Intentionality and Transparency as Pedagogical Techniques in the Information Literacy Classroom

When you build a lesson plan for a class session, how do you decide on its content and activities? What if you started to peel back the curtain a bit and let students in on some of your thinking and intentions? Recent research from The Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has shown that students benefit when teachers articulate the thought processes behind instructional decisions and goals with them. This relatively small intervention, traditionally applied to assignment design, has shown to have a big impact. How can the results of research on transparent teaching practices benefit the professional practice of instruction librarians, even when leading a one-shot session? This session will explore the research behind transparent teaching, consider the assumptions that underlie it, and provide practical ways to implement it.