Freshmen, information literacy, critical thinking and values

Teaching information literacy and critical thinking to freshmenundergraduate students can be more successful if these concepts are demonstrated to be meaningful and valuable in the context of students’ daily lives. A proper context can help freshmen acknowledge the need for, develop, and value information literacy and critical thinking. As values, both can help counter the effects of the consumerism, superficiality, and knowledge fragmentation characterizing the postmodern condition. A case study of how a lifelong values‐based syllabus for teaching information literacy and critical thinking was incorporated into a university orientation course for first semester freshmen is presented.