Ms. Frost (English teacher), 9th Honors Literature/Composition students, Ms. Hamilton (librarian), Mr. Guyer (librarian intern), and Ms. Johnson (librarian) reflect on the recent research experiences at The Unquiet Library (see the research guide at http://theunquietlibrary.libguides.com/frost-9th. You can see the pre-search graphic organizer (which we have now condensed into a shorter document for future use!) on the research guide.
A must read for librarians and teachers is the latest report from Project Information Literacy at The University of Washington, “Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age.” The paper abstract describes the study:
A report about college students and their information-seeking strategies and research difficulties, including findings from 8,353 survey respondents from college students on 25 campuses distributed across the U.S. in spring of 2010, as part of Project Information Literacy. Respondents reported taking little at face value and were frequent evaluators of Web and library sources used for course work, and to a lesser extent, of Web content for personal use. Most respondents turned to friends and family when asking for help with evaluating information for personal use and instructors when evaluating information for course research. Respondents reported using a repertoire of research techniques—mostly for writing papers—for completing one research assignment to the next, though few respondents reported using Web 2.0 applications for collaborating on assignments. Even though most respondents considered themselves adept at finding and evaluating information, especially when it was retrieved from the Web, students reported difficulties getting started with research assignments and determining the nature and scope of what was required of them. Overall, the findings suggest students use an information-seeking and research strategy driven by efficiency and predictability for managing and controlling all of the information available to them on college campuses, though conducting comprehensive research and learning something new is important to most, along with passing the course and the grade received. Recommendations are included for how campus-wide stakeholders—faculty, librarians, and higher education administrators—can work together to help inform pedagogies for a new century.
Dr. Alison J. Head and Dr. Michael B. Eisenberg identify the seven major findings of this study:
1. Students in the sample took little at face value and reported they were frequent evaluators of information culled from the Web and to a lesser extent, the campus library. More often than anything else, respondents considered whether information was up-todate and current when evaluating Web content (77%) and library materials (67%) for course work.
2. Evaluating information was often a collaborative process—almost two-thirds of the respondents (61%) reportedly turned to friends and/or family members when they needed help and advice with sorting through and evaluating information for personal use. Nearly half of the students in the sample (49%) frequently asked instructors for assistance with assessing the quality of sources for course work—far fewer asked librarians (11%) for assistance.
3. The majority of the sample used routines for completing one research assignment to the next, including writing a thesis statement (58%), adding personal perspective to papers (55%), and developing a working outline (51%). Many techniques were learned in high school and ported to college, according to students we interviewed.
4. Despite their reputation of being avid computer users who are fluent with new technologies, few students in our sample had used a growing number of Web 2.0 applications within the past six months for collaborating on course research assignments and/or managing research tasks.
5. For over three-fourths (84%) of the students surveyed, the most difficult step of the course-related research process was getting started. Defining a topic (66%), narrowing it down (62%), and filtering through irrelevant results (61%) frequently hampered students in the sample, too. Follow-up interviews suggest students lacked the research acumen for framing an inquiry in the digital age where information abounds and intellectual discovery was paradoxically overwhelming for them.
6. Comparatively, students reported having far fewer problems finding information for personal use, though sorting through results for solving an information problem in their daily lives hamstrung more than a third of the students in the sample (41%).
7. Unsurprisingly, what mattered most to students while they were working on courserelated research assignments was passing the course (99%), finishing the assignment (97%), and getting a good grade (97%). Yet, three-quarters of the sample also reported they considered carrying out comprehensive research of a topic (78%) and learning something new (78%) of importance to them, too.
I plan to study this report in more depth during my week-long Thanksgiving vacation, but I think finding #4 speaks to what we have been trying to do with the Media 21 project. Overall, it looks like academic libraries are facing some of the same challenges we are in K12 schools in trying to build collaborative partnerships to provide a more authentic and integrated approach to positing research as a tool for learning rather than an isolated event that seems to lack relevance for students. I’m also thinking it would be meaningful and insightful to replicate this study at the high school level and compare findings. I’ll blog more about my reflections on this project post-Thanksgiving holidays, but in the meantime, take a look at the report and share your reactions/reflections.
