Teaching and Learning: Partnering with Faculty

The Boston College Libraries have long supported faculty teaching and student learning through programmatic library instruction and individual student consultations, both of which are geared to developing skills for finding and evaluating information in a global context. Last year, library instructors at Boston College taught over 350 sessions; reaching approximately 10,000 students across all disciplines.  Sessions included classroom visits, orientations, resource-specific workshops as well as supplemental instruction provided through online tutorials. Classroom visits ranged from a 20 minute classroom presentation to a librarian being embedded in the course and attending each class during the semester. Although most sessions were held in the classroom, some were held in the O’Neill Library instruction space to allow students to gain hands-on experience.  The Burns Library also hosted classes throughout the year with some classes, such as Making History Public, which met exclusively at the Burns Library. The partnership with the History Department enabled students to work with rare and special collections, use primary source materials and culminated with an exhibition featured in Stokes Hall.

Faculty have reported on the benefits of the instruction sessions; they have seen an improvement in their students papers and the ability to find relevant scholarly resources as well as understand more about resources in their disciplines.  We have also heard from students, who contact us to tell us about their increased confidence in finding relevant resources and to thank us for the research help.

Learn more about  Library Instruction or Contact a Subject Librarian to discuss how library instructors can assist your students with their research, papers, or assignments.