INTRODUCTION

Many courses and programs are continually strapped for time in the classroom, and presenting a new topic can be difficult to either fit into classroom time or program. This chapter includes ways to incorporate technical standards informational literacy into the curriculum, tips for advocating for technical standards instruction, provides instructional assessment activities, and an instruction toolkit. This chapter focuses on advocating for the inclusion of technical standards within the curriculum, whereas specific discipline requirements can be found in Chapters 9–13. This chapter focuses on advocating for the inclusion of technical standards within the curriculum, whereas specific discipline requirements can be found in Chapters 9–13, and case study examples can be found in Part IV.

Despite curriculum integration being considered the most effective way to introduce standards to students [1–5], it is still not a common practice [6]. Integrating technical standards into the curriculum is hindered by several factors [6]. One factor is that curricula for engineering courses are heavy with technical subjects for the majority of a student’s academic career, which leaves little room for other topics such as ethics or technical standards [7]. Additionally, the development of new courses and curricular changes are challenging processes, faculty and instructors have little or no knowledge of practitioner standards and, as of the time of this publication, there are no current technical standards textbooks or handbooks. Finally, limited access to standards due to their high cost contributes to a lack of effort in teaching technical standards in academia.

While technical standards have been integrated into engineering curricula during their capstone and senior design courses, recent literature found that standards education in upper division undergraduate courses alone may not be as effective as previously thought. For students to successfully use technical standards, they need to become acquainted with standards earlier in their academic career [8]. Students should learn about standards through many team-based experiences before their final year [9]. Regarding the other disciplines discussed in this book, standards education has not traditionally been integrated into business education [10], health sciences, or law.

Some examples of integrated technical standards into curricula include incorporation of standards into class syllabi, use of standards in other design classes [4, 13–14], development of learning objects [15–16], or the development of standardization courses [17–18]. In addition to curriculum integration, other common practices for standards education are one-shot library instruction sessions on standards [19–20] or campus-wide educational events [7]. Co-op, experiential learning, and internship experiences also offer students opportunities to learn about standards [21–22].

Possible solutions to alleviate the lack of standards information literacy instruction include “Train-the-Trainer” educational initiatives, making technical standards library collections more affordable, developing teaching materials that focus on the fundamentals of standards, providing technical standards literacy modules, and building an understanding of standards applicability to product design, manufacture, and quality control.

TECHNICAL STANDARDS INFORMATION LITERACY INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING

When preparing to teach a class or series of classes on technical standards, incorporating instruction planning can help meet the class, course, or program goals. Through instructional planning, instructors, faculty, and librarians can focus on incorporating information literacy outcomes into the class or course rather than demonstrating tools or skill-based tasks. Depending on the program, students receive information literacy instruction throughout their academic careers, at different times of need, and in different delivery modes. Many students begin their academic careers learning information literacy skills through writing academic papers and, as they move through the curriculum, become more familiar with their field’s information needs and sources. As with all information literacy instruction, technical standards information literacy should be planned to be incorporated at a time of need through course instruction, consultations, or online resources.

Information literacy planning using backward instruction planning can help by focusing on the learning outcomes when developing technical standards interventions. Backward planning is student-centered and “helps students connect theory to practice, reflect on their learning, and construct new knowledge as they build upon prior knowledge and experience” by starting with the learning outcome [23]. The benefits of backward planning include that it can be easily applied to various instruction situations, helps allocate appropriate time to instructional topics, and shifts the focus to the learning activities that will achieve the learning outcomes [23]. The backward planning can be used for one-shot, online, or longer-term instructional scenarios. Incorporating instructional design into teaching technical standards also helps to communicate to internal and external stakeholders the value of instruction.

Backward planning is a three-step process: understanding the program level learning outcomes, crafting specific learning outcomes for the instructional session, and planning learning activities to meet short- and long-term information literacy learning outcomes [23]. The first step involves identifying the long-term goals for the students in a course, such as “They should be able to use discipline-specific technical standards.” The second step in the process is breaking the long-term learning outcome into small achievable learning outcomes, such as “Students will be able to use online databases to identify and locate technical standards.” Once the outcomes are identified for the specific class session, series of classes, or course planning, instruction moves into thinking about learning activities. In addition to planning the learning outcomes for the instructional session, finding the appropriate timing of technical standards information literacy instruction can be challenging.

When looking for when to introduce technical standards into the program or course, scaffolding can help librarians or instructors focus on introducing technical standards when and where there is a time of need. When scaffolding information literacy instruction, the librarian or instructor can plan out when new concepts are introduced and when previously taught skills can be reinforced. It is recognized that while students might not remember all previously taught information literacy skills, context for the information and reinforcement of these skills should be sufficient. Additionally, the instructor or librarian can provide foundational information literacy skill resources for students to reference outside instruction or consultation.

If you are interested in scaffolding information literacy, a helpful tool when planning out the level and timing of instruction is curriculum maps. Curriculum mapping has been done at the K–12 level and all levels of higher education. Curriculum mapping the current information literacy instruction can give instructors, faculty, or librarians the ability to “examine the [information literacy] curriculum in its entirety” [24]. The process of mapping information literacy instruction allows for identifying gaps, redundancies, and misalignments in the instructional program [25]. This broad view of information literacy instruction can help identify where information literacy instruction can be changed, added, or even removed. Curriculum mapping information literacy can help with student engagement in the classroom. Salisbury and Sheridan found that students experience frustration when skills instruction is repeated in different courses or when skills are presented out of order of difficulty [26].

