Teaching & Learning

Engagements courses can present a great opportunity to introduce first-year students to what an academic library is and how the UVA Library can support them throughout their academic careers. Library instruction can also support assignments in the Engagements courses, particularly assignments that involve any kind of research or digital media creation.

If you are interested in incorporating library instruction into your course, there are several ways to get in touch with us:

• Fill out an instruction request form
• Contact Cecelia Parks, T&L instruction coordinator, at cecelia@virginia.edu
• Contact the Robertson Media Center
• Contact the Small Special Collections Library 

We are always happy to discuss possibilities for your class, so please let us know if you have any questions.

In-person or synchronous online sessions with T&L librarians are customized for your class and incorporate active learning and critical thinking techniques. We will work with you to develop learning outcomes for the session, and we will fit the session within your course schedule and time constraints.

Here are just a few examples of activities we might use in instruction sessions with Engagements classes:

• Four Databases, for exploring different databases the UVA Library offers
• Source Deck, for differentiating between types of sources
• Creating a short podcast or video to learn editing software
• Use scenarios to discuss research ethics
• Evaluating sources group activity
• Finding a book in the stacks
• Finding sources for student research projects

Library instruction sessions can work with or without a research assignment. We have created interactive, non-research-assignment-based sessions for Engagements classes using circulating Library materials using maps, yearbooks, historic newspaper clippings, government documents, and more. These sessions introduce students to Library collections and help develop critical thinking skills. Here is an example of an activity we did using Library map collections.

We understand that it might be difficult to fit an in-person or synchronous library session into Engagements courses due to the limited time in these courses. We have a number of asynchronous online resources that can introduce students to library resources; some of the most relevant are listed below. You can see more asynchronous learning resources at this link. 

Many of these resources are customizable, so please let us know if you don't see something exactly right for your class. We can also create modules with multiple resources and assessment(s) in Canvas. 

We can also create custom research guides for your course to highlight resources and tools for your students to use in their research projects. Here's example of a research guide created for an Engagements class.