Purpose Student participation has been an important issue for information literacy (IL) teachings. The purpose of this paper is to promote active student participation in IL courses with Rain Classroom, an intelligent teaching tool. Design/methodology/approach Using mixed method research, the paper presents a practical case study of the author’s experiences with Rain Classroom to improve teaching and learning of IL. Findings The study shows that Rain Classroom helps implement problem-based learning, promote student participation in class interaction and optimize learning experience, which facilitates a shift of the IL course from passive to active learning. Research limitations/implications It is known that university public courses have large class sizes (more than 50 students per class), and, therefore, class interaction is difficult to organize. So this is a big issue for the researchers to study. Practical implications The proposed Rain Classroom is a free teaching tool and can be used in other academic libraries to enhance active student participation in IL lessons. Social implications The paper includes implications for improving interaction in large-size conference or trainings using Rain Classroom. Originality/value The existing literature has not traced the reports on using the Rain Classroom to enhance student participation in IL courses in academic libraries. This paper intends to fill this gap and share practical methods and experiences, deepening the application research of Rain Classroom.

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