Curriculum mapping aims to identify who is doing what, how the work is aligned with the goals, and if you are working efficiently and effectively [25]. The curriculum mapping process involves charting instruction throughout the discipline’s curriculum to identify courses currently receiving information literacy instruction, strategically identify courses to target for future instructional efforts, and map all required courses and possible instructional levels for the discipline. To populate the curriculum map, information can be collected from the following sources: course catalogs, program data, course syllabi, or library instruction data [27]. The curriculum mapping process allows instructors, faculty, or librarians to strategically and intentionally identify appropriate information literacy access points as it “allows participants to articulate their intended outcome clearly and visually evaluate how those outcomes fit into the student experience” [24].

Different instructional methods should also be considered when scaffolding the curriculum based on time allotment and course outcomes.

Face-to-Face: Instruction is any in-person instruction in a classroom or lab setting. Face-to-Face instruction allows students, the instructor, faculty, or librarian to move around the room for group work or to check on students engaging with the material. Face-to-face also allows for print materials to be shared with the students.

Online Synchronous: Learning happens with students in a live virtual environment. Synchronous online learning environments might also include group work through breakout rooms, as the software allows.

Online Asynchronous: Online learning happens when students interact with the learning object on their own time, but it is a required assignment from an instructor or faculty. Asynchronous learning might include recorded lectures or videos with included quizzes or other question and answer areas.

Passive: Online learning tools would be tools that are not assigned during a course but are available to students in a time of need for instruction. Examples would be LibGuides, online tutorials, websites, or vendor tools that students might use to learn about specific organizations. Other software tools might be available depending on the institution; some examples include Libwizard, Qualtrics, etc.

An example of curriculum mapping from electrical engineering is included and shows the courses that were already receiving information literacy and identified a course as a target for instruction (see Table 7.1). As noted on the curriculum map, the electrical engineering students receive information literacy from an undergraduate services librarian in their first year of English and history courses. Working with the undergraduate services librarians, the skills taught during those courses were identified and mapped to learning outcomes. Students in electrical engineering also take an introductory engineering course in their first year, and during this course, the students receive information literacy support through a LibGuide. The LibGuide was chosen in this case because most students are already receiving information literacy instruction face-to-face in two of their other courses, and most of the skills taught in those courses are transferable to this course. Following the progression of courses, electrical engineering students spend a large part of their second and third years taking technical science and engineering courses, which do not usually incorporate a component of information literacy. By the end of the third year and into their fourth year, the electrical engineering students take courses in professional ethics and capstone design. While the capstone course was already receiving information literacy instruction, the professional ethics course historically had not received instruction and is a course targeted for instruction. Due to the nature of the material in the class, this course is also a new target for introducing technical standards as they apply to case studies in the class.

TABLE 7.1. Electrical Engineering Curriculum Mapping Example

TECHNICAL STANDARD INFORMATION LITERACY ASSESSMENT

When planning instruction, the last step is to close the loop by moving from planning and implementing technical standards information literacy instruction to assessing the learning and teaching to inform future instruction. Many instructors, faculty, and librarians focus on the planning and implementation stages of education without the assessment component due to a few barriers to adding assessment, which might include time, deciding the type of assessment, and what to do with the data once it has been collected. Through assessment, student learning can be measured to see if the course meets the goals and outcomes of the class, program, or institution [28]. Assessment data from technical standards information literacy instruction can be shared with others regarding the skills students learn and can better inform future instructional methods.

Traditional assessment of student learning is usually done through grading assignments over an academic semester or quarter; however, with information literacy assessment, assessment methods can measure student learning beyond the traditional grading system [23]. When planning for assessment, either within a whole course or a class session, it is essential to look at the more considerable outcomes of the program or the university. Some universities have information literacy within the goals for undergraduate students, or it might be a part of the program accreditation; for more information, see Chapters 9–13, which cover standards in specific disciplines.

When starting to design an assessment method, the first step is determining the outcomes to be measured informally or formally, as mentioned above in the backward instructional design. Informal assessment can be observations or reflections. Formal assessments can include surveys, quizzes, or performance reviews. While assessment can be at the course level, programmatic level, or institutional level, this section focuses on classroom-level assessment as it relates to a specific class period or several class periods. See Table 7.2 for the different types of assessment and the data that is collected through each method.

For examples of technical standards information literacy assessments, see the case studies in Part IV.

TABLE 7.2. Types of Information Literacy Assessment

ADVOCATING FOR TECHNICAL STANDARDS INSTRUCTION

As mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, the need for technical standards education is important for students’ lifelong learning and applications within professions. When planning for technical standards education, there are different groups that one might need to advocate to such as faculty, administration, or librarians. Below are tips when advocating for technical standards information literacy instruction:

• Start with understanding the technical standards tools and resources that are available at your institution
• Familiarize yourself with the curriculum for departments that might be a candidate for instruction
• Familiarize yourself with the accreditation standards for the discipline (see Chapters 9–13 for specifics)
• Reach out to faculty who are teaching design- or project-based courses at the beginning of the semester
• Cite the research regarding the use of standards outside of academia and the importance of technical standards education in academia
• Offer different formats of instruction to fit the needs of the course and time allocated

REFERENCES

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FURTHER READING

1. A. Brown, The essentials of instructional design: connecting fundamental principles with process and practice, 4th edition. New York, NY: Routledge, 2020.
2. C. J. Radcliff, A practical guide to information literacy assessment for academic librarians. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2007.
3. D. Warner, A disciplinary blueprint for the assessment of information literacy. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.
4. G. P. Wiggins and J. McTighe, Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998.
5. T. Y. Neely and B. R. Hannelore, Information literacy assessment: Standards-based tools and assignments. Chicago: American Library Association, 2006.