Web-based Polling in Library Instruction

Jared Hoppenfeld's article "Keeping students engaged with web-based polling in the library instruction session" introduces web-polling as a means to promote student engagement.  His literature review covers several areas, such as the main constituents of library instruction in academic libraries--Millennials, active learning, Audience Response Systems and web-based polling, as well as mobile technologies.  Indeed, he has provided a thorough overview of the topic, bringing to light some web-based polling sites I was not aware of previously: Text the Mob and SMS Poll. 

Of more particular interest to me, he offers suggestions on types of questions that a library instructor might ask during a typical library instruction session.  Hoppenfeld starts with an icebreaker, such as "How happy are you that college football season is here?"  If the class takes place closer to Valentine's Day he might ask about profits related to chocolate sales (243).  This signals to students that the class will not be a regular library lecture class, and it also introduces them to the polling software.

Hoppenfeld's second set of questions deals more with student knowledge.  Where are they coming from?  What have they tried when conducting research?  He may ask where they might discover a journal article, in a catalog or in a database.  "An open-ended poll is also used to find out what resources the students have previously used for their research" (243).  This offers an opportunity to discuss what they have tried and explain why they would want to take advantage of the library resources.  What are the pros and cons of searching Google, Wikipedia, or About.com?

 

Writing Research Questions

William Badke's book Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog includes some very useful information.  Early in the book he discusses the importance of developing an interesting and a good research question.  Definitely, some questions are better than others, and, frankly, some are just bad-- they have very little promise at being successful in an academic setting.  Following is his summary comment:

In my experience, the best research questions are simple ones that still require a good deal of analysis to answer.  If you start with a highly complex question your analysis is going to have be that much more complex.  The ideal is to have a question so simple and clear that you can actually see the goal before you, in your mind's eye. and the path you need to take to get there.  Yet the answer must require some struggle to come to.  And it must be capable of leading you to provide concrete evidence to support it.  You use the evidence you gather as a means to discover the solution rather than as the solution itself.  (36)

Badke's appendix offers a list of ten research questions that he has qualified as good and bad.  He notes that a bad research question is one that requires a yes/no answer, or requires a simple discovery of a fact.  This is not a college research question, but a report.  He writes: "A research question is more than discovery of a fact.  It has to deal with an issue that can be analyzed in depth" (233).  Therefore, a question asking how long is the longest bridge is not as good as a question asking what kinds of materials would be needed to build the longest bridge.  Remember, does it ask for analysis?  If it does, then this is better than a research questions that only requires the discovery of a fact, or a report on a set of facts.  College should challenge students to think and evaluate, rather than just regurgitate information.

Another bad question may ask a question that demands a connection between two things or phenomenon that cannot be determined with available statistics, reports, or publications in general.  Badke uses this question to illustrate this point: "What effect does homelessness have on the price of beds in Canada?" (233).  Finding statistics or reports that would connect these two aspects of the question would be mighty difficult.

"First Business Inn Deluxe Double Room."  See Viewology.net.

Other bad questions may be unfocused.  What has happened to __________ politician since the scandal that ruined their career?  What is going on with _____________ since she earned her billions?  The broad nature of these questions make them undesirable as research questions.  There could be hundreds of thousands of sources on a popular cultural figure, so how does the student know what to filter and what to reference in the paper?  Badke's suggestion for a better question goes like this: "Is Bill Gates' plan to give away a large portion of his wealth sufficiently well organized to ensure that the money achieves the goals he has set for it?" (234).  The student can envision a clear path to investigate and will understand when he/she has come close to answering it adequately.  The previously broad question would require a book with multiple chapters.

If the connections between two different occurrences can be seen, then this kind of question may be great for research.  Badke brings up the question of a country's Child Welfare Program, asking if the scrutiny in the media over the last few years has spurred new legislation.  A student could go and look at popular literature (newspapers and magazines) to determine whether increased publicity on this topic did in fact precede movements in state or national legislative bodies to change the law.

