Taking care of business (before class): Information literacy in a flipped classroom

Abstract

This case study presents the revision of an upper-division one-shot instruction session to include an online tutorial that introduces students to business information sources prior to the library session. In order to complete the assignment and prepare for the library session, students are prompted to find specific information using the given resource, and then consider questions regarding the information retrieved. Students in a 3000-level business writing class responded positively to the activity while providing a good amount of material to inform further iterations of the assignment.Developing a successful advanced search in Reference USA or similar specialized business information source is a complicated task. Even experienced searchers often need several search iterations in order to retrieve the necessary results. It is also less-than-riveting to observe someone else do so, and hard to mimic in real time. However, once students see what information is available through that platform and recognize what can be done with it, they typically show genuine interest in learning how to harness it for their own purposes. In an environment with increasing constraints on the time of both students and librarians, it is challenging to justify using classroom time for a database demonstration. It follows that the demonstration may be better used as a jumping-off for a discussion, following which class time can be spent as a workshop. This article describes a modified flipped classroom approach that provides an opportunity for students to see and then perform an advanced search at their own pace prior to the library session, freeing up class time for discussion and individual attention. A critical component of the lesson plan was an online self-paced active learning object which allows students to familiarize themselves with an unfamiliar resource outside of the classroom environment. The insights gained from the comments entered in this online object were helpful and informative, and heavily inform this article.Another motivating factor for exploring this approach is the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Among its other impacts, the introduction of the Framework provided a structure for discussing our students' relationships with the information they create, encounter, and use, as well as their behavior in making sense of it. I was eager to hear students' perspectives about some of the frames, namely "Searching as Strategic Exploration" and "Information Creation as a Process," but I struggled to incorporate a discussion into the one-shot sessions I was planning. It seemed that the students would probably be

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