Spotlight on Information Literacy in the FYE Course
Librarians have been involved in the college's new First Year Experience course (IDS 1107) from its inception, serving on the planning committee, creating content for the course, being embedded in every section, and even teaching full sections. Below librarian Kellie Diaz reflects on her experience as both an instructor and embedded librarian in the course.
Teaching and Embedded Librarian Roles in FYE Course
Narrative by Kellie Diaz, Oviedo Campus Librarian 
In the Fall of 2021, I had the pleasure of teaching the newly offered, First Year Experience Flightpath: Chart Your Course, at Seminole State College. This hybrid class met one evening per week for six weeks on the Lee Campus at Oviedo and I had 23 students enrolled in my section. The course, designed to introduce students to college culture and campus resources, was a natural fit for me having 30+ years of experience of employment at SSC, held positions at three of our campuses as well as having been a student of both the college and Adult High School. In fact, I relied on my campus knowledge extensively in many of my lectures to accompany course content.
In addition to teaching FYE I had also been assigned to more than 10 sections of the course over the last year as an embedded librarian. In this role, however, my involvement is more supportive than instructional and much more limited. What I found in these experiences is that as an academic librarian, the opportunities to teach information literacy concepts were by far easier to achieve as the teacher than as the embedded librarian. While not the focal point of the course, information literacy skills apply to all forms of information both consumed and shared and this course revealed many teaching opportunities for that. For example, when discussing the lesson for civility, diversity, and respect, the course content used examples retrieved from social media that gave me the opportunity to deliver important metaliteracy concepts. Here I could take a deep dive into the importance of context, purpose, understanding, and the impact of sharing content and verifying sources. Similar opportunities arose on the topics of academic integrity, effective communication, college major choice, and career exploration, where I was able to tie into some form of information literacy skill while not losing the purpose of the course content. Throughout the course, a I took a scaffolding approach as information literacy concepts were introduced, discussed and practiced.
Overall, it was a good experience for me to teach the FYE course. With a few exceptions such as content flow, amount of work, and the content timeline, which are still being reviewed and redesigned, I enjoyed having a class of students that I got to know and develop relationships with. I will consider teaching it again and am hopeful as the pass-rate for the FYE courses is improving. As for the embedded role, which is a great resource for students, it really works best when the librarian’s purpose is engaging and work is collaborative with the teaching faculty.