Examples of instruction sessions

Librarians provides in-class and online instruction sessions on a variety of research skills, for both undergraduate and graduate students. Some examples of past sessions are below. We can tailor the format and content of a session to meet your needs.

For more information on options and requesting a session for your class, see our main Library instruction page.

Undergraduate students

  1. Collaboration with an instructor to create a course assignment on finding research materials, including training for TAs on implementing the assignment and an in-class visit by the librarian to introduce students to the skills needed
  2. An in-class session for an upper year class to help students develop skills needed to create a research proposal, followed by required meetings for each student with the librarian to discuss their research strategies.
  3. Two sessions for a class, held outside of class time with bonus grades for attendance. One helped students focus a topic and find scholarly sources, and the second helped students synthesize information from their sources to create arguments.
  4. An in-class session where students watch some online library tutorials ahead of time, then practice creating good searches and finding the 'right' sources during the session, followed by a short quiz.

Graduate students

  1. A session on finding scholarly and other specialized materials in the discipline, followed by student completion of a library research assignment as one component of the first course assignment.
  2. Four sessions as part of a required course, designed to help students with their MRP proposal. Sessions include advanced research, citation tools, creating a research question, and planning a literature review.


  1. Creation of online course guides to help students with research for an assignment, which are posted in MyLearningSpace and form part of the assignment instructions.
  2. A live online session on finding scholarly sources for an online class, delivered during a chat session slot using webinar software.
  3. A librarian added to a MyLearningSpace course, posting resources to help students with focusing topics, finding scholarly sources, and citing, and sending email to encourage students to make appointments with the librarian for help.

What our users tell us

By embedding a librarian in MyLearningSpace, the students gained "a sense of purpose in their work that was certainly attached to a grade goal but also the skills to argue a stronger and more convincing argument" (faculty member)