In-class activities – PCC Library

Authors, Authorship, Responsible Use of Other’s Work

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Students divide into smaller groups to discuss questions about authorship, author’s rights, and plagiarism.

Cephalonian Cards

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Cards with pre-printed questions are passed to several students. Students read the questions aloud; the instructor answers them (with or without slides). Quick intro to factual material, and sets up a question-and-answer dynamic that often leads to students asking their own questions.

Determining the bias and credibility of a website: In class exercise

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Assign each small group/row of computers a different website from the list provided, give time to investigate, and then report out to the larger group, having volunteers teach from podium if desired.

Evaluating Web Sources

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Students evaluate web sources by answering questions about the author, publisher, and sources used. They then present their responses to the class.

Identifying characteristics of least credible and most credible sources

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Students brainstorm types of sources that they think are “credible” and “not credible” in order to elicit a conversation about a) what a source is and b) what makes it credible or not.

Keyword hot potato exercise

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Students often struggle most with finding relevant sources on their topic because they are entering entire sentences into a database or are using terms that don’t match how authors would describe their topic. The purpose of this activity is to give students experience brainstorming keywords for a particular topic. It also helps to demonstrate that the initial terms they come up with to describe their topic may not necessarily be the terms authors will use to write about the topic.

Kinetic Boolean activity

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) can help students to create a better-targeted search. This activity helps students understand what each Boolean operator does in a visual way.

Prior Knowledge of Databases Check

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

A brief survey (roughly three or four multiple choice questions) assesses level of knowledge and skills relevant to a subject or course. Based on survey results, the instructor can determine an appropriate starting point for a lesson and build upon students’ prior knowledge.

Process Cards

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

PDF includes cards for teacher to cut out and organize into a deck. Each deck should include one formative process, along with six different types of information. Decks are then distributed to small groups of students with instructions to discuss and arrange the six types of information by whatever the process card says. So, for example, “rank these cards by which format involves the least amount of research up to the one which involves the most.” Afterwards, each group should state their ranking to the full class and explain why they decided to order things the way they did. Hopefully doing so will spark a discussion of how different processes contribute to the “value” of information in different contexts, and how there is no one “correct” order.

Rank the sources: In class activity

Gustavo Lanzas — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:11:02 +0000

Students are provided with four abstracts from the Academic Search Premier database, and prompted to read the abstracts, consider the audience, the date, and then rank these in order of usefulness for an essay. Three sets of results lists given.