The Student Learning & Engagement department provides services to promote critical thinking skills through the lens of today’s information landscape. These skills are essential to locate and evaluate information used in research. We want to partner with faculty to integrate activities into their courses that build critical thinking and research skills. We welcome the opportunity to customize or create new ways to infuse these skills into your curriculum.
Customized Instruction Sessions
An instruction session can be either in-person or virtual. We can host your class in the library or come to your classroom. Sessions can address a specific research assignment, teach basic research skills, or provide an overview of library resources.
The information literacy modules are courses in Canvas that faculty can assign to students as graded assignments or practice modules to build fundamental research skills needed.
Popular Modules include:
Citing Sources in APA style
Avoiding Plagiarism in APA Style
Conducting a Literature Review
Recognizing a Research Study
Personalized Course Support
There are a number of different ways in which the libraries can provide personalized course support. Some of our most popular methods are embedded librarians, customized research guides, and course specific one-on-one research consultations for both students and faculty. If you don’t see the type of support you would like listed below, please contact us at instruct@ucf.edu. We would love to partner with you to develop the type of support you need.
Embed a librarian in your Webcourse
Request a librarian to be an active part of your webcourse. We can support students throughout a course or research assignment. Our department supports first and second-year students in General Education Program (GEP) courses, and subject librarians are available to support specific majors. Common activities for Embedded Librarians include:
answering specific student questions throughout the semester
participating in discussion boards or activities
partnering with faculty to create effective research assignments
providing just-in-time resources to support the research process
Research Guides
Research Guides provide a self-guided tutorial for students through a collection of resources. Guides can be course-specific or focus on a resource or skill. Popular examples include:
Librarians are available to meet one-on-one to assist students who encounter stumbling blocks in their research or have in-depth questions. Our department supports first and second-year students in General Education Program (GEP) courses. Consultations for upper-divisional coursework are offered by subject librarians.
Research Consultations for Faculty
Reach out to our team for assistance in developing effective research assignments and resources to support them. We can review current course assignments based on your learning outcomes and suggest a range of options to incorporate research and critical thinking skills into your course.
Skill Building Videos
Our videos are created to focus on building specific research skills. This collection of short videos can be used as a way to highlight concepts to make the research process easier for students. Faculty are welcome to use these videos in their courses.
Have specific research and critical thinking skills you would like to include in your course? We are happy to work with you to develop course modules in Canvas.
Digital Learning and Engagement Librarian Chereeka Garner specializes in developing Canvas content.
Throughout the year we host a number of workshops and events to connect with students. Our goal is to make the library an essential place on campus through the following ways:
promoting the library as a safe supportive environment
highlighting the library as a place for both academic and personal growth
raising awareness of library spaces, resources, and people and how they can help
Partner with us!
Interested in collaborating on an event with UCF Libraries? We can present to your students across campus or host an event in the library. Contact us to explore the possibilities.
Congratulations to Lily Dubach who has been selected as the 2023-24 Excellence in Librarianship Award winner! The UCF Excellence Awards honor faculty teaching, research, service and advising achievements across campus each year. Lily has been a librarian at UCF since 2017 and is currently the Textbook Affordability Librarian. In this role, she uses her expertise […]
The UCF Libraries is sponsoring their second “Love your Libraries” sticker contest! UCF Students are invited to submit original design entries no larger than 4” x 3”. Entries should be submitted as an image file (TIFF,JPEG, BMP, PNG, or GIF format). The library will select one winning design that reflects the library to print and […]
The UCF Libraries does more than just encourage academic passions and support research endeavors; it also sponsors a “Love your Libraries” sticker contest! Continue reading to learn all about the contest, how you can participate, what you can win, and examine some of the past winners’ submissions! This upcoming spring, UCF Students are invited to […]
