Teaching information literacy: strategies and insights from high school and college librarians

Purpose This paper examines the teaching strategies and lesson plans utilized by librarians in four information literacy case studies, representing diverse high school and college library settings. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a qualitative case study design, drawing on four information literacy lesson plans. Case studies provide detailed contextual insights, while content and comparative analysis enable in-depth teaching strategies, identification of similarities and differences of case studies. Findings The four case studies employed a wide range of teaching strategies and provided lesson plans that work from library classrooms across New York State. While there are many potential teaching strategies available to use in the IL classrooms, these four case studies developed by high school and college librarians utilized: (1) collaborative/cooperative work, (2) hands-on/interactive IL teaching strategies, (3) vocabulary, (4) the use of audio-visual aids, (5) realia and (6) leveled questions in their lesson plans. Notably, all four librarians incorporated collaborative and cooperative learning strategies and audio-visual aids into their lesson plans, fostering engaging and interactive IL instruction. Originality/value It is hoped that data collected through these four case studies will serve as a foundation for guiding and refining future IL curriculum for high school and college librarians. Particularly in the era of Artificial Intelligence, information literacy is more important than ever before, identifying biases and misinformation as well as distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources of information. Information literate students can effectively navigate AI-driven information environments and make informed decisions.