"[19/365] celtic connections." By werewegian.

Overly simplistic questions that call for a report and not an analysis are bad research questions.  For example: "What happened in Afghanistan during the last ten years?"  "What is going on with South American governments?"  Choose a particular aspect of the larger topic and ask a more focused question.  Sometimes it is better to ask "How?" and "Why?"  This requires some digging and searching.

One good question: "How could the looting of museums in Iraq in 2003 have been avoided?" (235).  Research would uncover how the lootings took place, which would open up the field for the researcher to choose some viable plan for preventing a similar occurrence from happening again.  Badke writes: "In hindsight, it should be possible to look at what happened and show what protections could have been devised to prevent the looting.  Considerable writing has been done on the issue, so there should be lots of information" (235).  In the end, students will want to be able to find lots of sources to back up their main points.  Being able to focus on the points within the sources that relate directly to their research question will save them time and yield a clearer argument.

Avoid research questions that ask for multiple points to be addressed.  Remember to be simple and avoid too much complexity, particularly if your paper is limited to six or eight pages in length.  If you as the writer are confused about all the points you are trying to make, then the reader may well be just as confused.

"Leaning, New style sount, stacked 3 high" by Oran Viriyincy on Flickr.com

 

Library Handout for English 1102: English Composition

Today I taught an interesting library workshop in which students had to find peer-reviewed articles about video games and violence. The instructor asked that I show a few of the specific databases where they could find information on their topic. She also wanted me to share some ideas for thinking about keywords and offer some advice for evaluating the research results in the sources they found.

The assignment includes the following scenario: "You are a juror in a civil case where a video game company is being sued. You need to decide if the video company is culpable. Your purpose for this paper is to state your decision and persuade your fellow jurors to vote teh same way as you are." Students must consider the following stakeholders: parents of the child killed, the video game company, parents of the teenagers accused of the killing, and consumers of the video games.

Take a look at the handout; it includes suggested databases, potentially useful keywords, contact information to librarians, and sample searches.  See other library handouts for English 1102.  It does seem like an interesting topic, and I enjoyed doing some of the preliminary research myself.  I never new Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved in legal court cases involving video games and violence.  Nor had I ever heard about Entertainment Merchants Association.  Wow, their site says that the home entertainment industry is a $35 billion dollar industry.  I can believe it.

When talking about evaluation, these were some of the questions I used to invite a discussion:

• What does a list of references at the end of an article indicate about the article?
• What does a list of references tell us about the article itself?
• What kinds of articles include lists of references or a bibliography?
• What makes an article accurate?  How do we know?
• When is an article not current?  When is it out of date?

See Mehan's blog post: "Anyone Up for a Bit of the Ultraviolence?"

Gathering Feedback with Free Online Tools

Polldaddy.com, LetsGoVote.com, and Polleverywhere.com all offer free online software to let anyone in the world create online polls.  Personally, I have more experience with Polldaddy.com and the surveys, polls, and ratings I can create and share online.  LetsGoVote and PollEverywhere let users create polls that can be answered with cell phones that can text message responses. 

Because cell phones are nearly ubiquitous and text messaging is definitely mainstream (at least in the United States), providing quick polls that can be answered with text messaging makes sense.  Most college students have cell phones, so these spontaneous polls can be created "on the fly" in the classroom for immediate feedback to the instructor. 

Students do not always want to answer questions in front of their peers for fear of being embarrassed after a wrong answer or too much attention from the instructor.  Text messaging lets students answer anonymously, still giving the instructor a sense for the understanding of his/her class.

A couple of years back, I got excited about Google Documents, and the surveys, quizzes, or polls that can be created with them.  I had forgotten about them, recalling how clunky and unintuitive they were to use and create, but I have taken another look at them recently.  They are free.  With that in mind, it takes a few more steps to get some things accomplished.  The results of a survey are listedin a spreadsheet format; however, the three tools listed above can automatically display results in visual graphs, which are much more appealing. 

