The Cephalonian Method

The Cephalonian Method was first used at Cardiff University as a way to create an interactive library tour for Nursing Students. I’ve adapted this method to be used for our Freshman Year Experience Library Tours.

Designed to help students overcome library anxiety, the Cephalonian Method uses various multi-media techniques to put the students at ease while introducing the students to different services the library provides.

It plays heavily on the cognitive technique of audio-visual-kinetic learning and the Affective technique of creating a safe environment.

Lesson Plan

As students come into the classroom, popular music plays in the background. “Library Tour Extravaganza” is displayed on the projection screen.

Students are given color coded cards with questions on them.

When all students have arrived, the music is turned off and the tour begins.

PART 1: Random Library Questions

The projector displays a random color. As the color comes up, a student with a corresponding card, shouts out their questions (for example when blue is displayed a student with a blue card would ask their question)

The Librarian answers each question and uses appropriate visuals (such as a picture of a study room or a link on the library website).

All students have to ask at least one question.

Questions asked:

Do I need my ID to get stuff?
Can I talk in the library?
What is my H: Drive?
Where are the book drops?
What is the student Lounge?
Do you have Laptops?
What are course reserves?
Where can I make copies?
When is the library open?
How do I know when my stuff is due?
Do you have study rooms?
Where can I find articles?
What are print credits?
What is Summit?
Where can I print my paper?
Do you have movies?

PART 2: DRAW-DRAW

Three volunteers are asked to come up to the head of the classroom.

They have one-minute to draw the clue given to them using the White Boards.
This is a Pictionary style game.

A one minute timer from YouTube is displayed.

Draw-Draw Clues:

Video Games
Librarian
Coffee + Sandwhich

After each clue is guessed, the librarian explains how each clue is relevant.

Video Games: The gaming systems and area of the library students can use them

Librarian: Various ways in which students can get help

Food + Drink: The Libraries food and drink policy (which are allowed in the library)

PART 3: LIBRARY PASSPORT

Six markers with symbols on them have been placed throughout the library. Students are given a passport with the location of each of those markers. They must go there and write down each symbol.

Library Locations:

Reference and Information Desk
Study Room 101
DVD/Video Collection
Computer Alcoves
Bookshelf with Call Number: PS 3045
Copy Center
Gaming Alcove

Rethinking the Library Tour Using The Amazing Library Race

The academic library can be scary places to freshman. It operates under slightly different rules than their public or school library. Academic libraries are large intimidating buildings. When freshman walk inside (if they can overcome their anxiety), they are filled with upper classman who seem to know all rules and secret handshakes for negotiating the library.

Library tours are valuable to students who never have been in an academic library or who are overwhelmed by the experience; however, the main problem with a traditional tour is that they are dull and boring.

So, how do you make a library tour more interesting to students?
One of the best methods I’ve tested in the last two years is: The Amazing Library Race.

This is not an original idea of mine as many libraries use this format. And, frankly, the format has been around for awhile. It is simply a scavenger hunt reformatted using the popular reality show The Amazing Race as a template.

At Western Oregon University, I use this for the library tour given to Student Enrichment Program’s Summer Bridge students. During Summer Bridge, students arrive two weeks prior to school. The goal is to orient and acclimate students to the campus before their first freshman term. The summer bridge has 30-35 students.

How the Race is Run

Students arrive at a large lecture classroom in the library

They are divided into teams of two (typically 15-16 teams)

An Amazing Library Race video is played using library locations for the places they will travel to

They are given their first task (half of the teams complete the tasks in reverse order to avoid pile ups at task sites)

When they complete their task, they are given their next task to complete

The first three teams back win a prize

All teams that complete the tasks are entered into a drawing for two more additional prizes

The Task they complete:

Print off a course reserve article

Locate a study room

Fill out a laptop request form and check out a laptop

Go to library computer lab and follow posted directions for locating an article from a database

Locate the Copy Center

Find a book on the shelf (each team is given their own book to look up)

The Amazing Library Race has proven to be a fun reworking of the traditional library tour. I wouldn’t use this for smaller classes or for classes during the term (it is a fairly chaotic and disruptive event as students take to heart the race aspect). However, for large group new student week orientations it is very effective.

