letting go: how students can find their own way

Letting Go: How students can find their own way

The Basic Library Orientation

College Advising (COLA)

One-credit, topic-focused, includes academic advising with faculty member

No research component!

Library Tour Walking tour of Alderman, Clemons, & Special Collections Libraries

Ending with finding a book in the stacks

Feedback

Positive from both students and faculty

Assessment

Positive results of student understanding and learning

So why change?

Observational Assessment

We noticed silent students not engaging until the stacks exercise - after experiencing the library on their own terms, they were enthusiastic,

animated, and suddenly brimming with questions

What we wanted: A way for students to explore the library organically without direct faculty or librarian oversight

What we designed: A scavenger hunt!

Students explore spaces with the support of their peers including: Alderman, Clemons, Special

Collections Libraries, and online Resources

1. Students are placed into teams

2. Each team member has a role

3. Teams are provided a series of clues

4. Each clue is a task to find materials/locations in the libraries

5. Every clue is documented with a photograph

Freeform wiki

Anyone with URL can post

Embedded multimedia

Instant collaboration and communication

Allows instant creation

Assessment

Summative:

After completing tasks, students return to discuss the process by both:

Describing e.g. “So where did you go to find the Declaration

of Independence?”

Demonstrating e.g. “Can you show everyone how you found

your book using the catalog?”

Formative:

Team Padlets allow for comparison of team, to both each other and between classes, in terms of

correctly answered clues

What We’ve Learned

Time Students love the activity!

But it requires a significant amount of class time

Scoring Rubric Students wanted a way to determine a winner of

the scavenger hunt. So we created an easy

rubric that counts completed clues, creativity, and

their ability to make us laugh

Online Resources It’s more fun to find things in the library! Students

tend to skip the section for finding an article

Maggie Nunley

Teaching and Learning Librarian

University of Virginia

maggie@virginia.edu

@maggienunley

Paula Roy

Teaching and Learning Librarian

University of Virginia

PaulaRoy@virginia.edu

@pawlamarie

Constructivism

You Learn by Doing

Students build their own

understanding and knowledge

through experience

Have to interact with ideas, and

reflect on those interactions, in

order to create their own

knowledge matrix

ACRL Framework

Focused on values/dispositions:

1. Authority is Constructed 2. Scholarship as Conversation

3. Searching as Strategic Exploration

Infuse classes with ideas that:

Students are Scholars Community of Classmates

Push for Creativity Give Room to Fail

Encourage Librarian Support Thrilling Discovery of Library’s Secrets