Earlier this month, IWU librarians Meg Miner and Scott Walter took part in a two-day workshop hosted by Ithaka S&R for institutions participating in the upcoming, international study of teaching with primary sources.
In this study, participating institutions, including IWU, Williams College, Brown University, Dartmouth College, University of Virginia, Indiana University, University of Sheffield (U.K.), Lafayette College, Yale University, and others, will explore how “[teaching] undergraduates with primary sources promotes student engagement and critical thinking skills and is a key ingredient in the current pedagogical push toward ‘inquiry-based’ or ‘research-led’ learning.” Given the history of instructional collaboration among Ames Library faculty and colleagues in academic programs across the curriculum in information literacy instruction, writing-intensive instruction, and service learning, IWU is in an excellent position both to learn from local research set within this global context, and to provide examples of “best practice” to colleagues who will employ the results of this international study to inform their own teaching and learning programs, especially around media literacy, digital literacy, and artifactual (or “primary-source”) literacy.
During Fall 2019, the IWU research team will be conducting interviews with a small number of campus faculty (tenure-system, visiting, or adjunct) who make effective use of, or take innovative approaches to the use of, primary source materials in their teaching. While the focus for the study is in the humanities and social sciences, our team will consider faculty from any department who wish to participate in the study when making our final selection about who to include in the participant pool (according to guidelines provided to all participating institutions by Ithaka).
If you would like to learn more about this study, or to add your name to the list of potential participants in the study currently being reviewed for inclusion, please contact Meg Miner, University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. Invitations to participate in this study will be issued in August 2019.