Teaching in the Information Age: Active Learning Techniques to Empower Students.

As students grapple with new and often confusing information technologies, librarians must be able to adapt their teaching methods to address student anxieties, while simultaneously enhancing student learning. The development of activities which allow students to both confront and think critically about new material and concepts is one way to accomplish this. This article considers student apprehension when encountering new information technologies (CD-ROM technology in particular) and proposes a variety of active learning exercises within the framework of four questions that Abigail Loumis and Deborah Fink ("Instruction: Gateway to the Virtual Library," in The Virtual Library: Visions and Realities, ed. Laverna M. Saunders, Westport, CT: Meckler, 1993, p. 48) suggest researchers in the virtual library should be taught when learning how to search electronic sources: (1) Where am I? (2) How do I do it? (3) What am I trying to do? (4) What do I do with it? The use of student journals as an effective tool fo...