Week 1
Situational Factors to
Consider
Specific Context
Sociology
465 is an upper-level class during which students will learn to design and
conduct a small sociological research project.
This will include conducting a literature review. There will be 18 students in this one-shot live
library session. Fortunately the session will be 75 minutes, so
there is time to include some active learning.
General Context
The
professor has stated that she would like students to develop the skills to do a
comprehensive literature search by using appropriate keywords, related
citations and author searches. She would
like them to gain experience using a traditional database as well as Google
Scholar. She would also like a review of
APA style citations.
Nature of the Subject
The
library session the professor has requested is quite traditional. The challenge will be to try to move the content
beyond showing students where to point and click to the realm of significant
learning as defined by Fink and which is in keeping with the Framework
concepts, dispositions, etc.
Characteristics of the Learners
The
students are mostly college juniors, though there are also sophomores and
seniors. The professor does not think
that they have had very much experience with research. They may or may not have had a previous
library session as classes are held only at the request of faculty members.
Characteristics of the Teacher
I am
comfortable with the content of the library session as requested by the
professor, though I don’t have very much familiarity with sociological concepts
specifically, so it may be difficult to relate the research skills to this
specific discipline. Fortunately, the
professor will be in attendance. I
always encourage faculty to jump in to help make those connections. I have been including active learning
activities in my classes for some time, so that will be familiar to me. We also always ask students to write a one-minute
paper at the end of class with 3 things they learned and any questions they
still have. I’m not as comfortable with
conducting assessment during the class via polling, etc.
This sounds like a great library instruction opportunity. Since the students are in the process of designing their own research project, they may be really interested in reading about similar studies described in the literature. I have a colleague who works with a course like the one you've described, and she's told me that since the students have a project of their own to design, they really seem more engaged with evaluating sources and learning about the methodologies described in the literature.
ReplyDeleteI definitely understand the desire to move beyond "where to point and click." I hope you're able to work in the "significant learning" ideas! I have a couple of classes that ask me to review APA style, too -- I'd be curious to know if you or anyone else has thoughts for how to make that portion of an instruction session more dynamic or engaging for students.
We always encourage faculty to bring in their students once they are ready to begin their research projects, so we generally find that students are at least moderately interested. Also, especially in the 75-minute lessons, we usually give students at least a little time to start their research so they walk away with a helpful resource. I think it jump starts their projects and probably leaves the students feeling a little more confident in doing it on their own.
DeleteIn terms of teaching APA, this professor wanted me to go a little more in-depth than usual. I'll probably have a chance to explain more about that later. Since most of our students are from lower-level courses, and usually just need to know how to format a citation, I show them why they should sign up for accounts in our EasyBib subscription (saving citations and automatic bibliographies), how to export to EasyBib when possible, and how to look for other databases' citation tools when it isn't.
I have an instructor who using a group project assignment (pick an aspect of the campus you want to improve and suggest improvements), but somehow it never works out well (and not just from a research perspective). They focus so much on their ideas for improvement, they never understand the kinds of research they should do. At best, they'll create a few surveys for their fellow students to answer, but they aren't even very creative about those (See the assignment LibGuide for my suggestions https://cpcc.libapps.com/libguides/admin_c.php?g=105905).
ReplyDeleteIt's really hard to get them to see research in a deeper sense (why is the problem worthy of attention? do others have this problem? what have they done to solve it? what are the benefits to the solution?) It doesn't help that the instructor only give me 5 minutes when she goes over the assignment.
I like the idea of them designing their own project - maybe if it were more process based and less improvement idea focused, they'd stumble upon something deeper.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to log in to your LibGuide.
DeleteWe definitely see some good and not-so-good assignments in various classes. As we re-vamp our IL program to move beyond teaching the point and click skills, we are hoping to be able to have discussions with faculty about assignment design. From what I've read, librarians at some schools have been very successful in doing that. I think it's a delicate subject to address with faculty, though we hope to work with our new Center for Teaching Excellence to help open the doors.