Course Synthesis - Final Project

IDEALA - Week 4 Activity

Environment

I am teaching a one-unit course, Library 1A: Introduction to Library Research (LIBR 1A) at a large community college.  Up to 30 students can enroll in a section.  I teach this course in a face-to-face format in our library classroom, which is equipped with desktop computers that have Internet access and word processing software.  At the instructor podium, the professor and the students can project presentations and demonstrations.

I have taught LIBR 1A as a standalone course and in learning communities with English and Speech courses.  Most recently, I have taught in links with English 1A (ENGL 1A) in a learning community called Pathways to Transfer.  In Pathways, we hope that students enroll in and succeed in English 67-68-1A-1C and, even better, transfer to a four-year university.  English 67 and 68 are pre-collegiate; English 1A is freshman composition; and English 1C is critical thinking.  LIBR 1A links with ENGL 1A because it has a research paper component.

All students in my current LIBR 1A section are enrolled in ENGL 1A. Thus, the assumption is that all of these students are capable of performing reading and writing at a college level.  They are fairly similar in terms of their abilities as students; however, they do have diverse personal backgrounds.  Some students are busy with school, family, and work responsibilities.  Other students are focused primarily on school.

Learning Outcomes

Overall Goal:

A year (or more) after this course is over, students will confidently and capably find and use a variety of sources of information in order to understand their research interests and provide answers and solutions to their research questions and problems.

Learning Objectives:

After completing LIBR 1A, students will be able to …

Identify research interests that are focused on a controversy or issue.

• Students will identify a main topic and sub-topics.
• Students will narrow this topic into a research question.

Find sources of information that are credible.

• Students will find at least five sources of information that help them answer their research question.
• Students will journal about their search attempts and document growth or weaknesses in their search skills.

Use sources of information to provide answers to problems.

• Students will give a classroom presentation about their problem and one potential solution to this problem.
• Students will create an annotated bibliography to summarize and evaluate their sources of information.

Formative and Summative Assessment

Final Project (Summative)

Students will create a public service announcement (PSA) poster and annotated bibliography.  The theme of their PSA will be related to Alcohol Awareness Month.  In order to build their knowledge on this issue, students will consult a variety of sources, including encyclopedias, books, videos, and articles.  In their annotations, students will summarize the sources, evaluate them, and reflect on their relevance.

• National Council onAlcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc.
• National Institute onAlcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Learning Activity (Formative):

First, students independently assess “good” and “bad” citations and annotations using the grading rubric for their final project.  As a large group, students will discuss their assessment.

Second, students will write their own citation and annotation for a short article. In small groups of 2-3 students, students will evaluate each other’s work according to the rubric.  Students discuss their results in these small groups.

Criteria & Standards:

Students will be evaluated on multiple criteria:

• finding sources that strongly connect to the research topic
• summarizing the source in complete sentences, noting the main points, sub points, and arguments
• evaluating the authority of the source, addressing the author’s background and any possible bias
• describing the relevance of the source, including how it helps and does not help answer the research question

Helpful Resources:

• Textbook:  Badke’s Research Strategies
• Videos:  TBD
• Databases:  Gale Virtual Reference Library; CQ Researcher; Academic Search Premier; JSTOR; Library Catalog (WorldCat Local); ProQuest Research Library
• Writing Center:  handouts, tutoring, workshops

Learning Theories

When looking at the learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, different aspects of each theory appeal to me.  While I would apply all three theories to my teaching, I see constructivism as a learning theory to be implemented across the entire formation of my course.  Over the semester, I aim to develop a course that calls on students’ past experiences and challenges students to solve real world problems with evidence.  On a daily basis, I would implement aspects of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism because all offer good techniques for teaching and learning.  Below is a list of specific aspects that I will practice in my credit course.

Behaviorism:

• Model use of databases:  to support students that need skills-based instruction
• Reinforce database search techniques:  to build in students a habit of searching databases for information
• Provide quizzes:  to test students’ use of database search skills in a fun way

Cognitivism:

• Break material into smaller parts:  to introduce and describe components of the research process
• Create visual aids:  to model for students a variety of ways to accomplish the components of the research process

Constructivism:

• Form small group activities and discussions:  to allow learning from peers
• Choose real word problems:  to make activities and assignments meaningful, applicable, and transferable to students

Educational Technology Tools

In class, I will utilize features of Moodlerooms in order to share information, such as grading rubrics and links to helpful resources.  Students will need to communicate with each other in class and outside of class.  For that purpose, Google+ or Moodlerooms can be used.  Finally, it is possible for students to create an infographic instead of poster board.  If so, then I will instruct them in the use of infographic tools, such as Easel.ly or Piktochart.

Reflection

Enrolling in Instructional Design Essentials has been incredibly helpful.  Overall, it taught me just how much time goes into creating a course, assignment or learning activity.  More specifically, I can immediately apply the practice of creating learning outcomes and creating activities and assignments that assess these learning outcomes.  I am glad to have been exposed to learning theories and motivation.  In particular I am curious about constructivism.  I would like to do further reading about constructivism and will hopefully find examples of how to practice it in my class.  I am slow to adopt technology, so it is not a big deal in my teaching.  However, a student recently thanked me for assigning a PowerPoint presentation to them.  It forced him to learn the technology and he believes it will be a useful skill in the future.  For this reason, in future classes, I will ask my students what technologies they would like to learn.

I enjoyed reading my classmates’ posts.  Early in this course, I was able to peek at many classmates’ blogs.  As time went on, though, I had to pick just a few.  My picks were random and that approach worked just fine.  Whether a librarian is teaching a one-shot, credit course, or online course, I was able to learn from all of the blogs that I visited.

Finally, I would like to thank our extraordinary instructors, Erica DeFrain and Nicole Pagowsky.  You challenged us quite a bit in these past few weeks, but I am grateful for this challenge and for your support along the way.