Information Literacy Exercises & Online Learning Tools
To arrange an instruction session or to consult with a librarian about assignments, you can either:
- Contact your Library Faculty Liaison
- Email Peter Rogers, Information Literacy and Social Science Librarian
Online Learning Tools
The Libraries have developed digital learning objects (DLOs) that provide an interactive way to incorporate a blended learning approach into classes. These DLOs can be assigned before class, enhancing and freeing up time for more in-class interaction. DLOs can readily be embedded in Moodle for convenience.
- Quest for Questions –
- Quest for Questions walks the students through the process of developing research questions, from an initial broad topic to a researchable question. Throughout the module, the student is prompted to input their notes and, at the end, they have the option to email their results to themselves or their professor. For maximum effectiveness, this should be assigned in advance of a class.
- Unlocking Keywords
- Unlocking Keywords helps students create more successful catalog or database searches. It helps students move from a topic to sets of searchable keywords and, at the end of the module, the students are able to search the Library catalog with a Boolean search of the keywords they generated. They also have the option to email all their keywords to themselves or their professor.
Information Literacy Exercises
|Developing Researchable Questions||Colgate students self-report having difficulty getting started with research assignments and defining topics. This assignment is intended to assist students to develop appropriate questions that can be investigated through engagements with scholarly literature. This assignment should be used as one step in a sequenced set of assignments culminating in an academic paper, or another kind of project.|
|Students work in groups to devleop thier own perspective and stance on a topic while considering other point-of-views surrounding the topic.|
|Students conduct the preliminary research for a paper and write down the steps taken to decide on their thesis or research question. The focus essay should include the search terms that were used, the databases searched, the kind of resources found, how the student modified the search, and an evaluation of their results. The final product should also include an annotated bibliography of useful resources and a clearly stated thesis or research question.|
|Each student keeps a journal or log of their research process, including search terms, databases used, sources, and an evaluation of which results can be useful to their paper (can be used with the focus essay or independently).|
|Students select sources for a paper. Using the proper citation style, they compose a bibliography that includes a brief description of the information in each source and an evaluation of the usefulness to their paper.|
|The goal of this exercise is for students to work backwards from an article in order to reconstruct the research process that produced the article. The instructor can either assign an article or ask students to locate one on their own. Students could be asked to produce a written work responding to these questions, or they could simply be asked to come to class prepared to answer them in a discussion.|