WHAT DO OUR STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW FOR COLLEGE?
Are we adequately preparing our students for university–level
research? Do K-12 information literacy skills match those needed
by students in college? Join Esther Grassian, the Information
Literacy Outreach Coordinator at UCLA College Library, and other
librarians and teachers as we discuss our role as advocates for
lifelong learning.
presented by
Karen Phillips, Brentwood School
Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library [estherg@library.ucla.edu]
Lynn Lampert, CSU, Northridge [lynn.lampert@csun.edu]
1. WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON PROBLEMS YOU SEE IN UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH?
ESTHER GRASSIAN -- Students don’t know the difference between
popular and scholarly
material.
Students often don’t know that libraries have free access to
articles and other materials –
they need to be reminded that they may
not have to pay for articles themselves, as the
library may have
subscriptions that include the articles they want.
LYNN LAMPERT – Pointed out that the CSUN library is not heavily
solely designed for faculty
research use; the focus of their
instructional programming is more on how to improve
student
learning.
She notices that students have problems with topic development;
there is student insecurity
on developing a topic for papers. She
works with them on current events topics; giving them motivation to
think about a topic that might be interesting to them.
She suggests that we practice brainstorming about topics and
teach students how to narrow
a topic down.
We need to teach students when and how to utilize resources;
understanding the
difference in scholarly materials; how research
is done in the world.
She discusses plagiarism by showing the ramifications of current
incidents involving Dan
Brown, James Frey and other popular
authors.
Students think they are cheating if they use another’s
information; don’t know how to
balance their research notes with
their personal thoughts.
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She stressed that confidence is a major issue – students don’t
realize what the reference desk is for; there is a reluctance to come
up and ask for help and an “I don’t want to bother
you” mentality.
At CSUN, she notices that some kids don’t have libraries and they
don’t use their public
libraries, so there needs to be greater
marketing of libraries all around.
She also sees an inability to ask good questions; we need to
teach kids how to ask
intelligent questions [in a reference
interview].
2. WHAT TYPES OF RESEARCH PROJECTS DO UNDERGRADUATES DO?
LYNN LAMPERT – at CSUN, more professors are assigning annotated
bibliography projects to
get students to see why they need to use a
particular source.
“Research proposals” are popular at CSUN – asking to students to
determine “here’s my
topic, here’s how narrow, broad, etc.”
focus on asking students to think about
Projects
topics and to investigate
the topic further.
Sees an issue the college faculty assume that students know how
to cite their sources and
that every student knows how to use their
“brand” of citations; the poor student is left
trying to figure out
the difference between APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.
Faculty at CSUN are hesitant to use citation programs like
Noodlebib – in site citation is
the place where plagiarism is
happening and they feel that students need to know how to
cite.
At CSUN, research projects are often broken apart; scaffolding is
popular, assigning
projects in stages. There is also an emphasis on
student presentations.
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AP students seem pretty well-prepared; they are receiving
assignments that are well- structured and ask a lot of questions.
There is more emphasis on projects that allow students to use
only one internet site and have it not be a .com; students are asked
to use print resources and articles.
Research assignments that ask for “only one reference source” or
other limits can be
confusing; students are unclear about what a
reference source is, for example.
Lynn tries to wean faculty away from scavenger hunts in the
library – they are too general
and often don’t allow student success.
ESTHER GRASSIAN -- Scavenger hunts in the library are useless
because they frustrate
students and result in librarians finding
answers and handing them to the students.
Librarians want students to
feel good about finding information and to feel that they are
successful in their research; therefore, students will understand
the value of library
resources and want to come back.
She emphasized that teachers give clear written assignments;
students need to bring the assignment with them to the library. The
first question librarians ask is, "Do you have a written copy of your
assignment?" Students often forget portions of or misinterpret their
assignments.
She notices that students don’t always want to use the
encyclopedias; yet the UCLA library
has many specialized
encyclopedias. They are great for introducing students to a topic and
should be emphasized.
