Internship @ Berea College: Day 37-42 (Entry 37-42)

Wow. I have had a lot going on and I need to catch up. Here is what I have been doing.

RPS data (The Best Answer Questions: 17-31) (Ones in bold were deemed important twice: during the initial scan and one looking for freshman being higher and nobody getting)

Important:

• Q17: Boolean Operators
• Q20: Academic Journal and Popular Magazines
• Q23: Primary v. Secondary sources
• Q26: What is a Citation
• Q27: When is a Citation needed
• Q28h: Times, Newsweek, etc. 
• Q30: Why response to Q29 (how eval resources)
• Q31: Determine when to use a source

Somewhat Important:

• Q18: Truncation
• Q19: Comprehensive list of books
• Q22a: Journal Article Citation
• Q23b: Portion from a book citation
• Q24: Comprehensive list of Journal Articles 
• Q28d: Political Blog
• Q29: Appropriate Sources

Least Important:

• Q21: Volume and Issue Number
• Q22b: Entire Book citation
• Q25: Peer-reviewed
• Q28a (available online), b (translated), c (peer-reviewed), e (recent), f (lengthy list of references)

 Reading:

Staley and Malenfant wrote an article called "Futures Thinking for Academic Librarians:Higher Education in 2025." The article provides 26 possible scenarios about the library and the future of education in 2025. Librarians and educators were questioned and they gave their opinions on each. The scenarios were then given a ranking based on their impact and probability. Nine scenarios were said to have high impact and probability for the future. These for were the highest and would perceived to be the quickest to happen:

• INCREASING THREAT OF CYBERWAR, CYBERCRIME, AND CYBERTERRORIS
• MEET THE NEW FRESHMAN CLASS
• RIGHT HERE WITH ME
• SCHOLARSHIP STULTIFIES

 The change in the ethical and social questions that come with technology, the change in how classes are run and collaboration, hand held devices, and publishing and research traditions will change are what these authors and the librarians expect of the future.

It is an interesting set of scenarios to look through. Technology will definitely play a role in the future and I think traditions will have to change and be let go. However, I do not know how much the education system will change as a result. Technology might be prevalent, but I have to remember (from a poor background) that many people still cannot afford most new technologies. I think it will be slowing in coming. Especially in the recession and schools having to cut budgets. Publishing and ethics will be the places where the changes will occur first. Already, many researchers and librarians are talking about the changes and questions surrounding things like e-books. It will get more and more important the more people was e-books. I will keep these in mind when looking toward the future.

4 teaching assessment techniques for assessing prior knowledge, recall, and understanding:

1. Background Knowledge Probe

• Create a short questionnaire to give to students and see what they know about an upcoming subject. Change the assignments and/or the lesson to go with the prior knowledge of the class.
• Analysis takes a while.
• Might cause a quick or major change to syllabus

It was interesting to read  about the example where the teacher gave a questionnaire on the students reading/seeing Shakespeare. She changed the readings and movies for the lesson because of the feedback.

2. Focused Listing

• Give a topic to the class and have them/group list a few thinks that connect to that topic. Great to see if the students get the concepts for a lesson just taught and give the gaps in the students recall. 
• give time limits
• prepare your own list
• topic should not be too broad or too narrow

3. Misconception/Preconception Check

• Find out what the students might think they know about a topic that is wrong and can hinder or block learning. Best to do before a topic.Best for social and behavior sciences disciplines. Questionnaire.
• hard when the topic is sensitive or controversial. the students might feel threatened
• Might need to wait for trust in the student/teacher relationship
• Analysis can take a while

4.  Empty Outlines

• Have students fill in an outline after a lesson. It tests recall and what the students got during a lesson. 
• Be prepared for various outlines
• Do not try to do the whole lesson (too much). try for 1/2 or 1/3 of it. 

It will be interesting to see if these can be put into use for the instruction redesign. I can see tools being made to prepare these and it can be done in the instruction itself.

Virtual Library Tour/Interactive Map:  

• network jacks/ power
• group rooms with picture
• classrooms with picture
• reference area
• circulation desk
• reference desk
• computer areas
• carrels/study areas?
• children's collection
• periodicals
• fiction
• Media: cd's, dvd's, etc. 
• Exits
• stairs
• bathrooms
• call numbers (color code instead of arrows or numbers beside the shelves)
• color coding
• symbols
• Art work?
• pop-ups with YouTube videos (High Fidelity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQvOnDlql5g )

Other thoughts:

While going through my abstract for the readings I have been doing for this internship I had some thoughts. The tools or redesign for the instruction at Berea needs to consider a few thinks. I will keep them in mind while we brainstorm and think about it. Time is important. We do not want the students to get bored or to take too much time figuring out/using a tool. Relevancy is important. We want to use tools that the students know or will know because they have used and know other similar tools. We also want tools that we know so that we are not holding up the time. Also, having an example to create our own tool from is helpful. I have plenty of examples when the time comes, from the reading.

Brainstorming will be a big part of this process. We need to know what the problem is so we have a context for the tool. We need to know where the need is coming from. We cannot just use a technology or tool because it is new and cool. It needs to have a purpose behind it. I am sure we will come up with cost/benefits while we are doing the brainstorming. It will be a big part of not only getting the important information literacy issues that are being misunderstood or forgotten, but it will also help with the cost/benefit analysis for different tools and what will be used (not used) in the end.