Next Posting: The Library Tour—Using the Cephalonian Method

Google Custom Search

Using Google Custom Search Engine and Library Instruction

What is Google Custom Search Engine? It is a customized web search platform that allows you to limit a search to specific websites or web pages. The customized search box can be embedded or linked on a website, blog, wiki, or course management system such as Moodle or Blackboard.

With more and more academic content being posted on the web or being published in web based journals, researchers are often overwhelmed by the vast amount of information. There is a need for tools that allow researchers to sort through this wealth of collective intelligence. Google Custom Search Engine is one such tool. Librarians, who often have expertise in a particular subject, can use that expertise to guide users to the best information available by creating a Google Custom Search Engine for a course, project, or assignment.


Google Custom Search Engine at Western Oregon University

Western Oregon University is a small regional liberal arts college (5,000 students). We offer a variety of library/research instructional services. The overall philosophy of the library’s instruction department is to provide customized instruction that fits the intellectual, social, and technological needs of the learning situation.

Google Custom Search Engine is used to address assignment specific research needs. The teaching faculty sends the assignment to the librarian who in turn sets up a Google Custom Search Engine with appropriate resources. Students can access the custom search engine from either a Class Research Guide hosted on the library website (we use LibGuides to set these up) or through a link posted on their class Moodle page.

Here is an example of how this is done. A composition instructor contacted the instruction librarian to discuss an upcoming assignment. The instructor required his students to read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara—a historical fiction novel about the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War—and write a research paper about one of the events presented in the novel. The instruction librarian set up two Google Custom Search Engines. The first custom search engine searches relevant websites regarding the people, places, and battles mentioned in the novel. The second custom search engine searches historical photographs of the major figures and places in the novel as well as maps of the battlefield. The search boxes were posted on a Class Research Guide under The Killer Angels assignment section.



Google Custom Search Engine at the University of Denver

Founded in 1864, the University of Denver is a private institution, designated as a doctoral/research university with high research activity. Strong in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, the university typically enrolls a fairly even distribution of students: in 2007 there were 5,285 undergraduate and 5,768 graduate students, and 575 full-time appointed faculty. Penrose Library is the main campus library serving students in a variety of disciplines. Penrose Library advocates library instruction as a means for developing library and information skills to enhance critical thinking and instill lifelong learning. To this end, we offer a variety of tutorials, guides, and course-related instruction for students, faculty and staff.

As one aspect of the instruction program, we have begun incorporating custom search engines into our research guides. Many students in the professional programs at the university are non-traditional students returning to college after being out of school for several years. These students are often new to web-based research and are sometimes overwhelmed by large amounts of information. To alleviate some of their concerns with using web resources, we have begun using the Google Custom Search Engine to create a narrowly defined set of web resources for the students to search.

Custom search engines have been particularly helpful to students in the Buell Early Childhood Leadership program. In this program, adult students take certificate classes in cohort groups. Classes are held during an intensive 5 day retreat over the summer and in weekend classes during the academic year. Since many of the students are not regularly on campus they must do most of their research online. An extensive online research guide allows these students to access subscription library resources and also to use the Google Custom Search Engine on early childhood leadership, which has been designed specifically for their needs and has been incorporated into the research guide. The search engine searches a selection of websites which have information on child development and early childhood education. The sites were chosen in consultation with the faculty in the program and students have been encouraged to contribute sites as they do their research.



Conclusion

With the increasing amount of information readily available to researchers on the web, it’s not only important for librarians to teach researchers how to critically evaluate information, but also to create tools and resources that help them find the information they need quickly. The Google Custom Search Engine is a tool that can be used for many specialized topics. Custom search engines can be shared with other libraries and the placement of these search engines on research guides, such as LibGuides, increases the likelihood that they will be found and used by other institutions.