UCLA is on a ten-week quarter system; timing is a challenge –
students can’t slack off
because the pace is so quick.
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There is more availability of online help on the library website,
including free tutorials.
[“Road to Research” <http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/library/> is a
basic information literacy tutorial, with 4 modules: Click on Guest,
then on Skip to Tutorial. “Bruin Success With
Less Stress”
<http://www.library.ucla.edu/bruinsuccess/> is a plagiarism and
documentation tutorial.]
There was an L.A. Times article last year about teachers not
assigning papers since they
couldn’t handle the grading workload;
noted that students aren’t being prepared for college level work if
they are not taken through the process of doing a research paper in
stages.
There is an exercise on the UCLA library website that helps
students distinguish different
types of materials; often they can’t
distinguish an article between a popular magazine or a
journal:
“Which is Which? What is Where?”
<http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/classes/sociology1
/whichiswhich.htm>
RefWorks – Esther reported that they use this tool (licensed
software) at UC Berkeley; you
can click on a link in a database and
put it in a bibiliography (http://www.refworks.com)
Reminded educators/students that we shouldn’t always trust
databases for citation style;
many of them don’t have great success
in citing; tell students not to trust the citations that
are on
these websites.
3. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET OUR JUNIORS AND SENIORS TO VISIT A COLLEGE LIBRARY
BEFORE THEY GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL?
ESTHER GRASSIAN -- You can have students visit, however the library
catalog is also available freely online; if you have a specific need
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or project to have them use the library,
it’s advisable to search
the catalog first and to contact the library staff; told the story of
a
teacher at a high school that sent their class to the library
without calling the librarians. It is best to have students go to
online databases first that you subscribe to or that public
libraries subscribe to, identify materials they cannot get
elsewhere, check the UCLA Library
Catalog
<http://catalog.library.ucla.edu/>, and then contact her to discuss a
visit to the
UCLA Library. Think about timing of the project, etc.
She also mentioned a web page on
the UCLA College Library web
site, called “Basic Research Databases”, listing and linking
to
commonly used databases available through public libraries, as well as
at UCLA:
<http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/research/databases
.htm>
LYNN LAMPERT – CSUN has selected schools that have an AP
relationship with the library;
she recommends that the best bet is to
develop a relationship with the outreach librarian at the university;
CSUN has a teacher curriculum center, as well.
Can’t give the attention that students need if there are surprise
visits without preparation.
If
a teachers calls ahead, the librarians
will try their best to fully plan out a visit for a class.
She suggests doing “prework” – here’s my topic, here’s the type
of resources I should use; here’s what my school library has and
here’s what I need, etc.
If students leave frustrated, they won’t feel like it’s a helpful
place.
Encourage parents to ask their their kids to take ownership for
topics – part of the process
in the “maturation of research” –
don’t let them do the research for them.
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KAREN PHILLIPS – she tells all her AP classes that you are expected
to use the school library
first, a good public library second, and
use the university as the last resort; convinces them to use the Los
Angeles Public Library, even the downtown branch.
ESTHER GRASSIAN – let students practice online using remote
databases; know the three
most important criteria for evaluating a
database – she teaches students to look for 1) what
topics are
included, 2) what types of materials does it provide, and 3) what time
period
does it cover?
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) is a can of worms –
difficult to use the above criteria to evaluate Google Scholar, as
it’s still in beta and Google has not indicated its
scope, unlike
paid subscription databases; she has more info on Google Scholar on
the
UCLA library website:
<http://www2.library.ucla.edu/googlescholar/searchengines.cfm>
KAREN PHILLIPS – they had some great results with Google Scholar
for a research paper –
found some wonderful stuff.
Karen likes to see her seniors get their feet wet at the
university library; they can try to find
their way around the
stacks, understand the Library of Congress cataloging system, etc. so
that things that won’t be a “giant shock” when they get to
college.
