ABSTRACT
In June 2000, the Illinois State Board of Education adopted new curriculum standards for all accredited teacher education programs. The Content-Area Standards for Educators serve as a guideline for teacher preparation programs, accreditation criteria, and the groundwork for assessment of teachers in the state of Illinois. Professional programs must demonstrate compliance to the standards by July 2003. This case study provides an overview of Illinois’ progress toward a standards-led model and describes how Illinois Wesleyan University library faculty initiated a collaborative project with the Educational Studies department to address information literacy skills instruction as a means of fulfilling objectives of the state’s core standards. The overall goal of the program is to improve librarian-teacher cooperation through instruction in the information literacy skills outlined in the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, and to mentor pre-service teachers in practical methods of integrating information literacy instruction in both their student teaching and their future professional lives.
