February 2012 Articles

The quarter is drawing to a close so quickly, and we still have a lot of work left to do for Project READ. Week 6:  We spent most of our class time working individually with our students to improve their citations and annotations.  We also spent time on a pre-reflection exercise, since we were scheduled to help Project READ with a book sorting at the Look at a Book warehouse in Dayton that Saturday.  (The owner of Look at a Book regularly donates books to Project READ so they can distribute them to children and reading tutors in the area).  We issued three prompts for the students to…

Any readers out there from Michigan?  If so - mark your calendars for the upcoming Academic Libraries 2012: Advancing Value Michigan Library Association Academic Libraries Annual Conference May 10-11, 2012 in Ann Arbor.  I recently received confirmation that I will be co-presenting along with Suzanne Gray, Information Literacy Librarian at Eastern Michigan University, and Shannon Zoet, Assistant Director of Campus Partnerships at Michigan Campus Compact, about service-learning and information literacy. Our presentation is titled "Service-Learning: Advancing the value of…

During Week 4, we covered searching the catalog for books.  We sent the students to the stacks.  Many hadn't realized there would actually be books written about the topic we're researching.  We also focused on how to cite in APA style so they could  complete their homework for class 5 - to find and cite three books (or at least chapters). Week 5, we spent more time on citations.   Students submit their homework electronically Monday night before midnight so we can grade them and return them immediately on Tuesday morning in class.  Based on their homework, it was clear they were…

I just put this new report released by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement on my reading list (which is growing ever-longer!):   A Crucible Moment:  College Learning & Democracy's Future.  Get more information here.