You can see other reports and work from Project Information Literacy by the link beneath the screenshot:
I’d like to share eight noteworthy reads that I discovered in the wee small hours of the morning today that have relevance for librarians in all settings as well as classroom teachers. These three resources are especially meaningful to me as the ideas relate to my daily work, my conceptualization of embedded librarianship, information literacy, new media literacies, the participation gap, and scholarly research.
“John Palfrey: Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age“: this interview with John Palfrey co-author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, popped up on my iGoogle desktop via RSS feed from the blog Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0. In this “Smart Talk” from the University of Washington iSchool’s Project Information Literacy, Palfrey discusses students’ conceptualization of plagiarism, what teachers and librarians should consider in addressing the challenges of helping students better understand concepts of plagiarism, and what Palfrey considers the three most important competencies for 21st century learners right now.
In addition, Palfrey addresses the needs for us to continue to find better and new ways of creating effective portals of information (and I would add, helping students ultimately learn how to craft their own):
I think we need to be in the business of using these new rivers of information, adding to them, sharing what we know, and coding – developing, in the sense of writing computer code – new ones that work even better. There’s so much that we know about in libraries and in communities that we are not sharing with other people. The amount of metadata – data about the data – that we have and don’t make use of is staggering. (My colleagues in the Library Lab at Harvard Law School are working on a beta application of this sort, online here:http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/ that makes this point generally.) And then we should be using and imparting these skills at all the touchpoints we have with students, whether in research consultations, in research classes, or in ordinary classes where we are helping students do research in the context of another topic.
The interview with Palfrey led me resource 2, ”The Participation Divide: Content Creation and Sharing in the Digital Age”, a research study by Eszter Hargittai and Gina Walejko. This research study can be downloaded for free as a PDF and is of interest to anyone who is concerned about the participation gap in regards to information, digital, and new media literacies as outlined by the 2009 Knight Foundation Report on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy as well as Henry Jenkins. You can read this research study as well as other studies that are of significance to educators and librarians in all settings from the Web Use Project by clicking here.
Another research report, “Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content” from the Web Use Project.
One more research report, “Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”” from the Web Use Project.
A must read is Henry Jenkins’ post, “Towards a New Civic Ecology: Addressing the Grand Challenges“, on his keynote speech at the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges Conference. You can watch the video (I so love when conferences record and post these speeches on YouTube) on his blog and listen to him discuss the following challenges and strategies of navigating the current media landscape:
This post and talk is rich in content, but here are some of my favorite take-aways:
“I regularly encourage my own graduate students to start a blog around their research topics. Doing so expands their research networks. “
“The Digital Divide has to do with access to networked communication technologies — with many still relying on schools and public libraries to provide them with access. The Participation Gap has to do with access to skills and competencies (as well as the experiences through which they are acquired). And the Civic Engagement Gap has to do with access to a sense of empowerment and entitlement which allows one to feel like your voice matters when you tap into the new communication networks to share your thoughts. Unfortunately, we’ve wired the classrooms in this country and then disabled the computers; we’ve blocked young people from participating in the new forms of participatory culture; and we’ve taught them that they are not ready to speak in public by sequestering them to walled gardens rather than allowing them to try their voices through public forums.”
Another great interview from the SmartTalks series at Project Information Literacy with respected scholar Andrea Lunsford, “Andrea Lunsford: Writing and the Profound Revolution in Access“. This interview speaks to the findings of the Stanford Study of Writing (another research study I’m going to delve into with depth) with a focus on the transaction of research and information literacy skills with writing as well as ways of integrating the services and resources of libraries and librarians into the writing and research experiences of college students.
In this interview, Lunsford asserts, …”the profound revolution in access to research materials is affecting everyone, at all grade levels. The question now is who has access to research materials, not only through search engines like Google but through the kinds of databases that school libraries pay for and make accessible to students.”
Through my exploration of the Smart Talks interviews, I learned about the latest research project from the University of Washington iSchool and am eager to see the publication of it in November 2010:
During spring 2010, we conducted PIL’s large-scale student survey at 25 U.S. community colleges and universities. The online survey was sent to 112,800 college students, making it one of the largest information literacy surveys ever conducted. Findings will be released in November 2010.
The University of Washington iSchool Project Information Literacy has its own YouTube Channel; the video below definitely speaks to the upcoming workshop I’m doing with my Social Studies teachers on restructuring and rethinking research assignments to prevent plagiarism and promote the creation of content and more original critical thinking.