Still, a lot can be done with Google Documents, and I do not believe that users are limited to a certain number or responses received to polls/quizzes/surveys or number of surveys created.  On the other hand, the three tools mentioned above do limit users to 100 responses a month, or 20 responses per survey, or 40 audience members per poll. 

Below is a presentation I created for a workshop yesterday:

Gather Immediate Feedback Online, in the Classroom, and with Mobile Technology

View more PowerPoint from Spencer Jardine

What do you think of online surveys? Do you create polls to gather feedback? Are they helpful? How?

Which questions invite discussion best?

Which questions have you asked that generated a thought-provoking discussion?  Please leave answers in the Comments. 

Here are some questions I have used in the past to gather feedback.  Some of these originate from Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross's Classroom Assessment Techniques, which is printed by Jossey-Bass.

• What's the most important thing you learned today?
• What questions do you have that remain unanswered?
• What is the muddiest point?
• What would you like to learn today?

Not sure if I have asked some of these others, but they seem like good ones:

• How does this apply to your own life?
• How can this information be applied outside of this class?
• How do you find research for your college papers?
• What makes a source good and/or reliable?  What makes it worth using?
• What is a reference resource?  Why would you want to use one?
• What is the difference between popular and scholarly articles?  Between newspaper/magazines and academic journals

Here are some questions that may be good to ask with audience response systems, clickers, or text messaging software:

• Have you searched for books in our catalog?
• Have you searched for books on the shelves?
• Have you found articles in the library databases?
• How can you typically distinguish the journal title or book title from the rest of the cited reference?
• What makes a source good and/or reliable? What makes it worth using?

Ratings Widget in Polldaddy

I am trying a new thing with the ratings widget from polldaddy.com.  I hope this works.

Do you like to rate things? How often do you take surveys? For many, I can think of teachers, authors, and business owners, it is important to get feedback to know how effective your efforts are. For teachers, understanding your audience can really enhance your ability to teach them what they need. In a library instruction setting this can be quite valuable.

When writing a blog, feedback can give the blogger or author a sense for who and how they are reaching their audience.  It is nice that Polldaddy is free, though it has limited offerings.

Please rate this post below and add a comment. I would like to see how well the widget works.

Polldaddy Survey Sharing and Experience

Polldaddy has been a useful tool for me in the library instruction classroom.  It gives me a better sense for what the students know and understand.  This offers me a bit more confidence as I teach them.  I am able to correct errors and provide useful feedback.  Hopefully, student have learned a bit more as a result of this tool.

Polldaddy makes it easy to share polls and surveys.  They let you share surveys and polls with hyperlinks, emails, Twitter buttons, Facebook buttons, iPad apps, and even QR codes.  If you are interested in some of the questions created for students, take a look at this English 1102 Follow Up Survey. 

The QR code for this same survey looks like this:

Please take the survey.

 Have you used polling software in presentation or instruction settings?  Do you use it in social media, such as on Facebook or Twitter?

Polldaddy Results for English Composition Workshop in the Library

In a recent library workshop, only half of the students said they had ever looked a book up in a library catalog.  Five of the 14 polled, said they check out library books all of the time.  This workshop was for a group of English 1101 students, and most of them are traditional freshmen. 

When asked if they had ever used a database to look for articles before, 69% said they had never done this.  My perception is that once undergraduate students learn how to find articles, that is all they use.  They like the ease of access; they can conduct research in their pajamas at home.  Unfortunately, it seems that no matter what happens in the library instruction room, some students will still go back to Google for all of their research needs.  As a librarian, I think of Google research for academic sources to be a clumsy tool.  Perhaps I am overly enamored with the slick look of the EBSCOhost databases; we have Academic Search Complete as our default database on our home page (See the Quick Articles tab.)  It does provide quick and easy acces to scholarly sources.  The features in their interface make it easier to narrow results down to something useful--a set of understandable results.

