ENG 327 Class Research Workshop, Tuesday September 8
For this class, two of UNCG’s academic liaisons teamed up to bring level 300 English students information that would help them complete their upcoming assignment. They focused on evaluating sources, proper APA and MLA citations, and article database searching. Coming in with a copy of the 10 step criteria for identifying credible sources that the professor provided, the librarians developed a personalized lesson plan for the students. I was very impressed with this interaction of information literacy for three reasons: a relaxed atmosphere, a responsive interview process, and an incorporated activity. From the start, both librarians introduced themselves informally as friends of the professor and emphasized their desire to help the students with research both in class and one-on-one, creating a relaxed environment for the students. From then on, the librarians involved the class in the discussion of research, but they also involved the professor. They double-checked that the routes to information they were showing were appropriate for the class’s level and the assignment’s instructions. They posed questions such as “how are we doing so far” and “are we okay on time,” giving the professor some control over the interview process of the information literacy lesson. In my opinion, involving the professor made the class feel more like a normal class instead of having guest lecturers, which the librarians technically were. Lastly, the librarians incorporated two activities in the lesson in order to engage the class. These activities worked out very well, especially during times of silence, or the student’s lack of desire to participate, which seemed to force active learning in the place of quiet pauses.
For this class, two of UNCG’s academic liaisons teamed up to bring level 300 English students information that would help them complete their upcoming assignment. They focused on evaluating sources, proper APA and MLA citations, and article database searching. Coming in with a copy of the 10 step criteria for identifying credible sources that the professor provided, the librarians developed a personalized lesson plan for the students. I was very impressed with this interaction of information literacy for three reasons: a relaxed atmosphere, a responsive interview process, and an incorporated activity. From the start, both librarians introduced themselves informally as friends of the professor and emphasized their desire to help the students with research both in class and one-on-one, creating a relaxed environment for the students. From then on, the librarians involved the class in the discussion of research, but they also involved the professor. They double-checked that the routes to information they were showing were appropriate for the class’s level and the assignment’s instructions. They posed questions such as “how are we doing so far” and “are we okay on time,” giving the professor some control over the interview process of the information literacy lesson. In my opinion, involving the professor made the class feel more like a normal class instead of having guest lecturers, which the librarians technically were. Lastly, the librarians incorporated two activities in the lesson in order to engage the class. These activities worked out very well, especially during times of silence, or the student’s lack of desire to participate, which seemed to force active learning in the place of quiet pauses.
Open Education Resources Webinar - “Finding and adopting OER with Canvas, OpenStax, and Saylor,” Wednesday September 9
This webinar introduced and supported the idea of open education resources, or OER. Open education resources expand access to high-quality education resources such as videos, courses, textbooks, and lesson plans. These resources are for free use and re-purposing by others. The benefits of OERs are numerous, one of which includes reducing the workload of professors by reusing lesson documents. OERs come with a challenge, though, and need help with development in order to provide quality documents to the public for free. The development process would support the existing criteria and make it stronger for the next user. The most exciting feature that appeals to me is the free textbooks. The open access policy of the books published by OpenStax and Saylor give me relief that one day students could save thousands of dollars on textbooks, making learning more affordable and available to more people.
This webinar introduced and supported the idea of open education resources, or OER. Open education resources expand access to high-quality education resources such as videos, courses, textbooks, and lesson plans. These resources are for free use and re-purposing by others. The benefits of OERs are numerous, one of which includes reducing the workload of professors by reusing lesson documents. OERs come with a challenge, though, and need help with development in order to provide quality documents to the public for free. The development process would support the existing criteria and make it stronger for the next user. The most exciting feature that appeals to me is the free textbooks. The open access policy of the books published by OpenStax and Saylor give me relief that one day students could save thousands of dollars on textbooks, making learning more affordable and available to more people.
HEA 307 Liaison Collaboration, Monday September 14
Two librarian liaisons came together in order to provide recent and relevant information to level 300 health students concerning their upcoming project. The most notable part of this experience, in my opinion, was the teamwork between the two librarians because their joint effort made the absorption of material much easier for the students. The leading health sciences librarian lead a virtual tour while the supporting business librarian took notes on the board of both the health sciences librarian’s steps and the students’ questions. This process allowed for a shorter presentation because it answered many questions before they were even asked and put a halt to repeating questions. They ended the class with a huge thank you to both the professor and the class, strengthening the relationship between libraries and users by accentuating the “guest” part of “guest lecturers.” To me, this class felt like more of a consultation than a lecture and I thoroughly enjoyed the light and casual atmosphere.
Two librarian liaisons came together in order to provide recent and relevant information to level 300 health students concerning their upcoming project. The most notable part of this experience, in my opinion, was the teamwork between the two librarians because their joint effort made the absorption of material much easier for the students. The leading health sciences librarian lead a virtual tour while the supporting business librarian took notes on the board of both the health sciences librarian’s steps and the students’ questions. This process allowed for a shorter presentation because it answered many questions before they were even asked and put a halt to repeating questions. They ended the class with a huge thank you to both the professor and the class, strengthening the relationship between libraries and users by accentuating the “guest” part of “guest lecturers.” To me, this class felt like more of a consultation than a lecture and I thoroughly enjoyed the light and casual atmosphere.
ProQuest Webinar - “Text and Data Mining Library Content,” Thursday September 17
The academic community is currently experiencing a significant growth in the digital humanities department. In order to manage data mining, or the process if viewing databases to generate new information, in this field ProQuest has created a machine learning product much like Java’s Weka and text-pair’s PEAR that classifies words into differing topics with differing values in order to identify relationships between values. One perk of the machine learning product for the academic community is detecting plagiarism. The product can compare words with similar meanings side-by-side and determine if the order of the words indicates plagiarism by detecting textual re-use and influence. I think this product remains interesting and useful, but unfortunately the webinar was shorter than I expected. ProQuest also had an opportunity to advertise for this product, but they did not focus on this aspect of their presentation.
The academic community is currently experiencing a significant growth in the digital humanities department. In order to manage data mining, or the process if viewing databases to generate new information, in this field ProQuest has created a machine learning product much like Java’s Weka and text-pair’s PEAR that classifies words into differing topics with differing values in order to identify relationships between values. One perk of the machine learning product for the academic community is detecting plagiarism. The product can compare words with similar meanings side-by-side and determine if the order of the words indicates plagiarism by detecting textual re-use and influence. I think this product remains interesting and useful, but unfortunately the webinar was shorter than I expected. ProQuest also had an opportunity to advertise for this product, but they did not focus on this aspect of their presentation.