I hope you enjoy these readings and resources that I discovered as a result of one blog post! This personal research experience reminds me of how much I love having access to so much relevant and significant content for free via the web and that these resources have led me to additional information sources I’ll want to further explore in these spaces as well as research databases I can access through our state virtual library, GALILEO.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project Teen Content Creators report, the most common form of writing in school is taking notes in class. Don’t get me wrong–taking notes is a valuable skill to support learning, but it bothers me that this is the dominant form of writing on a daily basis for teens. If you look at slide eight in the presentation, other forms of writing are identified, including essays, shorter forms of writing, lab reports, creative writing, multimedia, journal writing, notes/letters to others, computer programs, and music/lyrics.
For the last five months, I have been thinking much more about an emphasis on content creation in my library. In reflecting on the implications of this report (I encourage you to look at the full report/presentation), these are my initial question:
While I feel I have made some forward strides in applying these ideas to my work with my Media 21 project, I know I will be thinking more deeply about these questions and ways to better support and more actively publish multiple and varied forms of content creation from students.
You can view all the reports and research related to teens from the Pew Internet and American Life Project by visiting this portal. Video and program information from The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media, the forum where this report and other related research were shared on November 18, 2009, can be found by visiting this site.
If you work with teens (or tweens) on a daily basis as I do, then you will want to read two important documents that came my way via Google Reader and my personal learning network.
The first resource, courtesy of Helen Blowers’ blog, has just been released from Nielsen and is entitled “How Teens Use Media”. While there are many surprising findings in this study, the study also includes data that has implications for us as librarians who work with young adults:
The second reading I encourage you to ponder is “The Not-So-Hidden-Politics of Class Online” by noted researcher danah boyd. I follow danah boyd on Twitter and via her blog; I have been fascinated by her work since discovering her about six months ago; this particular document came to my attention thanks to fabulous librarian Jessamyn West. This document, her notes/talking points for an actual talk she just gave on June 30, explores the socioeconomic divide of users in social networks; in this talk, she focuses specifically on Facebook and MySpace.
Like Ms. West, I was struck by these statements from danah boyd:
For decades, we’ve assumed that inequality in relation to technology has everything to do with “access” and that if we fix the access problem, all will be fine. This is the grand narrative of concepts like the “digital divide.” Yet, increasingly, we’re seeing people with similar levels of access engage in fundamentally different ways. And we’re seeing a social media landscape where participation “choice” leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions. This is most salient in the States which is intentionally the focus of my talk here today.
There is nothing I can say here that will substitute for your taking 10-15 minutes or so to read this significant work. As our nation grapples with the divide that still exists between ethnic and socioecnomic groups and the ramifications of that divide, so too does it play out in social worlds. boyd obeserves:
In many ways, the Internet is providing a next generation public sphere. Unfortunately, it’s also bringing with it next generation divides. The public sphere was never accessible to everyone. There’s a reason than the scholar Habermas talked about it as the bourgeois public sphere. The public sphere was historically the domain of educated, wealthy, white, straight men. The digital public sphere may make certain aspects of public life more accessible to some, but this is not a given. And if the ways in which we construct the digital public sphere reinforce the divisions that we’ve been trying to break down, we’ve got a problem.
What does this mean to use as librarians? Obviously, we want to teach students digital ethics as they use social networks and to use information to make decisions based on facts, not stereotypes or misinformation. On a larger scale, though, boyd is urging us to look at social media (and I think to help our students as well) to examine the use of social media with a critical eye.
Her findings also have implications for the way we use social media to reach out to our students and parents.
So as we think about creating public spaces, what’s the meeting point for our conversations? Is it MySpace or Facebook? Twitter or IRC? What you choose matters. Where you and your colleagues hang out matters. The “voices” of the Internet that you get are biased by the people who are in the places that you hang out. But do you know this? Do you account for it? Are you working to represent all people or just the people that you can see and hear? When you’re trying to reach out to people, are you trying to reach out to all people or just the people in the environments that you understand? Are you embracing difference or are you only taking into account that with which you are comfortable?
These two readings are reminders that we need to think critically about how we are using social media and to be more aware of whom we may be including or excluding with the use of that social media. This is the digital divide you may not realize exists, but it is just as important as the divide of equitable access.
I urge all of you who are educators or school librarians to take some time to read these two reports ; I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections on these readings!
