Jennifer McKinnell

Jennifer McKinnell works as the Education Coordinator in the Health Sciences Library at McMaster University and has served as the Liaison Librarian to the Bachelor of health Sciences Program (BHSc) since 2000. The BHSc program provides a self directed environment in which the students identify their own learning goals and define their own learning opportunities. As a result, Jennifer's work is both rewarding and challenging as she focuses on trying to successfully incorporate information seeking, evaluation and use skills into a constantly evolving curriculum. Jennifer also involved in managing Health Sciences Library website and has an interest in the role technology can play in both effective student learning and efficient library use.

Kristina Trim

Kristina has worked as part-time faculty in the Bachelor of Health Science Program for the past 6 years. She works extensively with Jennifer McKinnell on integrating library skills into the classroom especially for 1st year students. She has also researched the impact of active learning strategies, including information searches, on undergraduate students. She is defending her Health Sciences PhD thesis this spring.

Self Directed Learning, Information Literacy & the Library

Jennifer McKinnell and Kristina Trim , McMaster University

session 3c / Thursday, May 11 / 3:30 - 5:00

The information literacy component of the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) inquiry program at McMaster University cannot be easily defined. It is comprised of a wide range of interventions used at various points throughout the four year curriculum. The truth is, it looks different every year and for every student. Traditional activities, like library orientations, have become inquiry based as participants are required to work in small groups, complete specific tasks and then teach their peers what they've learned about the library. There have been times when the library has received a call from a student in the middle of a class asking for a librarian to drop by and participate in a group discussion about the quality of information sources. Librarians are frequently invited to student group meetings for the purpose of lending bibliographic research expertise to a project. What makes all of these interventions unique is that they reinforce the notion of self directed student learning. Furthermore, collected research data suggests that students completing the first year of inquiry based learning at McMaster, are truly able to find, evaluate and use information from a variety of sources in an effective and appropriate manner, especially when compared to their peers in other programs.

The purpose of this interactive presentation will be to provide an overview of what self directed learning is, illustrate ways in which the library can make positive contributions to student learning within such an environment, and demonstrate how inquiry based library activities can be incorporated into any educational setting (including traditional lecture based courses), as a way of promoting skills development in the areas of both information literacy and self directed learning.