Presented at LILAC 2015

1. Embedding
Information Literacy
into Second Level
School Curriculum:
experiences of
Maynooth University
Elaine Bean
The Library
email: elaine.bean@nuim.ie
Tel: 00 353 1 708 6445

2. I will discuss
• Why we designed the programme
• How we selected schools
• The content
• How it has progressed
• Going forward

3. Why we designed the programme
• Aware that first year students at third level education face
significant challenges in adapting to a new information
environment
• Students are more familiar with rote learning
• Critical thinking or evaluating resources is new for most
• Opens people’s minds to coming to University
• Maynooth University Strategic Plan 2012-2017
“To strengthen its engagement with all stakeholders through sustained partnerships with
enterprises, communities, civil society and public bodies, to build support for the mission of
the university, to serve the needs of society, and to open new opportunities for research
and learning.”

4. Previous involvement with Schools
• Delivered an information literacy programme a number of
years ago to our local secondary school. Aimed at 2nd year
and 5th year students
• 1 double class – once-off training session
• Delivered by two members of staff
• Content needed more than one session, however, teachers
were not in a position to give up class time

5. Designing a programme
• What were others doing?
• Universities were getting involved with schools
• Involvement varied
• Visits to the Library mostly
• What time of year suited us best?
• What school should we approach?
• What contact had Maynooth University already
made with schools – could we tie in with that?

6. What could we do?
• Designed a working outline including content for
each session and a proposal to present to a school
• Our programme was designed to go out to the
school to deliver the programme
• Designed and delivered by two members of staff

7. Our proposal
• Deliver the programme to transition year students
• In a classroom setting
• Four weeks in the classroom ending with a visit to the Library
• Expose transition year students to the skills and
techniques of information literacy to support them in their
future transition to university or the world of work.
• As such the programme goals include preparing transition year students for
experiences with information use beyond the classroom, towards continuing
education, self-development and lifelong learning.
Transition Year is an optional one-year school programme that can be taken in the year
after the Junior Certificate in Ireland and is intended to make the senior cycle a three-year
programme encompassing both Transition Year and Leaving Certificate. (Wikipedia)

8. How to select the schools
• Met with Assistant Registrar of Maynooth University to
discuss how to select the school – really valuable
meeting
• Gave details of schools in the surrounding area
• Alerted us to think about where there was more
than one school in the area – how/should you
select one?
• Approaching a school
• Look to meet with the Principal

9. The Content
Session 1:
Preparing for your
Assignment
•Searching V Researching
•Building your search
•Planning
•Top tips
Session 3:
Using and Evaluating
Resources
•Avoiding plagiarism
•Fake websites
Session 2:
Accessing Resources &
Social Media
•Searching public library
catalogues
•Journal/books/newspapers
•Location numbers – various
formats of material
•Digital footprint
•Job screening with social
media
Visit to the Library

10. What works reflected in the feedback forms
• Lots of involvement
• Group and individual work
• Keep examples current
• Be prepared to debate your points

11. Engaging with games/hands on
activities
Boolean Logic – stand up if you have brown
hair, stay up if you have brown hair and blue
eyes, stay standing if you have brown hair,
blue eyes and not wearing a watch
They could visually see searches
change as the search options changed
Avoiding Plagiarism – find current topics or
music they can relate to, have to look it up
themselves and tell you why – discuss in class
Trusting what they find – White house
website, look it up for themselves – CRAAP
checklist, Currency, Reliability, Accuracy,
Authority, Purpose

12. Feedback
• Very positive feedback from teachers and students – as the programme progressed, some
teachers asked to sit in on sessions and said they would use relevant components in their
project work
• Tour of Maynooth University Library and campus very positively received
• Highlighted the University’s role in civic engagement and our role in recruiting students and student
retention.
• Quotes from participants: Very informative and gave me great tips to help with school work. I
thought I knew everything about the internet, but I don't so everything was new, thanks. I
learned new ways of researching today which I will use in the future. Can't wait to go to the
Library. I learned a lot from talking about social media. I think people should talk about it more
often. Introduced to a whole new part of the internet which I really enjoy working with. Thanks
to this training session I will never see social media the same way again.
• Quote from teacher:The course provided very good active learning techniques that students
could take away and apply directly to their own learning.

13. • Who wants to be Information Literate?
• Brought prizes
Information Literate
Evaluating Feedback

14. Visit to the Library
• Very engaged when on
the visit
• Opportunity to put some
of the props we used in
the school in context
• For some they had never
been inside a library or
on a university campus

15. How it has progressed
One school = four classes of transition year students
• Had to deliver to all (each session required 3 double classes delivered 4
times)
In March we started with another school
• Six classes of transition year students
Started as four sessions in the classroom – now three
Keep topics current
• Amend the sessions based on feedback, what is in the news

16. Support material

17. Going forward
• Working with the students didn’t just benefit the
schools, it helped appreciate how students are
learning, what resources they are using
• Initially thought we needed to have more advanced training
for LIST (Library Information Skills Tutorials)
• Can we continue going out to schools?
• Do we take on more or continue with the ones we have
worked with
• Plan to continue working with schools

18. Thank you!
elaine.bean@nuim.ie
Tel: 00 353 1 708 6445
www.maynoothuniversity.ie/library