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Volume 28, Number 1, October 2000

Having an IM-PACT on Information Literacy: A Model for Improving Instructional Presentations

Ruth Small

IM-PACT (Instructional Model -- Purpose, Audience, Content, Technique), is a simple and easy-to-remember framework for systematic lesson design in an information literacy context. It is built upon principles of instructional design, psychology, information science and communications. Although neither linear nor strictly sequential, determination of Purpose and Audience is considered a critical prerequisite to effective Content and Technique development. Brief descriptions of each of the four components of the model and related factors are provided. An example of IM-PACT's application to a high school-level information skills lesson plan, collaboratively designed by the teacher-librarian and English teacher, is provided.

Introduction

We all know that teaching activities can consume a significant portion of the teacher-librarian's day. Those activities can range from one-on-one teaching to group training, offered to a variety of learning audiences. Instruction may vary from curriculum-integrated information skills units for students to technology workshops for teachers to presentations about library programs to parent organizations, school boards, or professional meetings or conferences.

Whenever I ask the students in my class to design their first instructional presentation, many spend the bulk of their preparation time thinking about what content to include. Unfortunately, this approach to instructional planning can doom a lesson to failure.

This article introduces a systematic framework for planning, organizing and presenting effective instructional presentations to any audience. It concludes with an example of an information skills lesson plan using this framework.

The IM-PACT Model

IM-PACT (Instructional Model -- Purpose, Audience, Content, Technique), a version of the PACT Model for Information Presentations© (Small, 1997) is based on principles of instructional design, psychology, information science and communications. IM-PACT provides teacher-librarians with a simple, easy-to-remember structure for designing their instructional presentations and is particularly useful when cooperatively planning lessons with classroom teachers.

The planning process begins by identifying the Purpose (Why?) of the presentation and as much as possible about the target learning Audience (Who?). Once you are confident that your Purpose and Audience are clearly identified and understood, you can consider the specific Content (What?) to include and Technique (How?) to use. This model is represented visually below.

As you can see from this visualization, the process is typically an iterative one in which components are revisited and revised. A brief description of each of the four components and their related factors is presented next.

Purpose (Why?)

A general understanding of the rationale for a particular instructional situation is critical. Most of the time you will have some idea of the instructional needs of your students, based on your knowledge of the curriculum, conversations with teachers, past experiences with students, and/or your general knowledge as an information professional. Other times may require a more formal method of assessing needs, such as a survey or curriculum map (Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1990).

Instructional needs are defined by the gap between the current and the desired state of knowledge; that is, the difference between what students already know and what you want them to learn. For example, your sixth-grade students have learned how to cite print resources in their term papers, but not electronic resources. Their instructional need is to know how to cite electronic resources for their next science project.

Information about an instructional need can then be translated into broad, general instructional goals which identify what you want your instruction to accomplish. An example of an instructional goal for the information need described above is:

• students will learn how to cite electronic information resources

At the same time, you will want to identify motivational goals for your students (Small & Arnone, 2000). For example, if some students have had difficulty understanding how to cite print resources, they might not be overly confident about their ability to extend this learning to electronic resources. As a result, an example of a related motivational goal might be:

• students will develop confidence in their ability to cite both print and electronic resources

Clear articulation of instructional and motivational goals will influence your selection of both Content and Technique and will form the basis of how you evaluate the effectiveness of your instruction.

Once you have developed your goals, you will need to identify exactly what you want students to know or be able to do; i.e., your learning objectives. Each learning objective specifies (1) the situation, (2) the learning audience, (3) an observable task, and (4) the level of learning (Jacobson, Eggen, & Kauchak, 1989). An example of a learning objective for our citation lesson is:

in their science term papers (situation), sixth grade students (learning audience) will write citations for Web-based resources (observable task) with 100 percent accuracy (level of learning)
As you begin to create your learning objectives, you will also need to think about your learning audience.

Audience (Who?)

Analyzing your learning Audience is as important a prerequisite for designing effective instruction as identifying your Purpose. This means having a thorough understanding of your learner's characteristics and the learning environment.

Learner characteristics. Knowing some general characteristics about your learning audience, such as age, grade level, background knowledge, incoming biases or beliefs, cognitive styles and learning styles, is useful information when planning instruction. Other issues such as cultural background, handicapping conditions, or language proficiency may also need to be considered. Finally, the size of the learning audience (that is, whether you will teach a single individual, a small group, a whole class, or several classes) can also affect your Purpose, how much Content to include, and the delivery Technique you choose.