The short survey I created for the English 1101 class gave me sense for who I was working with.  Being able to see the results in real time (I just had to refresh the results in Polldaddy periodically).  Of the 13 that answered the question, only two said they had already received library instruction of some sort.  Sometimes it is nice to be the first librarian to have contact with a class.

I like to ask what students want to learn.  This seems to get them thinking about their responsibility to pay attention and participate, at least I hope it does.  Plus, it gives me an idea what they think is important for them to get out of the day's instruction.  More than one student expressed interest in finding a book or learning about cool books that we have.

Considering that an English 1101 class may have a lot of students in which this may be their first time in a college library, I ask them if they have ever found a book on the library shelves before.  Seven out of 13 confessed that they had never done this before.  This knowledge justifies my idea that we need to let everyone in the class have this opportunity, so I can make it a priority for the class.  Success with this one activity may increase their confidence, willingness to listen, and learning in the class. 

As a student and a person, I like when teachers seek to understand me and my level of understanding.  The learning experience improves when the teaching is directed to meet the immediate needs of the students.  One of the biggest challenges, then, is to teach so that those with the lowest level of understanding learn something without being frustrated, and those with the highest level of understanding take away something new without being bored the entire time.  This is tough.  Seeking input or feedback with a survey or poll at the beginning of class may be a good way to gauge the kinds of participants in the class.  The anonymous gathering of information, via the online survey systems, can prevent students from being put on the spot. 

Analyzing Library Skills Survey Results

Following are the questions included in a recent survey designed for a class that met in the Library for instruction.

1. How do you keep the related terms grouped together in a search statement? Results
2. What will a truncation or wildcard symbol do?  Results
3. Which Boolean operator reduces the number of results the more times it is used between search terms?  Results
4. Which Boolean operator will typically return the largest set of results?  Results
5. When you need to find the full text of an article for which you already have the full citation, which tool works the best?  Results
6. Have you had library instruction before?  Results
7. Do you understand the assignment for this class? Results
8. Which of these databases have you used? Results
9. Have you chosen a disability to research for the assignment in this class? If so, which one? Results
10. What one thing would you like to learn today?  Results

For several of the responses it appears that a good number chose the correct answer, but the majority did not answer it right.  Ten out of 18 seem to know that parentheses keep related words grouped together in a search statement.  Only seven understand that a truncation code (the asterisk in most databases *) will help find variations on a word. 

Question 3 provided two correct answers, so I should have thought through that a bit more.  Both the Boolean operators AND and NOT will continue to reduce your results.  If I did this again, I would delete the operator NOT from the list of possible choices.

Eight correctly chose OR as the operator that brings back more results, while nine chose AND.  Only five selected the A-Z Journal List as the place to go to find the full text of an article.  This is one of the least understood research tools on our campus, so it is no wonder.  We need to do better at instructing students on its use.  Ten students chose the library catalog as the place to go for the full text, two chose Google or Google Scholar, and one said their smart phone. 

Fifteen stated that they had received library instruction before, though 11 said it was a long time ago.  One claimed that he/she could teach the class, because he/she had attended so many times.  This is the person that I need to involve in teaching the class.  How can I do that?  I need to get the students to teach each other.

Admittedly, I goofed on the database question, not making it possible for them to select more than one database, so this was not as accurate as it should have been.  Still, it gives me a sense for which databases they know.

I wish I had looked at the answers for question #9 and searched the topic(s) they entered in the survey.  Indubitably, this is a learning experience for me.  They wanted learn more about Down Syndrome, Asperger's Syndrome, and prominent persons like athletes with disabilies.

Photo found on Aspergers and the Alien blog written by Amy Murphy.

Following are the comments provided when asked what they wanted to learn in the class:

• I would like to learn more about notable figures who have down syndrome
• how to find articles that are to the point
• Find reliable and easy to read sources
• find articles on Downs
• I would like to find an athlete that i would like to report on
• i would like to learn how these data bases can help me find valid information quickly and effectively.

