By Donna L. Gilton
Course-Related Instruction - Otherwise known as the infamous "one shot lecture." In this form of instruction, librarians (with or without teaching partners from the course or the library) will often have a single session with a class, explaining how to use library and information sources in order to do a term paper or other major assignments for the course. Librarians often pass out handouts and guides, as part of the session. There may be activities in the session and different forms of evaluation, but follow-up is often relatively limited. This was the most popular form of formal, direct instruction in academic libraries in the days of bibliographic instruction, but is currently being replaced by more course-integrated instruction. This is a way to reach many classes, ideally at the most important time for the course.
Course-Integrated Instruction - Librarians using this approach meet with a class several times, and may give and grade assignments, which help to determine the student's final grade for the course. There are many ways that this kind of instruction can be combined with their corresponding courses. Because of the complexity of information literacy instruction, this approach is becoming more popular than it was, earlier.
Full Courses - These classes meet at least once a week for at least half of a term. Assignments are given and grades recorded by the librarian(s) or instructor(s) teaching the course and students can receive anywhere between 0 - 4 credits for taking the course. Many of these courses are "stand alone" courses designed to teach students to do basic research in a field, such as law or business that can be applied to all courses or many courses in their field or major.