Another important factor to consider is students initial motivations; i.e., their attitude toward the instructor, the learning environment, the subject matter, and about their own capabilities, as well as personal needs and interests. If students perceive the learning task as lacking usefulness or importance, you will need to build strategies into your instruction that indicate its relevance. In our example, the information skills lesson is tied to a classroom assignment (science project), making it much more relevant (and thus motivating) than the same lesson out of context. If some students find learning research skills boring, you will need to build in strategies that engage them in the process. For example, providing interactive exercises and participative activities will help raise student interest. Knowing as much as possible about initial student motivations can help prevent or diffuse potential behavioral and learning problems during your lesson.

Learning environment. There are a number of environmental issues you need to consider when planning instruction. These include physical limitations, time constraints and pre-existing barriers to success.

1. Physical limitations. Knowing whether you will be teaching is in the library resource center or the classroom (or somewhere else) will are no influence other decisions, such as what media and how much support material you can use. Finding out what equipment is available, whether the technology is reliable, whether there are outlets in the room and where they are placed, whether seats are moveable, if you can darken the room if necessary, acoustics, temperature, and the size of the room, are just some of the environmental issues that can affect the success of your instructional presentation.
2. Time constraints. You also need to consider the timing of the lesson (both when and how long). Time of day or year affects children's (and even many adults!) attentiveness and willingness to learn. For example, you may have already discovered that students behave differently if your lesson occurs first thing in the morning or just before or after lunch, or that your information skills lessons for elementary students may need to be extra creative if you are teaching it around Halloween. If you have block scheduling, you may be able to teach a large lesson in one day, otherwise you may need to break the lesson up into smaller lessons taught over a few days. If you are not on a fixed schedule, it will likely be easier to arrange for students to come to the resource center for extra help if they need it, or enrichment if they desire it.
3. Pre-existing barriers to success. Determining whether there are any pre-existing barriers to accomplishing your goals and objectives is also important (e.g., Do the teachers in your school have a history of resistance to cooperative planning? Are resources limited or nonexistent?) It is important to (1) identify any factor, related to your learning audience and the environment in which they will learn, that may influence the success or failure of your instruction and (2) create ways to maximize the positive factors and minimize the negative ones.

As you can see, there are many important factors to consider before even thinking about what subject matter to include or what teaching methods to use in your instructional presentation. Once you have thoroughly considered your Purpose and Audience, it is time to turn your attention to Content and Technique.

Content (What?)

Content is the subject matter of your instruction, the information you wish to help your learning Audience transform into knowledge. There are two factors to consider when planning your Content -- selection and organization.

Selection. First, you must select your lessons broad subject and specific topic (e.g., information literacy; how to cite electronic resources). While keeping in mind your Purpose and Audience, you must then make a number of decisions regarding how much information, what types of information, and the scope of the information to include. For example, if you are planning to teach your fourth graders an information problem-solving model but you are on a fixed schedule and only have 40 minutes to do it, you may decide to only present an initial overview or to teach only one part of the model that day.

Organization. The way you organize the information to be taught is also important. One way of organizing a presentation is into three main sections: an introduction, a body and a conclusion. The introduction establishes (1) the parameters of the lesson (often through an overview or agenda), (2) why the lesson will be of benefit, and (3) a rapport between yourself and the learning audience. Your introduction should provide a "hook" to pique your students curiosity and stimulate their interest in the subject matter to be presented in the body of your lesson.

The body of the lesson includes the bulk of the information, arranged or sequenced in a smooth, logical and interesting manner. It may include statistics, examples, testimonials, personal anecdotes, diagrams, pictures, and other types of information that help to describe, explain and enrich the basic information presented.

The lessons conclusion needs to be as dynamic as the introduction and should include (1) a recap or summary, (2) a chance for students to demonstrate what they have learned (e.g., an oral presentation, a quiz), and (3) enrichment opportunities after the formal lesson has ended (e.g., extra reading list). Any decisions you make about Content will influence the instructional Technique(s) you choose.

Technique (How?)

As you are develop your lessons Content, you are probably already thinking about how you will present it. Before deciding what Technique(s) you will use, it is helpful to review your Purpose (e.g., existing barriers may prohibit the use of some media), what you know about your Audience (e.g., a range of student learning styles may require a variety of teaching methods), and what you hope to communicate through your Content (e.g., some information may be presented most effectively through demonstration or hands-on learning).