It strikes as interesting that bullet points two and three speak to the challenge of finding reliable, credible, and scholarly sources that are easy to read or understand.  It seems that many of today's college students really struggle reading the peer-reviewed articles.  This is something I encountered during the one-credit course I taught last semester.  In fact, one of my colleagues has begun to conduct some research on the reading levels of college students.  Well, this is a hard thing to gauge, so she has gathered their bibliographies that are attached to actual research papers and calculated the reading levels of the articles they cite.  I'm uncertain whether or not she includes the grades they receive on the paper, which might offer clues on their comprehension of the cited sources, but it seems she has not as that may conflict with policies governing research subjects. 

Anyway, reading abilities, or the lack thereof, do inhibit many college students from succeeding in higher education.

Young Girl Reading by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. Photo by Cliff1066 on Flickr.com.

Library Survey for Upper-division Students

A week ago I tried something new.  I used Poll Daddy to gather feedback from students who attended a library workshop.  In retrospect it seems I ought to have done a bit more research and prepared myself better for responding to the responses.

The free Poll Daddy account allows for the following possibilities:

• 200 survey responses per month
• 10 questions per survey
• Content contains Polldaddy links
• Basic reports for polls, surveys, & quizzes
• 1 User account

Because I can only have 200 survey responses in a given month, I capped the number of survey responses to 50.  Only 23 students attended the class, and out of that number only 18 completed the short, 10-question survey.  My idea was to ask questions about their library research knowledge, so I could understand where to direct my instruction focus.  It did help a little, but it may be that I abandoned the effort a little early.  Requiring students to enter the web address to access the survey seemed to be one obstacle.  In the future it might be better to have the web address printed out on a handout or sitting at their desk when they arrive to class.  Using Poll Everywhere might be another option, since students can take the quiz or answer individual questions instantly with a mobile device.

If you have time or interest, take the survey.  As of today, only 32 more people can take the survey.  A subsequent blog post will analyze the results of those who attended the class I taught last week.

At one point I had thought to direct them to this blog, where they could click the link and then take the quiz, but I was uncertain about sharing my blog with them, plus with only 50 responses I could not find out how to activate the blog post just before class started.  Admittedly, I didn't want responses from anyone not a part of the class--at least not initially.

My original message:
Please take a few minutes to complete this survey:

• Library Knowledge Survey

Thank you.  This should help us in our class today.

Photo taken by John Haydon and posted on Flickr.com.

Asking for feedback and understanding what knowledge the students come to the library with has been a concern of mine for some time, though I have not always acted on this.  In my opinion this is inhibiting me from becoming a better library instructor.

An article I re-read recently talks about this.  JaNae Kinikin and Shaun Jackson of Weber State University wrote a short article for LOEX Quarterly in Fall 2010 titled "Using a Back and Forth Presentation Format to Engage Students in Introductory English Composition Courses."  They revised their library instruction plan for English composition classes.  They adopted TurningPoint technology to ask questions.  Some of those questions asked for basic library knowledge:

1. Have you ever used a library catalog?
2. Have you ever used an article database?
3. When you begin a research project, where do you start?

This article and this portion of it in particular has been something I have remembered off and on since I first read it.  I should look in my blog archive to see if I have already written about it.  Specifically, I recall that they endeavored to "incorporate humor, allowing instructors to engage students and put them at ease.  They also offer an avenue for discussion" (5).  To illustrate this point they shared the answers for question one:

• Yes
• No
• What the heck is a library catalog?

Naturally, they have had to adjust their teaching styles as they have adopted usage of this technology in the classroom.  One of the things I enjoyed in the article the second time around deals with their description of making the library instruction more interactive.  Because they teach three resources (at least in 2009 they did), they break up the instruction to demonstrate one resource, then students must work on the section of the worksheet that pertains to that resource.  This straightforward method seems like one that would be a good model to follow.  At times I have done this to one extent or another.

