Introduction Welcome to the Academic Literacies video series Learning: In Our Own Words. This series was developed as a unique in‐house instructional tool to assist York librarians, counsellors, writing instructors and faculty in the advancement of academic literacy instruction. It is a teaching tool meant to engage students in critical discussion (reflect, question, analyze and discuss) around their academic skills and experiences. The seven videos in the series consist of the following: 1. University Life 2. Learning Skills 3. Doing Research 4. Choosing Sources 5. Google/Internet 6. Libraries 7. Writing + Citing What? Moreover, this is a peer‐to‐peer learning tool that captures the student voice/experience (“real life, real students, real experiences”). In these videos students voice their individual experiences about a range of skills including research, writing and learning skills as well as adjusting to university life. The content of the videos are student‐driven and reflect the various topics and academic literacies skills and experiences that students themselves focused on. The students interviewed are predominantly enrolled in social sciences and humanities programs. To this end, some academic literacies skills are not discussed in the video (notably numeracy). Why? Numerous studies address the value of videos as an instructional tool (Berk, 2009, Blasco et al. 2006). Videos integrated into the classroom are not only engaging to students (especially digital natives), they also easily address a variety of learning styles (auditory, visual, kinetic) and can be used to teach critical thinking. We also believe that social learning or peer‐based learning, where students learn from their peers, can also be an empowering and enriching way to engage learners. How? We have included a guide for each video to get you started on engaging your students with videos! Each guide consists of the following:  a summary, including a transcript  quick (less than 15 minutes) discussion questions  sample lesson plans to promote active learning The videos can be viewed as a series from 1‐7, as stand alone videos each tied to a particular instructional goal or anyway you want. They can serve as launch pads to other videos in the series. The guides provide only suggestions of possible discussion points that leaders can use to encourage students to engage in critical discussion of the video topics. We encourage you to tweak and revise it for your own non‐
commercial needs. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‐nc‐sa/3.0/ Please contact us for comments/suggestions: Norda Majekodunmi (nordam@yorku.ca) and Kent Murnaghan (kentm@yorku.ca). Video #6 Libraries Summary In this video first year students discuss their experience using the York libraries and specific library resources for research. It consists of two sections: using the library and accessing library resources. See Appendix F for a transcript of the Libraries video. Suggested Uses  library workshops  faculty/teaching assistants teaching workshops (e.g. CST)  courses in lecture halls, in classes, in tutorials  online courses Discussion Questions (10‐15 minutes) *Optional: Prior to showing video encourage students to jot down thoughts as they watch video for possible discussion (e.g. what was interesting, what they agreed with, disagree with, surprised about etc.) The following are talking points that you can discuss with students in groups or as a class:  What has been your experience using the York libraries to conduct research? For studying? For completing assignments?  One student stated: “Electronic sources are way more useful than print”. What do you think about this statement?  One student stated: “When I searched certain keywords in the database they’ll give me 10,000 results and nothing is what I’m looking for.” What do you do when you get 10,000 results while searching a library database?  One student states: “Believe it or not they [scholarly sources] are really hard to find because some of them just include abstracts and that is not good enough.” Sample Lesson Plan with Hands‐on Activity (20‐30 minutes) Objectives:  Students will learn about the political economy of information  Students will reflect on the issue of accessing information  Students will learn how to read a bibliography 1. Show the video. 2. Discuss: Students have voiced a variety of experiences using the library and accessing sources. One perception of libraries is that it has “literally everything you need for your academic research”, but is this true? Does the York University Libraries have everything you need? 3. Divide the class into 3 groups. Each group will receive a bibliography of resources and instructed to search the York University Libraries catalogue to see if we have the items. See handout for sample bibliography (Note: each group will have at least one item not at York) 4. As a class, let the groups present how they searched (demonstrate their search) for the resources and their findings. 5. Ask: Have groups discuss if they can access the full list of sources (what is there? What is missing? Why?) 6. Why doesn’t York have all of these resources? Possible issues: cost, open access, online sources (e.g. Google Books), purchasing decisions (e.g. York doesn’t purchase textbooks) If cost is mentioned go to http://engineering.library.cornell.edu/about/StickerShock Ask students: How much do you think we pay for one journal? Show slides from Sticker Shock site. 7. If you didn’t find it here at York where do you go now (possible answers: professor, bookstore, another library, resource sharing etc.). 8. As a group, discuss the question: “does the academic library have everything”? 9. Optional: Instructor can extend to include hands‐on activities including constructing a keyword search and database searching. Bibliography Group 1 Junne, George. The History of Blacks in Canada : A Selectively Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. Mead, Shepherd. How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying; the Dastard's Guide to Fame and Fortune. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952. Petersen, Don. Does a tiger wear a necktie?: A play in three acts. Dramatists Play Service, 1969. Much Ado about Nothing. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. By Kenneth Branagh. Prod. Kenneth Branagh. Perf. Kenneth Branagh, Richard Briers, Emma Thompson, and Denzel Washington. Samuel Goldwyn Co., 1993. Group 2 Willingham, Daniel T. Why Don't Students like School?: a Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass, 2009. Bravo, E., Enache, M., Fernandez, V. & Simo, P. "An Innovative Teaching Practice Based on Online Channels: A Qualitative Approach." World Journal on Educational Technology 2.2 (2010): 113‐23. Web. Onuzulike, Uchenna. Nollywood: the Emergence of the Nigerian Video film Industry and Its Representation of Nigerian Culture. 2008. Radday, Yehuda T. T. "Humor in Names." On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Eds. Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. Decatur, Georgia: Almond, 1990. Group 3
Canada. Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms: a Guide for Canadians. Ottawa: Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada, 1992. Varma, Kajal. Sad Songs from Bollywood Films: Selection of 130 Popular Songs from Hindi Films. New Delhi: Star Publications, 2007. Gee, James Paul., and Elizabeth R. Hayes. Women and Gaming: the Sims and 21st Century Learning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Anderson, Karen I. Sociology: a Critical Introduction. Toronto: Nelson Canada, 1996. Appendix F: Libraries Transcript Here is what we’ve experienced using the library… I actually went to the library. In high school I wasn’t so much into the library or going there. When I was going to university I was like maybe I won’t end up in the library as much. But it was my second home. I went there a lot for research. It was fairly good. I spent a lot of time there” There are some experiences in libraries that I love. I believe nothing can replace the feeling of actually holding a book in your hands and turning pages and reading... from a book. Libraries are also great quiet places to study and to be able to find many different kinds of information from newspapers to old books. I believe that it depends on the project for whether or not one library is enough, because each library has something different to offer. I actually went to the library. Like Scott Library is really important. Even though I’m not in the science program Steacie Library is also pretty good for getting resources. If you’re a Communications major you’ll want to check out SMIL, the Sound and Moving Image Library. If your home isn’t the quietest place the library may be one of the quietest places to avoid distraction while researching. Many people are scared to be distracted by social interactions sites such as Twitter, MSN, or Facebook. The library is a place where one can discuss ideas, or have study groups. For me, the library is a physical space. When I need to get down and study for five hours, I’ll grab a coffee and go to the study lounge. If I need to do research and concentrate, I’ll head to the study areas on the upper floors. If an article is available online I’ll try to find it in the library so that I have the physical book in my hands that I can flip and skim through. Being in the library makes it easy to get up, go to the stacks, and find the resource I need. And if I need help, there are librarians and writing assistance available. It is very easy and convenient for students to do research for academic essays. Our library has literally everything you need for your academic research. Here is what we’ve experienced accessing library resources… As I mentioned you need to go to the library or the library homepage, the databases and find scholarly resources. Believe it or not they are really hard to find because some of them just include abstracts and that is not good enough. You need to find 100s pages worth of scholarly resources; look through them. Then kind of find what you are looking for. It is not that difficult to find books, as I do my online search from home the day before to find the call number, to get an idea of where I will be looking. Once I am in the library and find the books I picked out the night before, I skim through them to make sure that they have the information I need; one hour in the library skimming books, cuts down hours of time finding more relevant sources at home. Using the tools the library provides, like the York online databases, are key to a successful university life. Some publications are hard to find on your own so start your search off in the Yorku databases because they have hard‐core databases. Personally, I think the library is good to continue hunting down scholarly articles old school (I mean in print) but since we’re all technologically focused people with constant access to the Internet, the electronic sources are more useful. When you go to the library homepage according to what your major is there is a lot of scholarly resources that are already sorted out. I had trouble finding academic resources. A lot of resources didn’t fit what I’m looking for. When I searched certain keywords in the database they’ll give me 10,000 results and nothing aren’t what I’m looking for. A really good full text database is one called EthnicNews Watch found in the Social Sciences guide. It provided full‐text newspapers, magazines, and journal articles for ethnic, minority, and native groups and the way its set up is really good. Compared to more complex databases like the Canadian Periodical Index, EthnicNews Watch was simple and easy to access because trust me you’ll have to search for A LOT of scholarly work when you get in here. In my program especially, it is important to not only have a strong argument, but to be able to back it up with real statistics. These can be found on websites like the CIA World Handbook or Datamonitor which reports on countries. There are links in Moodle which direct you to resources that are connected to the courses you are taking. Also, I would suggest to ask your TA’s or even the librarians for further help since they’ve been writing and researching more about these things than I have!