Beginning tomorrow, May 17, nearly fifty of our Libraries faculty and staff will be gathering at the Nittany Lion Inn at University Park to participate in a four-day, customized version of the Association of College & Research Libraries Information Literacy Immersion Program. This program, often simply called Immersion, provides instruction librarians the opportunity to work intensely over the course of several days on many different aspects of information literacy.

There are now six different tracks, including Teacher, Program, Assessment, and Intentional Teaching, that individuals can select if they travel to one of the national Immersion opportunities that take place around the country. A full description of the Immersion program and its six tracks is available: http://www.ala.org/acrl/immersion

Here at Penn State, we are welcoming three Immersion faculty — Lisa Hinchliffe, Karen Nicholson, and Craig Gibson — for an Immersion track customized to Penn State University Libraries and the needs we have identified for evolving our teaching and learning.

Beginning at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 17, the customized Penn State Immersion will focus on three main areas: classroom assessment techniques, collaboration with disciplinary faculty, and interactive and engaging learning design, including instructional technology. The program will run through the afternoon on Friday, May 20.

If you are unable to attend but would like to following along with the discussion, follow our Twitter hashtag, #immersionPSU.

Many thanks to Joe Salem for supporting this initiative, and to the Penn State Immersion Planning Committee, led by Amy Deuink and including the following members: Anne Behler, Nancy Dewald, Russ Hall, Glenn Masuchika, Rebecca Miller, Rebecca Peterson, and Beth Theobald.

– submitted by Rebecca Miller, Library Learning Services