15,376 research outputs found

    Breathing Life into Information Literacy Skills: Results of a Faculty-Librarian Collaboration

    Full text link
    When an education professor and a reference librarian sought to improve the quality of undergraduate student research, their partnership led to a new focus on assessing the research process in addition to the product. In this study, we reflect on our collaborative experience introducing information literacy as the foundation for undergraduate teacher education research. We examine the outcomes of this collaboration, focusing on the assessment of the process. Using a mixed methods approach, we found that direct instruction supporting effective research strategies positively impacted student projects. Our data also suggest that undergraduate students benefit from not only sound research strategies, but also organization strategies

    Assessing the Research Process Improves the Product: Results of a Faculty-­Librarian Collaboration

    Full text link
    When an education professor and a reference librarian sought to improve the quality of undergraduate student research, their partnership led to a new focus on assessing the research process in addition to the product. In this study, we reflect on our collaborative experience introducing information literacy as the foundation for undergraduate teacher education research. We examine the outcomes of this collaboration, focusing on the assessment of the process. Using a mixed methods approach, we found that direct instruction supporting effective research strategies positively impacted student projects. Our data also suggest that undergraduate students benefit from not only sound research strategies, but also organization strategies

    Reinventing the Reference Librarian: Information Literacy as a change agent

    Get PDF
    With information literacy as their ticket, academic librarians have an opportunity to re-enter the teaching and learning arena in a new guise and carve out a challenging, unique role in the world of academia - that is, to reinvent themselves in a new image. As the emphasis shifts from discipline-rich teaching to one of process-oriented learning which emphasises the development of generic skills, academic librarians must accept and seize a more proactive teaching and learning role, and shoulder greater responsibility for pedagogical leadership in higher education. The change in their role will affect all those in the tertiary community as surely as it will affect the profession of librarianship itself. As librarians strive to re-engage as educators with educators, the traditional beliefs, understandings, expectations and practices of all involved will be challenged. It is now critical to re-examine the issues which arise as a result of such a transformation, and the strategies which must be considered in order to overcome some of the more entrenched complexities of the task ahead. This paper investigates, in greater detail, those processes, structures and procedures within library organisations and academic institutions which hinder, facilitate or create opportunities for the librarians who teach information literacy in higher education

    Challenges to Teaching Credibility Assessment in Contemporary Schooling

    Get PDF
    Part of the Volume on Digital Media, Youth, and CredibilityThis chapter explores several challenges that exist to teaching credibility assessment in the school environment. Challenges range from institutional barriers such as government regulation and school policies and procedures to dynamic challenges related to young people's cognitive development and the consequent difficulties of navigating a complex web environment. The chapter includes a critique of current practices for teaching kids credibility assessment and highlights some best practices for credibility education

    Professional staffing levels and fourth-grade student research in rural schools with high-poverty levels

    Get PDF
    Rural schools in high-poverty areas are often understaffed. This descriptive phenomenological study examined fourth-grade state research projects in high- poverty rural Iowa schools to reveal the influence of school librarians’ staffing levels on student learning of research skills. To determine evidence of students’ critical literacy, ethical use of information, content learning, and understanding of the inquiry process, researchers analyzed twenty-four student work samples from eight schools, along with students’ responses to questionnaires and school librarians’ responses to surveys. Six (66 percent) student work samples in higher-staffed schools showed higher critical-literacy scores than those in the five lower-staffed schools. Six (of nine) students in higher-staffed schools garnered higher scores in ethical use of information. Content learning in all but one school was mainly factual. At the end of the project fourteen students (58 percent) posed new inquiry questions that were either conceptual or provocative

    Converting theory to practice: University-school collaboration on devising strategies for mentoring pedagogical knowledge

    Get PDF
    There appears no shortage of theorists for preservice teacher education; however many ideas are abandoned without practical applications. Indeed, it can take years for theories to materialise into practice, if they materialise at all. The quality of preservice teacher education is central for enhancing an education system, and mentors’ roles can assist to shape preservice teachers’ development within the school context. Yet mentoring can be haphazard without being underpinned by a theoretical framework. A mentoring model (personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback) has emerged from research and the literature to guide mentors’ practices. This qualitative study investigates mentors’ pedagogical knowledge as one factor crucial to the mentoring process. More specifically, this study involves a questionnaire and audio-recorded focus group meetings with experienced mentors (n=14) who deliberated on devising practical applications for mentoring pedagogical knowledge. Findings revealed that these experienced mentors pinpointed practical applications around a mentor’s role for providing pedagogical knowledge to the mentee. These strategies were varied and demonstrated that any one mentoring practice may be approached from a number of different angles. Nevertheless, there were core mentoring practices in pedagogical knowledge such as showing the mentee how to plan for teaching, articulating classroom management approaches, and talking about how to connect learning to assessment. Mentors may require education on current mentoring practices with practical strategies that are linked to theoretical underpinnings

    Ideabook: Libraries for Families

    Get PDF
    The IDEABOOK is a research-based framework to guide and broaden family engagement in libraries.The framework helps libraries move beyond thinking of family engagement as random, individual activities or programs, but rather as a system where library leadership, activities, and resources that are linked to goals. The framework represents a theory of change that begins with a set of elements—leadership, engagement, and support services—that build a pathway for meaningful family engagement beginning in the early childhood years and extending through young adulthood.This IDEABOOK was developed for anyone who works in a library setting—from library directors and children's and youth librarians, to volunteers and support staff—and shares many innovative ways that libraries support and guide families in children's learning and development

    Professional staffing levels and fourth-grade student research in rural schools with high-poverty levels

    Get PDF
    Rural schools in high-poverty areas are often understaffed. This descriptive phenomenological study examined fourth-grade state research projects in high- poverty rural Iowa schools to reveal the influence of school librarians’ staffing levels on student learning of research skills. To determine evidence of students’ critical literacy, ethical use of information, content learning, and understanding of the inquiry process, researchers analyzed twenty-four student work samples from eight schools, along with students’ responses to questionnaires and school librarians’ responses to surveys. Six (66 percent) student work samples in higher-staffed schools showed higher critical-literacy scores than those in the five lower-staffed schools. Six (of nine) students in higher-staffed schools garnered higher scores in ethical use of information. Content learning in all but one school was mainly factual. At the end of the project fourteen students (58 percent) posed new inquiry questions that were either conceptual or provocative

    An advanced reading course as a "community of inquiry" into Japanese studies

    Get PDF

    Innovate Magazine / Annual Review 2007-2008

    Get PDF
    https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/innovate/1004/thumbnail.jp
    • …
    corecore