FACULTY-LIBRARIAN COLLABORATION TO PROMOTE STUDENT LEARNING

Where our students begin… We always have the topic that we always keep in reserve. Like mine used to be tigers…I probably did 8 research papers on tigers in middle and high school…[For research,] I need a lot of information on tigers. Like when you are writing on tigers, all the information is there and then you write a thesis, who knows why, because you are supposed to. --English 2010 Student, reflecting on his prior research experience

Student View of College Research We’ve never had instruction really on navigating the Internet and picking out good resources. We’ve kind of been tossed into this and we’ve just learned through experience we have to go on a Web site and just raid it for information. So I would say that despite all that’s out there, it certainly is harder to find the right source and evaluate whether it’s good, or not, because there’s so much—you only have a little bit of time to spend on each source you find. Project Information Literacy, “Truth be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age.” 2010

Where Students Struggle  Getting started: Defining a topic and narrowing it down  Filtering through irrelevant results  Integrating information from different sources and reading through research materials  Completing the research process, deciding whether they had done a “good job,” or not. Project Information Literacy, “Truth be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age.” 2010

Project Information Literacy “Follow-up interviews suggest students lacked the research acumen for framing an inquiry in the digital age where information abounds and intellectual discovery was paradoxically overwhelming for them.” Project Information Literacy, “Truth be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age.” 2010

Assessment at USU VALUE Rubric Project:  Used rubric developed by Association of American Colleges & Universities.  Scored random sample of all ENGL 1010 papers (Fall 2010) and ENGL 2010 (Spring 2010).  Scored all papers from research methods class (PSY 3500) and capstone class (HIST 4990).

Preliminary Assessment Results ENGL 1010 and 2010 and PSY 3500  Can locate and cite scholarly resources  Struggle with:  developing appropriate scope  identifying key concepts  synthesizing information

A Course-Integrated Approach  Relevance to class content.  Disciplinary context.  Developed across the curriculum in stages.  Requires extensive collaboration between librarians and faculty.  No standard place in curriculum.  Students see library as “busy work.”  Requires extensive collaboration between librarians and faculty. AdvantagesDisadvantages

Integration into English Composition  ENGL 1010: A very basic introduction to research as a process of inquiry.  ENGL 2010: A more in-depth introduction or refresher. Focus is on finding evidence for arguments.

Integration into USU 1300-level classes  Some USU 1300 courses provide a very basic introduction to information sources.  Implementation inconsistent because of large class sizes.

The Big Message Students are not introduced to academic information tools and resources in the disciplines in ENGL 1010, 2010, or other general education classes.

Integration into the Major  Varies by department, major, and individual course/instructor.  Common examples:  Introduction to research methods  Capstone courses  Issues:  Misses some students.  Some students repeat same library session in their major.

Insert department plan here

Next Step: Collaborate!  Discuss curriculum map/instructional plan.  Identify specific learning outcomes, based on your curricular goals and assessment data.  Identify possible instructional approaches:  Face-to-face library presentation  Librarian consultation model  LibGuides and other online tools LibGuides  Library “work” days  A library “lab” connected to a course