.edu/remix/
• University of Wisconsin Milwaukee has online instruction modules that balance video, text and worksheets
• Libguides can help
•  You can have upper-level students create libguides to helpstudents who will be coming after them. A "what I wish I would have known/had" experience; gives students choice and a sense of power and helps first-year students
• Skype or Google Hangout office hours weren't really utilized 

Some of the other things we discussed were:

• Satellite office hours: it's best to have regular, established hours (so they know your schedule/routine); shows students you are part of the department and can help engagement with both students and faculty in that department
• Instances of "oh, yeah! I was going to ask" or "since you're here."
• How to make it scalable to research/state schools? 
• How to get more librarians willing to teach/more comfortable teaching? Breaking them out of their comfort zone a little...
• Offering observation time
• Collaborative prep/lesson development or developing the lesson and providing it for them
• Asking for their input (they're experts in another area; you're developing a lesson plan for that area; ask for their help with developing the lesson; ask for them to come observe you as you teach) - This may help them feel more comfortable with the idea of it if they've had input about what should be taught, how it should be taught. 

There was also discussion of having some more similar brainstorming/work sessions during both IPAL and ILA/ACRL conferences in the spring, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Instruction Swap Ideas and Ongoing Repository Project

It was suggested that we collect the Instruction Swap ideas and share them with each other. I've uploaded all that were sent into an Evernote notebook, and added a few tags to help folks navigate and find what they're interested in.  View it here: https://www.evernote.com/pub/iloveinstruction/firstnotebook

Also, others mentioned in their IPAL session evaluations that creating some sort of drop box or  repository where people could easily share instruction ideas at any time (not just during IPAL) would be helpful. It wouldn't have to be polished, or fancy, or overly detailed--Just enough detail for someone else looking at it to get the gist and figure out if the lesson plan or document is something that they could adapt/use. If that's something you're interested in, add the following email to your address book and start sending away: iloveinstruction.3a8241a [at] m.evernote.com

When using email to contribute to an Evernote notebook, your subject line becomes the title of the new note. You can add tags (identifying categories/labels used to group like notes together) after your note title in the subject line by using the hashtag symbol (#). For Evernote, your tags can include spaces (see image below). When you click send, Evernote will then upload your email as the note, apply the labels you've indicated, and include any attachments you added.

If you have any questions or issues, feel free to contact Cara Stone (cstone [at] grandview.edu).

Citations Made Easy

I don't know how much energy we all put into teaching (and writing our own) citations, but I think it's quite a bit. Each department has different guidelines and each student brings his/her own background and understanding when they enter college. Some were well prepared in high school and are pros at properly giving credit to their sources. Others may not have ever written a citation, especially not a citation in a particular format.  Some may have "citation trauma" (a term I made up just now, but I'm sure we've all seen: deer in headlights, too afraid to even begin approaching a resource citation).

When something is too overwhelming for me, whether it is understanding a process or trying to come to a major life decision, I try to break it down into less-overwhelming parts. I figured this approach can't hurt with our incoming first-year students either!

It's not revolutionary, earth shattering, or even pretty (but, I suppose, if you feel so inspired you could add some visual pizzazz), but this citation chart is something I have started using to help students extract the citation information they need from an article (below is the APA version). I have 3 different charts for the 3 major citation styles we see students use the most. It is organized in such a way that the students plug in the information so that it is in the same order they'll use when pulling together their citation.

Citation Chart: APA

Articles

Author’s last name, author’s first and middle initials (if the middle initials are provided; if they aren’t then don’t worry about it.  Include all authors if there is more than one)
Year the article was published
Title of the article (include subtitle)
Title of the journal the article was published in
Journal volume number
Journal issue number
Page numbers for the article
DOI or Permalink for the article (if you found it electronically in a database or on a website)

Books

Author (formatted like articles)
Year the book was published
Title of the Book (include subtitle)
Location where the book was published
Name of the publisher

Websites

Author (formatted like articles. If there isn’t an author, replace it with the organization that put together the website, usually found at the bottom by the copyright date)
Date information for the page or when the whole website was published
Title of the webpage (include subtitle)
The link to the website (be careful here—copy and paste rather than retype)

Newspaper Articles

Author (formatted like articles)
Date the article was published (include the year, month, & day)
Title of the article (include subtitle)
Title of the newspaper the article was published in
Page numbers for the article (if you found it in print)
Permalink for the article (if you found it electronically in a database or on a website)

What are some ways you help students break challenges down into smaller parts?

How to Read a Scholarly Article

I recently received a request from a faculty member: We're finding that some of our students are having a hard time figuring out how to read a journal article. Do you have a resource you could share?