LYNN LAMPERT – sees students searching Amazon for their books,
which is understandable
since it’s an attractive interface.
of access for this generation is an issue; she
Ease
recommends that we
work with them on using primary sources; often, history grad students
don’t understand that university libraries are archives of
treasures that they won’t ever find
on Google; this is a great
reason to go to the college library.
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4. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE CAN LEARN HERE?
LYNN LAMPERT – teach students about “targeted inquiry;” whatever
college service you are
looking for, have some questions in mind;
students wander and feel that they are bothering people. Let them know
that the university staff wants to be there and enjoys working with
college students; she sees a reluctance to ask questions – they
want to ask the question of
the computer, and therefore chat
reference is popular. They often e-mail questions while
they are
in the library!
Try to get students to get away from thinking the first draft is
the last draft; teach them about evaluating sources and to ask why you
are there and how to develop what you need to ask - -this is important
in the library and in life.
ESTHER GRASSIAN – question, question, question!
assigning a research
She recommends
paper in stages – (UCLA has a topic narrowing
site on their website:
<http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/topic/index.h
tm>); choosing a topic;
brainstorming alternate words, synonyms,
concepts, search words; come up with an
argument where you are
going to define the topic a bit better; do an outline, share a draft –
peer review drafts; have them do an annotated bibliography all
along – evaluative
comment as to why this was useful; why did you
pick this, how did you find it, and why
to doing citations.
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was it important; get used
QUESTIONS
FROM THE AUDIENCE
1. FROM AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PERSPECTIVE, CAN YOU RECOMMEND WHAT CAN BE DONE AT THE
K-6 STAGE?
LYNN LAMPERT – her husband teaches in an area with disadvantaged
kids; she stressed the
importance of topic choice and evaluation,
and ownership and caring about a topic. He asks students to create an
interest and to answer “why do I care about a topic?”; prepare
students to understand why you use one resource over another;
teache them that nothing is
information from?
free – where are you getting this
Where are the stories coming from? Is
personal story, a biography, etc?
Teach students
this a
Explain why sources are different.
to understand the difference between fiction and non-
fiction; teach them how to broaden
their topic.
KAREN PHILLIPs – she recommends that librarians get teachers to
insist that they students do
“hardcopy” work first – get background
information from a print encyclopedia or find a
book; there is so
much misinformation on the web that she wishes students would start
with print to get their feet wet.
2. HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS ARE EAGER TO ASSIGN RESEARCH PROJECTS THAT REQUIRE STUDENTS
TO FIND JOURNAL ARTICLES IN DATABASES AT JSTOR. SOMETIMES IT SEEMS LIKE STUDENTS
DON’T REALLY KNOW HOW TO READ ARTICLES AT THAT LEVEL. DO YOU SEE THIS AT THE
UNIVERSITY, TOO?
ESTHER GRASSIAN – there are some issues with JSTOR
(http://www.jstor.org); the reading
level is very high and people
think it’s easy to use and comprehensive; but publishers don’t
give
the user the last five to seven years of articles, and they don’t
include all the important
journals in a subject area. She recommends
that students use Infotrac instead, or a similar magazine database and
limit their search to peer-reviewed articles; from there, they can
learn how to distinguish between articles in popular magazines
and scholarly journals.
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LYNN LAMPERT – CQ Researcher always connects with her freshmen; she
presents a current
topic and they look for more information.
She suggests that teachers teach students to read a scholarly
article as an art, as a skill to
take them all the way to grad
school.
ESTHER GRASSIAN -- recommends Joan Bechtel’s
Paradigm for
“Conversation, a new
Librarianship” (Bechtel, Joan M. "Conversation, a New
Paradigm for Librarianship?"
College & Research Libraries 47 (May
1986): 219-224.) – this is a great way to help
students understand
scholarly inquiry and peer review, and to understand the role of the
librarian in this process.
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