Responses to the questions posed to students can guide the library instructor to understand how much to teach.  Varying the pace keeps student interest as well.  Students usually appreciate efforts made by instructors to gauge their knowledge base.  Instructors who do this may well succeed in avoiding the experience described by Leza Madsen in her "Book Review: Why Don't Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What it Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham (Jossey-Bass, 2008).  She recounts the oft-repeated allusion (at least in my experience) to Ferris Bueller's Day Off where the dull high school teacher drones on and on, then asks a question followed up with one of my favorite movie quotes (too easy to remember I suppose): "Anyone.  Anyone?"

Asking good questions and doing it with technology may prevent that moment of dead silence in the classroom.  Let's hope so anyway.

ACRL Information-Literacy Competency Standards

Academic librarians love to talk about instruction and reference. We like talking about students as well. Today we had ten librarians attend our monthly instruction meeting, which is about two-thirds of the total number of librarians who give instruction in our library. For the bulk of the meeting we talked about information-literacy skills. After a quick review of the information-literacy competencies, we ranked them, giving a rank of one (1) to the competency we felt students have mastered best and a seven (7) to the one for which they may have the least ability. Granted, this was just a survey on the perceptions of our librarians, but it sure generated some good discussion.

ACRL’s Information Literacy Standards

1. Determine the extent of information needed


2. Access the needed information effectively and efficiently


3. Evaluate information & its sources critically


4. Incorporate selected information into one’s own knowledge base


5. Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose


6. Understand the economic, social, & legal issues surrounding the use of information


7. Access and use information ethically & legally

We had junior and senior undergraduates in mind for this survey. The rankings seemed to be all over the place without too much consensus. The only two standards that a majority seemed to agree upon were the last two. Eight of the nine ranked Standard #6 a six (6) or a seven (7). We tallied the rankings, so the rank each received added up for points toward that standard. Like golf, the lowest point total wins as the standard our librarians considered that students had mastered the best. Here are some of the results:

1. Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose = 24 points (ACRL Standard 5)


2. Determine the extent of information needed = 26 points (ACRL Standard 1)


3. Access the needed information effectively and efficiently = 27 points (ACRL Standard 2)


4. Incorporate selected information into one’s own knowledge base = 31 points (ACRL Standard 4)


5. Evaluate information & its sources critically = 39 points (ACRL Standard 3)


6. Access and use information ethically & legally = 47 points (ACRL Standard 7)


7. Understand the economic, social, & legal issues surrounding the use of information = 52 (ACRL Standard 6)

Of course, at least one librarian filled the "maverick" or "outlier" role by ranking Standard 6 number one (1). This same librarian may have been the one who ranked Standard 7 dead last with a seven (7). This "maverick" librarian may have been the one who was grading student papers last night, or perhaps she was grading bibliographies, which certainly indicates that librarians' perceptions may certainly differ from instructors' perceptions, who assess student work and work with students through the whole process.

Following this ranking exercise, the handout asked us to identify which standard or competency that students believe they have mastered more than the others. A unanimous vote for Standard number two (2). Librarians perceive that students think they are excellent searchers. A Google mindset means that they think they can find anything and everything when provided a search box or a browser at least.

When asked which standard we as librarians feel we address the best in our instruction sessions, we responded with Standard 2. We mainly focus on accessing the information, including demonstrating the mechanics of our catalog and databases. With only 50 minutes we must show them where to go in order to find the articles or books for their research project.

Idaho State University librarians (at least the two-thirds in attendance today), maintained that focusing on accessing information efficiently and effectively, as well as evaluating information and its sources critically (Standards 2 & 3), should continue to be emphasized during library instruction sessions.

View the PowerPoint presentation (ACRL Info Lit Standards) from the instruction meeting, which includes the results of the voting. My Slideshare account provides access to other presentations as well.

Information-Literacy Audiences

Somewhat recently an instructor in the English department requested to use the library instruction room to give his class research instruction. Our policy states that nobody use the room without a librarian present, and we reserve for instruction of library resources or information sources. In my view it's an information-literacy room. I could not see any valid reason for refusing him the room, as he did intend to use it to teach his students how to conduct research using the library resources.

