This symposium illustrates a collaborative classroom activity that incorporates information literacy into an introductory chemistry course. The primary learning outcomes of the activity are to understand the peer-review process, knowing how to locate original research articles based on “clues” in a general news article, and how to differentiate between popular and scholarly periodicals. Students work in small groups in a highly-collaborative classroom setting. Each group is given a recent chemistry-related news item, and must determine how and where to find the original research article the news item is based on. Emphasis is placed on identifying original, peer-reviewed research publications. Each small group’s strategy is shared with the entire class, and together the class develops a list of best practices for searching the library’s databases. Interactive polling is incorporated into the activity.
- chemistry,
- science,
- information literacy
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/harveyb/7/