Publisher's Synopsis
From tech schools to colleges, high schools to grad schools, research involves making sense of information, dealing with overload, learning the basics of planning, and evaluating the quality of sources. As information proliferates, immediate gratification takes precedence. Students often use the easiest tools available rather than making the effort to identify the best. There is another way! Successful research skills require a basic grounding in information literacy as well as planning. Students who learn to follow these step-by-step instructions in the research process can tackle any research project confidently and on time. This workbook, tied to the ACRL Standards for Information Literacy, provides hands-on tools for reference and instruction librarians at colleges and community colleges as well as others appointed to teach students how to conduct research and to be literate in the information sea. Each exercise address one or more of the nationally accepted ACRL benchmark standards for information literacy education. The exercises promote conceptual and applied skills via active learning, problem-based learning, and/or resource-based learning.
Ready-to-use and easy to modify, these 35 lessons can be used as a full semester course or as a single focused seminar or workshop. Covering the basics of planning, collecting, and evaluating, the workbook exercises show how to access books and bibliographic information as well as periodicals and indexes, in addition to online sources. This hands-on workshop-in-a-book - with expert advice and explanations throughout - makes it easy to get an information literacy program up and running. It features a time line and a sample from the University of Rhode Island's "Paper Trail Project," a semester-long program proven to help students learn and apply information literacy skills.