I sat in on the instruction session myself to observe his approach to library research. He actually talked about Boolean terms. In fact, he asked the students about the term, and someone even dared to say that "AND," "OR," and "NOT" were the correct Boolean terms. He even asked them what they were used for ["What do they do for us?"], and another student said they are used to connect keywords in a search. Sometimes I assume students do not know these things, but many have already had library instruction, so they have heard it already. This instructor, Dr. X, had asked how many of the students had attended a library-instruction session in their English 101 course, and most of them indicated that they had. Librarians would do well to ask questions to see how much their audience already knows. In fact, we should be asking the right kinds of questions of the instructors before they bring their class into the library for instruction. As this instructor said, "We all know how to diagram the word 'assume.'"

He did not dwell on things for too long, because he wanted students to have time to conduct research while someone [us] could help them. He showed the library quick links to find the catalog and the databases. He showed the call-number link that shows the names of the books that come before and after the one clicked, so you can browse the shelves virtually. [I'm still not sure this always works exactly in this way, because many different items are located in different parts of the library with very similar call numbers, such as reference books, periodicals, items in special collections, etc. But it's pretty good, since there are lots more books than journal titles and reference materials.]

It was great to see him point out the Resources-by-Subject pages with their different sections, namely books, web sites, and articles. Come to think of it, he did not mention contacting any librarians for help. Perhaps I should encourage him to do so the next time he brings his class to the library.

This leads me to my most important observation in this post. Why did he not want a "reference librarian" to teach his class? He willingly told me after the class had finished that he has been to library-instruction sessions where the librarian takes the entire time explaining how to do research. He feels strongly that students need time to do it in the class. Like he was saying, students leave the library session and do not do any research for a while and in the meantime they forget what they "learned," so when they try it themselves they stumble and cannot find anything. Their recourse is to Google the information--something they know how to do already. They need time to practice, run into roadblocks, and ask for help when their instructor or librarian is close by and ready to offer it.

He attended a graduate library-instruction session last semester, and he tells me that the librarian talked for two and a half hours about how to do research. In his view, a valid one in my opinion, he felt he knew how to do research already otherwise he would not be where he was = in graduate school. I appreciate the feedback he gave me, because librarians who do give instruction need to be aware of their audiences. We are often chomping at the bit to show them everything we have, that we overlook some of their basic needs and desires, like just trying it on their own. During that two hour and twenty minute session he tried to write down ideas for his own research.

Chances are that some of his colleagues liked the workshop heartily and did not complain; however, many probably wished that they had an opportunity just to practice and start doing some research where a librarian could assist them directly with a specific question.

One of the things I liked the most about his class was how he emphasized evaluating the results of search in determining which ones will be used. "Do you pick the first five if five is what you need? How do you select sources?" This is definitely something I need to do better at myself.

Earlier in this post I mentioned that librarians should be asking the right kinds of questions of instructors before they bring their classes into the library. Here are some questions that we might ask, depending on the situation. If anyone reading this post has more questions along these lines, please add them as a comment to this post.

• What would you like me to focus on during the 50-minute, library-instruction session?
• How much would you like me to focus on the article databases, library catalog, citation resources, developing a search strategy, evaluating search results, showing the library web site, etc.?
• How much time would you like for your students to conduct hands-on research?
• What did you like most about previous library presentations given to your previous classes?
• What did you like least about previous library presentations that I should avoid?
• Where do your students need the most help with their research?
• How do your students learn the most?
• What is the biggest question you hope students will strive to answer in your course?
• What one important thing do you hope your students will gain from their visit to the library?
• What can I, as a reference/instruction librarian, do to help you and your students?
• What are some of the topics that interest your students?
• Which texts do you use/require in your course?
  

Clearly, not all of these questions should be asked of every instructor, but as a faculty member I want to help the university accomplish its research and learning mission. The library, its resources, and staff know that they can contribute to this worthy goal and advance information literacy = critical thinking + knowing how to find the best, most-accurate information needed.