Document Type
Changing Needs of Our Users
Publication Date
4-2008
Abstract
This session will define curriculum mapping: its history, techniques, and traditional applications. The presenters will share how the University of Tennessee (UT) Libraries uses curriculum mapping as a tool for departmental information literacy integration. UT Libraries is successful in integrating information literacy concepts and activities into many courses, with less success in science courses. Curriculum mapping gives the science librarians a place to start when approaching teaching faculty about library instruction.
The "Changing Needs of Our Users" theme is reflected in the ever-changing curriculum that departments offer. Librarians constantly try to keep up with these pedagogical changes. By systematically analyzing the content or focus of the courses being offered, librarians can propose the best timing and placement for information literacy concepts across a course of study.
Science courses in particular, with their emphasis on practical, lab-based work, often do not have an intuitive placement for information literacy. Curriculum mapping provides the framework for introducing these opportunities to science faculty in a meaningful way, with the least amount of compromise to the vision of their course. Benefits of curriculum mapping include: keeping services relevant, speaking departmental language, marketing to departments, and creating point-of-need information literacy learning opportunities.
Presentation participants will learn about the basics of curriculum mapping, UT's application of curriculum mapping in a science setting, strategies for dealing with resistant faculty members, and ways to apply these methods at their own institution.