Learning by Teaching: Student Presentations of Databases Learning by Teaching: Student Presentations of Databases

The Environment The University of South Dakota is a small mid-western university with an undergraduate population of approximately 5,600 students. The Fall 2000 incoming class was just over 1,000 students. USD recently revised the general education requirements, which resulted in the inclusion of a basic course in Speech Communication. Additionally, a 1999 mandate from the Board of Regents required the six Regental institutions to develop a program for information technology literacy. The University of South Dakota decided to go beyond that mandate to develop a full information literacy program. The first phase of this program was to design and implement an information literacy component at the freshman level and to develop a tool for assessing information literacy competency at the end of a student's first year. The competency tool will be piloted in the Spring 2001 semester. Currently, the instruction librarians work with first-year students three times: 1) through participation in a 1-credit earning, pre-semester orientation geared toward preparing students to succeed in an academic environment; 2) through the English Department, which already required that all sections of English 101 allow one class session for library instruction, and 3) through the Speech Communication Department which began requiring in spring 2000 that all sections of SPCM 101 include a graded library instruction session. In this paper, we will outline the required, graded information literacy component in Speech Communication 101. We will illustrate how this program is an example of a constructivist approach to learning and contains some characteristics of situated learning. Our discussion will include both the resistance to and acceptance of our model by librarians, teaching assistants, and students. Overview of Speech Communication 101 Emphasis in the basic course in Speech Communication is placed on group decision-making and learning. It is taught in a constructivist manner, which focuses on students gaining understanding of an issue through constructing knowledge, rather than rote memorization of facts. Students are given assignments that allow them to work collaboratively, to explore alternative ideas through dialogue, and to fin