Examples:

Western Oregon Univeristy: Class Research Guide The Killer Angels custom search engine

University of Denver: Early Childhood Leadership Research Guide and Search Engine

(This was first presented at the 2009 Internet Librarians International conference by Robert Monge--Instruction and Outreach Librarian at Western Oregon University and Carrie Forbes --Instruction Coordinator & Reference Librarian at the University of Denver)

Next Topic: Amazing Library Race

An Argument Against Fabulous One-Shot Instructions

My optimism to put together really fantastic library sessions appears like clockwork at the start of the first academic term. Then, just as quickly, any hopes of conveying any real knowledge about this fabulous information world we live in falls away as instructors begin to schedule their classes.

One shot instructions are not real learning situations and librarians should stop treating them as information literacy opportunities.

It is difficult for librarians to get instruction time in classes. The common response is that students need information literacy and if one hour is all we can get then it’s better than nothing. I don’t believe that anymore. I think nothing would be better than trying to create a one hour library session that will have lasting impact on students.

Learning requires meaningful practice and repetition to be effective. Something that just can’t happen in one hour of library instruction.

In the Introduction to Creating the One Shot Library Workshop: A Step-by-Step Guide (2006), Jerilyn Veldof writes, “What’s a ‘one-shot’ library workshop? It is a task focused training session” (page 2).

The phrase “task focused training session” is what is going to be my mantra from now on. I’m not saying we should stop conducting one-shot library sessions if that is indeed all we can get.

I’m saying stop treating them like the are gateways to information literacy.

We need to go in, teach the students the three or four things they need to complete their assignment, and get out.

If we want to build lasting information literacy and an appreciation of the information world, we need to stop trying to do it on one-shot instructions. It can’t be done and we should stop trying. Instead, we need to work with faculty to embed multiple sessions in courses throughout the curriculum from Freshman to Graduate courses.


Next Posting: Using Google Custom Search Engine

Outreach to High School Librarians and English Faculty

Great practical ideas for improving library instruction don’t always happen in the classroom.

Sometimes they happen before the students even get to college.

At the 2009 Writing Program Administrators conference, Dr. Elizabeth Vander Lei from Calvin College presented this absolute brilliant idea: Work with university librarians and English faculty to present a workshop entitled: “Academic Research in a Web 2.0 World” to librarians and teachers from Calvin’s feeder schools.

This probably is impractical for large research universities but most smaller institutions have a good idea of what high schools and community colleges feed into their universities. Engaging these “feeder” schools in both a conversation and training opportunity allows for a variety of benefits:

+ Promotion of the college or university

+ A chance to have a dialogue with high school faculty and librarians

+ A chance to strengthen Information Literacy instruction prior to college

+ A chance to understand the viewpoint of Information Literacy from another perspective

The benefits to all parties involved are the classic: win-win scenario

Beyond the outreach to high school librarians and faculty, what is especially impressive is the collaboration between the university faculty and librarians leading up to the workshop. These collaborations between faculty and librarians are exactly what the library world needs to keep librarians grounded in the real world of information needs.

Here is how this collaboration came about at Calvin College:

2008
Librarians contact Vander Lei to be guest speaker at a conference they hold for HS librarians and English faculty from “feeder” schools on the nature of academic research

2008
Sarah McClure Kolk [Instruction Librarian] sits in on Vander Lei’s 300-level course for secondary education/English students: “Teaching Writing”

2009
Vander Lei contacts librarians to collaborate with English faculty on a research grant entitled “Academic Research in a Web 2.0 World”

2009
Kolk and Vander Lei to co-present on academic research at a small conference for teachers from Calvin’s “feeder” schools

from--
Vander Lie, Elizabeth. “Research and Writing in First-Year Courses at Calvin College.” Writing
Program Administrators Conference 2009. Radisson, Minneapolis. 18 July 2009. Panel Discussion/Handout.