There are several factors to consider when planning your Technique, including your teaching methods, the motivational strategies you will incorporate, and the media and materials you might want to include. You will also need to think about how you will assess learning and evaluate your instruction.

Teaching methods. Selection of one or more teaching methods to use in your lesson (e.g., lecture, questioning, role playing, hands-on) is highly dependent on your Purpose, Audience and Content. For example, our lesson on electronic resource citation might incorporate some lecture, demonstration, examples and practice. Remember, providing some variety of methods and opportunities for students to actively engage in the learning process will guarantee a higher level of learning and motivation.

Motivational strategies. Based on expectancy-value and a number of other motivation theories and models, Small & Arnone's (2000) Motivation Overlay to Information Skills Instruction targets information literacy as a learning context for motivating students. The Motivation Overlay provides a variety of ideas for generating and sustaining learners interest in the research process, establishing and promoting the importance and value of information skills, building and reinforcing learners confidence in their research ability, promoting satisfaction in their research abilities, and motivating continuing information exploration and lifelong learning. From these a variety of motivational strategies may be generated for your specific lesson. For example, to help build the confidence of our sixth graders learning to cite electronic resources, you might want to set aside a special time each day of the instruction for one-to-one extra help and practice for those students who want or need it.

Media and materials. Effective instruction often requires the use of media and/or technology (e.g., video, computer software) and supplementary learning materials (e.g., job aid, textbook) to enhance learning, again based on your Purpose, Audience and Content. For example, for our citation lesson you might want to use an overhead transparency to demonstrate the correct citation process with several examples, a worksheet that lets them practice writing citations, and a help sheet for future reference.

Assessing Learning. Teacher-librarians don't often have to grade students, as classroom teachers must. Regardless, it is important to assess your students learning in order to determine if they have successfully achieved your learning objectives. There are many ways to do this other than testing, such as through observation, questioning, a project or other type of learning product, etc. Feedback is also a critical part of the assessment process. In our ongoing example, the sixth-grade students can demonstrate their learning through their practice worksheet (with you providing written feedback) and their science term paper (with you providing verbal feedback to the teacher).

Evaluating instruction. If at all possible, it is useful to pilot test your instruction on two or three people similar to your target learning audience. This allows you to assess the timing, pace, accuracy, understandability and appeal of your lesson before you have to teach it "for real." You may find that you frequently teach the same lesson to several classes in a day or week. You may have noticed that your lesson seems to improve each time you teach it. That's largely because you are, in effect, pilot testing and revising as you proceed (and gaining confidence in your teaching of this lesson).

Evaluating your final instructional presentation provides you with feedback on how well you have achieved your instructional and motivational goals. Most of the time this can be accomplished through informal observation and discussion; sometimes it may require a more formal method, such as a questionnaire.

Putting it all together

IM-PACT allows you to think about the four major components of instructional planning: the Purpose of the instructional presentation, the learning Audience, the Content to be presented, and the Technique to be employed. Each of the four components has several important factors to consider. The model are represented visually below.

Although the model is neither linear nor strictly sequential, determination of Purpose and Audience is considered a critical prerequisite to effective Content and Technique development.

To demonstrate implementation of IM-PACT, a sample instructional plan for an information skills lesson is presented below. The plan was developed by Nancy Nicholson, teacher-librarian at Mexico High School in Mexico, New York. Nancy has used this plan and variations of it many times over the past two years and she says it has worked well. She finds the IM-PACT Model has helped her "enormously" and always considers its four components when planning her lessons. As a result, Nancy states, "Ive never had a bad observation!" Here's her lesson plan.

Conclusion

This article introduced IM-PACT, a model for designing instructional presentations, provided a brief description of each component and related factors of the model and illustrated its implementation with a lesson designed for an information literacy context.

References

Eisenberg, M. B. & Berkowitz, R. E. (1990). Information problem-solving: The Big Six Skills approach to library & information skills instruction. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Jacobsen, D., Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (1989). Methods for teaching: A skills approach. (Third Edition). Columbus, OH: Merrill Publishing Company.

Small, R. V. (1997). The PACT model for information presentations©. Syracuse, New York Syracuse University.

Small, R. V. & Arnone, M. P. (2000). Turning kids on to research: The power of motivation. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Dr. Small is associate professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, and is author of more than 60 publications (including three books) on motivation, evaluation and instructional design. She can be contacted at drruth@syr.edu.