While at the time I didn't have anything on hand, I had been mulling over this topic for a while.  Reading scholarly articles is not a skill that comes naturally.  In fact, very little of a traditional high school education prepares a college freshman for the piecemeal way a skilled reader tackles a scientific paper.  But as I tell my students (tip o' the hat, Becky Canovan!), research articles are not romance novels—you don't read them beginning to end.

How, then, to teach students the proper way to wade into the world of literature reviews and methodologies and discussions?  North Carolina State University has a pretty nifty online tutorial called "Anatomy of a Scholarly Article," which I used as inspiration.  I liked the way they broke the article down into its component parts, and discussed the visual and contextual clues to use when deciding what's what in the maze of headings, statistics, and citations.  I also really appreciated that they found a good way to move the focus from the content of the article to the structure of the article.  It would be nearly impossible (or at least straining) to read "A Cognitive Model for the Representation and Acquisition of Verb Selectional Preferences," simply because the font is so small.  However, I was going to be working with these upper-level research methods students for fifty minutes, and it was hard to envision an interactive class session using only this online tool.  So, I did what I usually do: I went analog.

As you'll see below, I made a fake journal article, with fake publication information, fake authors, a fake abstract, and a fake publisher (the Library!).  And with a little help from my friend, the Lorem Ipsum generator, I was able to create fake content that wouldn't distract from the structure of the article. 

I then added headings (methodology, discussion, conclusion), parenthetical citations in the literature review section, a table and a figure, and a bibliography.  Finally, I labeled each part I wanted students to be able to recognize with a number 1-13.

In class, I broke students into small groups and handed each group two real article print-outs with the corresponding database citation/abstract stapled on top (since this is often what students see first when searching).  I asked the groups to decide which articles they could use for their research (assuming they were researching that topic), and which articles were probably not scholarly enough, and had them explain their decision to the rest of the class based on what they saw.  This got them tuned into the physical cues of an article and prepared them for the next step.

I then passed out the fake scholarly article I had made, and asked them as small groups to tell me which 3-4 of the numbered features were most important when deciding whether the article was scholarly.  The groups' responses varied slightly, but mostly focused on the authors, the authors' credentials, the bibliography, and the publication information.  Then I asked the small groups to decide which of the numbered features were most important in understanding the article.  Again, responses varied slightly, but most focused on the abstract, the introduction, the methodology, and the discussion/conclusion.  I also made sure to ask students what the literature review section was (it was numbered but not labeled), and how it could be useful to them.  Finally, we chatted about the best strategies for reading a scholarly article for understanding (I made sure to include the professor in this conversation), noting the benefits of different approaches.

What I observed was that these students gained a much more nuanced and context-based understanding of the structure of a research article, and I suspect they ultimately understood the concept much better than they would have had I merely pointed out the different features and sections on the screen.  Their small-group conversations were rich, and the process of reaching a consensus pushed them to reason with each other in choosing which sections of the article to focus on.  Granted, I've only tried this activity once and with a stellar group of students, but I will definitely be pulling this trick out of my hat again.

Unique instruction tool: hanging file folders

I could not decide what to call this post. Do I name it after the technique? Do I name it after the instructional strategy or content I'm trying to cover? And then I realized, no you need to name it after the unique part of it: the tool you use.

I am a queen of cheap. Chances are this won't be the last "Unique instruction tool" post I pen.Why pay for something fancy when you can use a free tool or repurpose something you've got lying around?. Enter the lowly hanging file folder. You know you have some extras in that file cabinet in the corner. Why not take them and re-envision them as a teaching tool?

This idea originated as a way to help students put a bunch of events from European history in chronological order. The inspiration? Those "Price Is Right" pricing games I watched as a kid! I printed out the events on pieces of paper and then stapled them to the front of the folder with the metal bar at the top. On the inside I stapled a piece of paper that had the event, the year it occurred, and the correct number it was in the sequence. I finished off the project by binder clipping the folders shut.

A simple activity, but the benefits were many. It got the students up out of their seats and moving around the classroom. It required the students to work together to figure out the sequence. It introduced quite a few different events (as possible paper topics). And it had the added element of being something the students hadn't seen before. Plus I paid absolutely nothing for it. Paper, a stapler, binder clips and hanging folders--that's it.

Since the initial introduction, I've used this technique to talk about characteristics of different regions of the world, and most recently to reinforce what students have already learned about the parts and purpose of a scholarly journal article. We teach this concept in a few intro level classes, but it's something a little reinforcement can't hurt. When I ask the students about this in class I usually get one student that answers all the questions, but with the folder activity I get at least 8 students involved usually leaving the traditionally quiet students in the "audience" to move the volunteers up front into the correct sequence.

What ways could use use this technique? It works well for sequencing and reinforcement of ideas already presented.