Check These Out!

By Mary Pagliero Popp, popp@indiana.edu

Summer is here again! Make time to catch up on all the reading you had been “meaning to get around to.” In this issue, I have pulled some useful resources from the corporate training literature in addition to our usual articles. Dip into some of the resources below.

TEACHING THE WEB

Jacobson, Trudi E., Contributing Editor. Critical Thinking and the Web: Teaching Users to Evaluate Internet Resources. Pittsburgh: Library Instruction Publications, 2000. ISBN 0-9652711-05-3

Contains creative class and assignment ideas from 22 librarians and one professor for teaching users to evaluate information found on the Internet. Contributors represent high schools, community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. Covers such topics as general evaluation of web sites, currency, authors, search engines, statistics from the Web, and bias.

Felt, Elizabeth Caulfield, and Sarah C. Symans. “Teaching Students to Use the Internet as a Research Tool.” Learning & Leading with Technology 27.6 (March 2000):15+.

Contains easy-to-follow tips for teaching kids to evaluate the resources they find on the Web. The section on site sponsorship is especially helpful.

LEARNING AND MEMORY

Caudron, Shari. “Learners Speak Out.” Training & Development 54.4 (April 2000): 52+. http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html? template_id=1&articleid=25660

Although focused on the needs of corporate trainers, this article contains good advice for teachers of adults. The authors suggest making sure learning has a focus in reality, provides guided experience, makes use of mentoring as appropriate, and includes small group interaction. Contains a checklist of ways nontraditional learners learn.

Walsh, Robert. “Brain-Friendly Communication.” Training & Development 54.2 (Feb. 2000): 17-19. http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id =1&articleid =25300

Walsh discusses some general principles of cognitive processing, telling readers how to present information so that the brain can handle it comfortably. He provides practical tips to help readers use three principles: 1) relevance (looking for high impact with low levels of effort to interpret the information); 2) providing information for each of the three types of memory — categorical, procedural, and episodic; and 3) teaching through direct experience.

INFORMATION LITERACY FOR KIDS AND TEENS

Gordon, Carol. “Students as Authentic Researchers: A New Prescription for the High School Research Assignment.” School Library Media Research 2 (October 1999). http://www.ala.org/aasl/SLMR/authentic.html

Gordon begins by describing the problems with traditional research projects, examining the literature that supports a change in the traditional research report, and recommending an action research project. She goes on to describe a collaborative project in which English teachers and the school librarian investigated the effectiveness of an assignment requiring primary research. The article concludes with an analysis of the student and faculty evaluations of the exercise.

Minkel, Walter. “‘So Far I’ve Only Found His Head.’” School Library Journal 46.4 (April 2000): 37. http://www.slj.com/articles/chatroom/20000401_7488.asp

Describes a recent study by Sandra G. Hirsh published in volume 50, number 14 (1999) of the American Society for Information Science Journal, “Children’s Relevance Criteria and Information Seeking on Electronic Resources.” Minkel summarizes the recommendations made in the article about what librarians should teach children.

IDEAS YOU CAN USE TODAY

Dewald, Nancy, et al. “Information Literacy at a Distance: Instructional Design Issues” Journal of Academic Librarianship 26.1 (Jan. 2000): 33-44.

A must-read for anyone involved in distance education! Describes major instructional delivery systems (email, web pages, chat, MUDs and MOOs, and Webcasting) and gives their advantages and disadvantages. Discusses active learning techniques and their use in information literacy credit courses, course-integrated instruction, and web tutorials. The final section of the article talks about assessment techniques, including methods to evaluate course-related knowledge and skills, to assess metacognitive skills, and to assess student feedback about teaching. Based on a panel presentation at the 1999 ACRL Conference.

Masek, Linda E. “Advice for Teaching Hands-On Computer Classes to Adult Professionals.” Computers in Libraries 20.3 (March 2000): 32-36.

The author has taught classes on PubMed to doctors, administrators, nurses and other adult professionals. She shares her ideas about preparation, time for hands-on practice, the need to guarantee success, dealing with groups of varying experience levels, and handling questions.

Powell, Carol A. “Educational Needs Assessment: Revitalizing a User Education Program.” Medical Reference Services Quarterly 18.4 (Winter 1999): 71-78.

Powell describes a survey of users of the Ohio State University Health Sciences Library. Includes objectives for the survey, survey distribution methods, and results.

Schmidt, Jacqueline J. and Joseph B. Miller. “The Five-Minute Rule for Presentations.” Training & Development 54 (March 2000): 16-17.

Suggests that speakers think of presentations as a series of 5-minute talks, each presenting one point. Each 5-minute talk will include an introduction, a body and a conclusion. The author suggests that in each talk, the speaker should include an abstract concept and a concrete example to help listeners with different learning styles understand.

IN BRIEF

ACRL Task Force on Information Literacy Competency Standards. “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” College and Research Libraries News 61.3 (March 2000): 207-215. [The final version with introductory material, approved January 2000]

Bell, Steven. “Oh, No! I Can’t Get on the Web: Offline Strategies for Internet Content Presentations.” Searcher 8.3 (March 2000): 54-64. http:/www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar00/bell.htm

Dennis, Stefanie and Kelly Broughton. “FALCON: An Interactive Library Instruction Tutorial.” Reference Services Review 28.1 (2000): 31-38.

Evans, Beth. “Letting the PC Be the Instructor.” Computers in Libraries 20.3 (March 2000): 40-44.

Jacobson, Trudi E. and Laura B. Cohen. “Teaching about the Internet: An Opportunity for Faculty Outreach.” College and Research Libraries News 62 (April 2000): 302-304.

Stamatoplos, Anthony. “An Integrated Approach to Teaching Research in a First-Year Seminar.” College Teaching 48.1 (Winter 2000): 33-35.

Wellborn, Victoria and Bryn Kanar. “Building Websites for Science Literacy.” Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship 25 (Winter 2000). http://www.library.ucsb.edu/ istl/00-winter/article2.html>

Mary Pagliero Popp is Information Technologies Public Services Librarian, at the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries