Collaboration!

I wanted to share with all of you a recent experience working together with faculty. Earlier this week, one of my English Comp. instructiors had both of her classes watch "An Inconvenient Truth," and after a break, I came in to do a workshop on finding/using library resources. I structured the class around the topic of environmentalism and climate change, and showed the students very specific places to conduct their research. I narrowed their resources to three types - Books, Articles, and Websites - and demostrated how to find resources on environmental issues in all three.

I first showed them the difference between keyword and subject searches in the online catalog, using "global warming" and "climate change" as my examples. Then, I showed them Points of View, which has an entire category of "Earth and Environment." Last, I explained Ma.gnolia, and showed them how the tag "environment."

I also used a hybrid of Dennis's half-sheet response and Amy's workshop quiz to gain feedback.

I noticed that many of the students (most of which had already attended a workshop) started to understand the different types of resources, once the topic had already been chosen for them. I got responses such as "I learned about Ma.gnolia for the first time" and "I learned how to navigate the system," even though I know that this class had received such information before. I think the success of the workshop stemmed from a combination of: 1) having a topic area already selected for them; 2) showing them specific examples of finding information on that topic; and 3) choosing a topic that many people have an opinion of already. I also think that the quiz/response kept them on task and forced the students to think about the ideas I was presenting.