Next Blog: An Argument Against Fabulous One-Shot Instructions (8-28-2009)

A Four Credit Writing-Research Based Course

How about this for an instruction recipe? Take a 3 credit writing class and combine it with a 1 credit library research course. Mix in collaboration between three librarians and five writing instructors until you have a four credit writing/research course.

This phantasmagoric idea was presented at the *2009 Writing Administrators Conference by Dr. Heidi Estrem--Director of First Year Writing at Boise State University.

All Boise State University students must take English 102 (research writing class). Students may take Univ 106 as an elective online library skills course.

In the PoWer (Project Writing and Research) program coordinated by Dr. Tom Peele, Associate Director of First-Year Writing, and librarian Sara Seely, Instruction and Outreach Coordinator, one section of English 102 is combined with Univ 106 to create a four credit research-based writing class.

This was piloted with three sections in the Fall of2008 and four in Spring of 2009.

I have to admit I was just so unbelievably happy to see a program like this being done. Every librarian knows we need to find more ways of presenting instruction beyond the 50 minute one shot instruction that most students get in a Comp I or Comp II class. (These aren’t really meaningful instructions and end up being just enough information for students to write their papers without providing any lasting research instruction). I applaud any university library that can get a 1 credit course on the books as this is a difficult sell to the faculty and administration. However, because these 1 credit courses are often not part of a research based class, they do not produce lasting or meaningful connections for the students (akin to learning all the skills needed to ride a horse but not having the horse).

Combining library instruction with research based courses is where the future of library should be headed. Boise State University is showing us one excellent way this can be done.

The PoWer program is also significant in that it can provide librarians an example course collaboration between librarians and faculty beyond the simple stand alone library skills class.

My own utopian version of this is to have 3 credits of library instruction embedded in the curriculum (one credit each with sequenced writing courses (Comp I /Comp II) and one credit attached to a third year level course in the students field of study.

At Western Oregon University we are only in the beginning stages of thinking about such a program, but seeing the PoWer program at Boise State University only bolsters my belief that this is indeed the right path to pursue.

Notes ---

* This was part of the panel discussion: Research Program Administrators: Convergences and Collisions Among Writing Programs and Libraries


IN TWO WEEKS (August 14th): Outreach to High School English Faculty/Librarians

Mis/Understanding Information Literacy: Writing Program Administrators, Librarians, and the General Education Curriculum

Last week, Dr. Erica Frisicaro-Pawlowski, Dr. Margaret Artman, and I presented: Mis/Understanding Information Literacy: Writing Program Administrators, Librarians, and the General Education Curriculum at the Writing Program Administrators Conference 2009 conference in Minneapolis.

Dr. Frisicaro-Pawlowski looked at the historical context and current situation facing academic institutions. She highlighted three distinct problems:

· Information Literacy is over simplified and only thought of as “how to use the library”

· Information literacy is often defined as skill sets that are “decontextualized and seemingly disconnected, rather than a set of processes shaped by academic conventions, communities, and knowledge-making practices”

· Issues related to multimedia technology/information are often left out of information literacy standards at the institutional level

Writing program administrators, faculty, librarians, and the university administration need to work together to create information literacy standards for the curriculum.

Information Literacy should not just be one more thing writing faculty need to address in Composition classes. It should be a curriculum wide effort. However, writing faculty and librarians can work together to create an entry point for developing information literacy skills.

Dr. Margaret Artman highlighted reasons why writing faculty (who might be resistant to working with librarians) should have the librarians teach at least on library/information literacy session:

· Students need to be introduced to the librarians as information professionals. Composition instructors only have one term with the students while the librarians will be with the student for their entire academic career

· Librarians have more knowledge about the various information needs/solutions facing students. They also keep up to date on the changing information environment

· Librarians are student-centered in their instruction efforts and can create meaningful hands-on instruction sessions to address higher information literacy needs
Students will only benefit when librarians and faculty can collaborate to develop information literacy instruction.

