Mortal Kombat, Academic OneFile and the Legend of Zelda: Teaching Research Skills to the Modern Student

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Mortal Kombat, Academic OneFile and the Legend of
Zelda Teaching Research Skills to the Modern
Student
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE LIBRARY
Presentation for Faculty and Instructors of the
Writing Program who teach English/E110 Writing
Program In-Service Session February 5, 2010

• Meg Grotti
• Assistant Librarian and Coordinator,
• Library Instruction
• University of Delaware Library

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A Definition and Framework for Information
Literacy
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Information Literacy is NOT

• Computer savvy
• The ability to quickly find lots of informational
  stuff
• Library skills

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Information Literacy Defined

• The ability to identify, locate, and use
  information effectively.
• -Association of College and Research Libraries
• Information literacy occurs at the intersection
  of teaching, thinking, and learning, within the
  broader environment of technology. - Patricia
  Iannuzzi

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ACRL Information Literacy Standards

• Standard One
• The information literate student determines the
  nature and extent of the information needed.

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ACRL Information Literacy Standards

• Standard Two
• The information literate student accesses needed
  information effectively and efficiently.

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ACRL Information Literacy Standards

• Standard Three
• The information literate student evaluates
  information and its sources critically and
  incorporates selected information into his or her
  knowledge base and value system.

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ACRL Information Literacy Standards

• Standard Four
• The information literate student, individually or
  as part of a group, uses information effectively
  to accomplish a specific purpose.

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ACRL Information Literacy Standards

• Standard Five
• The information literate student understands many
  of the economic, legal and social issues
  surrounding the use of information and accesses
  and uses information ethically and legally.

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Producing Life-Long Learners Together Library
and E110 Partnerships
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2009 Syllabus Study

• Provided a structured analysis of the curriculum
• Identified areas within the curriculum in which
  the ACRL standards were already being addressed.
• Filled in the gaps
• EXAMPLE evaluation of electronic resources

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Student Learning Outcomes for E110

• Students will identify keywords, synonyms and
  related terms for their information need.
• Students will construct search strategies using
  appropriate commands for the system selected.
• Students will consult a variety of search systems
  to retrieve information in a variety of formats.
• Students will use classification schemes to
  locate information resources within the library.
• Students will identify specialized services to
  retrieve information needed.

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Assignment Analysis

• Librarians view class assignments
• May include one or two additional outcomes
  depending upon E110 instructor input

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Why Care? How do Information Literacy Skills
Impact us as Students, Citizens, or Consumers?

• Activity

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A Scenario

• Your daughter has been complaining of pain in one
  side of her face and in her jaw. She tells you
  her doctor told her she has a severe case of TMJ,
  and that she may need surgery. You want to find
  out what therapies or treatments may exist that
  are not as extreme as surgery.

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Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Students
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Video Games vs. Information Retrieval

• Player probes the virtual world- looks around,
  clicks on things, tries some actions
• Player builds a hypothesis about what discovered
  elements (texts, objects, artifacts, or actions)
  may mean or signify
• Player re-probes the world with a hypothesis in
  mind to see what effects occur
• Player treats the effect as feedback from the
  game, and based upon this feedback, accepts or
  rethinks the hypothesis. (From Johnson, 2005.)

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Students as Problem Solvers

• The modern student is already an adept problem
  solver, used to investigating rich virtual worlds
  and ever-changing online interfaces
• Importance of hands-on practice
• Trial and Error

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Students as Problem Solvers But May Need
Guidance

• Vol 23(1), 223-227. . huh?
• Ive been searching Google since I was like,
  three. I dont need to learn how to search
  anything else.
• This article must be from a trustworthy,
  scholarly source because it has a graph in it.
• If someone put it online in the first place,
  they must not care if I copy and paste it into my
  presentation.
• Leave the tools to them, but provide guidance on
  core Information Literacy concepts.

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Challenges and Rewards

• Rewards in a video game context keep you
  seeking, probing and hypothesizing
• Researching rewards... When you search well, you
  get good results
• in Google
• in a 150,000, scholarly
  database
• It is not enough to teach them to find
• . we must teach them to
  think.

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Works Cited

• Iannuzzi, P. (1998). Faculty development and
  information literacy Establishing campus
  partnerships. Reference Services Review, 26(3),
  97-102.
• Johnson, S. (2005). Everything bad is good for
  you. New York Riverhead Books.
• Association of College and Research Libraries.
  (2000). Information literacy competency
  Standards for higher education. Retrieved
  February 1, 2010 from http//www.ala.org/ala/mgrps
  /divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency
  .cfm