Monday, July 11, 2011

"Listening to Student Voices"

Michael Stephens in his Office Hours section wrote the above titled article in Library Journal 6/15/11 about student impressions of research and library services. I believe that I do address some of the issues when I talk in my instruction sessions about librarians being here to help students do research (i.e. students don't understand what librarians do), or students need to understand research process and not just resources, (I discuss Kuhlthau's ISP model and the Berry -Picking model of information search in that research is a journey that leads you to different sources on a questioning path), or the idea students have that "research and finding information on the website "should be obvious," (i.e. I use analogy of how using a database is similar to learning to drive a stick shift and that you can then drive anything from a race car to a dump truck).

Teaching Ideas

1) Do a Q&A library session - consider this in order to "'focus on things we want to talk about,' not just on how to search."

2) Keep introducing student to the process of research via the PowerPoint, as per Stephens who reflects a recent MacArthur Foundation funded report "we need to move from source-focused to research process-based instruction." Per this report/study "Can We Handle the Truth?" “We believe library instruction could benefit from some serious rethinking and re-examination. We recommend modifying sessions (in-class and reference encounters) so they emphasize...framing a successful research process...over research-finding of sources.” (p. 39)

3) I want to also keep explaining to students what it means to be a librarian and how you are a research expert that enjoys helping students, as opposed to a library worker who may have their own knowledge as they love books, but they don't necessarily have the research specialization.

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