I highlighted three ways in which librarians can work with faculty to enhance information literacy beyond the one-shot library instruction:

· Class research guides (research guides designed for a specific class or assignment)

· Web based library assignments (assignments designed to be given pre/during/post library instruction session

· Web based information literacy tutorials


My part of the presentation Working with Faculty to Go Beyond the 50 Minute One Shot Library Instruction is posted on SlideShare.

Next week’s posting (July 31st, 2009): Combining library instruction and writing instruction into one course.

Three LibraryQuesting Examples

Here are three examples of a LibraryQuest

LibraryQuesting: Pre Library Session

LibraryQuesting: Live in Class Session

LibraryQuesting: Post Library Session



Next Weeks Posting (July 24th):

Mis/Understanding Information Literacy: Writing Program Administrators, Librarians, and the General Education Curriculum

Library Questing

LibraryQuesting

Summer is a great time in the academic library. Few students…Few instructions…and no teaching faculty. A perfect time to evaluate your library instructions and figure out how to make them better.

I’ve been looking for ways to integrate pre/post library assignments into library sessions when (after searching the web) I came across the idea of WebQuesting.

What is a Web Quest?

WebQuesting.org describes Webquesting as: “…an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web.”

But, it is more than just a simple task completion assignment:

WebQuesting.org states, “A real WebQuest....

--is wrapped around a doable and interesting task that is ideally a scaled down version of things that adults do as citizens or workers.

--requires higher level thinking, not simply summarizing. This includes synthesis, analysis, problem-solving, creativity and judgment….

--isn't just a series of web-based experiences. Having learners go look at this page, then go play this game, then go here and turn your name into hieroglyphs doesn't require higher level thinking skills and so, by definition, isn't a WebQuest.”

And, of course, what makes a WebQuest is that it only uses Internet sites to complete the tasks.

The WebQuest uses a learning module format with the following categories:

Introduction – the set up (usually describing a simulated situation)
Task – an overview of what needs to be accomplished
Process – a listing of the individual tasks and specific websites
Evaluation – a rubric to determine the success of tasks
Conclusion – A summery of lessons learned
Teacher Page – Notes for instructors
Credits – Credits and additional links

Here are a few examples:

The Perfect Sweet
Hooked on Grant Writing

Adapting Library Assignments into WebQuests

Library assignments are screaming out to be turned into WebQuests—only with the full resources of the library in addition to the Internet.

I see three particular areas where a WebQuest could be applied:

--Pre-library instruction visit
--Blended in-class experience
--Post-Library instruction visit

Pre-Library Instruction Visit

Few students come prepared to a library instruction with enough background knowledge or research to fully take advantage of the 50-75 minute session.

Librarians can design a modified WebQuest (which makes sense at this point to call them LibraryQuests) with a guided instruction on using Wikipedia, web pages, blogs, and library reference materials for generating topics and conducting background research.

Blended In-Class Experience

The LibraryQuest would be a great way to provide a self-guided in-class library session where the librarian acts more as facilitator than a lecturer. The idea here is that the LibraryQuest be based on the students research assignment and the quest be done during class time.

Post-Library Instruction Visit

The research for any project can rarely be done in a typical 50-75 minute library session. Students barely have time to explore the databases and other resources let alone walk away with enough meaningful research to complete their assignment. A LibraryQuest that guides them through this process post library visit would be fantastic as it would help them in a very practical way and reinforce what they learned during the session.


Next Weeks Posting (July 17, 2009): Three Examples of LibraryQuests.

Active Library Instruction--Pecha Kucha

This active library instruction pecha kucha provides a brief overview of some interesting ways to create more engaging library instruction (some with a unique technological twist).