Instruction Librarian and Instruction Coordinator Auburn University
With an ever-increasing incarceration rate, higher education institutions should play a key role in offering postsecondary prison education programs. With the central emphasis of creating and fostering “lifelong learners”, librarians are in a unique position of offering access services for these programs, such as book lending and database searching support to incarcerated students, as well as providing information literacy instruction.
In 2022, thanks to additional grant funding, one institution’s postsecondary prison education program was able to provide an increase in library services, such as access to the institution’s learning management system (LMS) on the inside and embedding instruction librarians. This acquisition allowed for the addition of information literacy tutorials in the LMS with built in assessment, such as quizzes and worksheets. No longer just a one shot, instruction librarians now have multiple opportunities to teach inside students information literacy concepts and skills. To prepare for this additional course content, the instruction librarian developed a curriculum that focused on concepts and skills the students would need for their coursework and re-entry. This was accomplished by using the ACRL Framework, integrating UDL principles in designing and creating the tutorials, and applying heutagogy and andragogy learning theories to the lesson plans.
This poster will showcase visual images of the tutorials available, as well as assessment practices the instruction librarian used when on the outside looking in. Also, there will be a discussion on the best practices to consider when applying learning theories to students you will likely never meet in person.