Competency 9: Internet

My topic area is teaching research skills in an elementary school library. The website I discovered is Research Rocket presented by the Kentucky Virtual Library. It is an AWESOME website! It is very kid friendly. The graphics and vibrant colors are very appealing and child appropiate. It is a web based tutorial that takes kids step by step and throughout the research process. It has links to each of the six steps and each step explains it in easy to understand language. There are further links to define terms within each step.

I came across this website through another website, TeacherLibraianNing, it is a community for teachers-librarians and other educators. I was searching for an image to use that would correlate with my topic area of interest. I had used the term "library research" on Google Image and a blogger had used this image from the tutorial.


The post is titled "Research Made Easy" by Keith Schoch, posted on Feb 21, 2010. His blog can be found on TeacherLibrarianNing.com.

Competency 8: Research/Multimedia

Introduction Informtion Problem Solving: The Big6(TM) by Mike Eisenberg.

The “Big6™” is copyright © (1987) Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz. For more on Big6, visit: http://www.big6.com/

link: http://www.big6.com/what-is-the-big6/

I went directly to the Big6 home website and this power point presentation was available to view via Slideshare on this link Big6 Higher Ed Audience Overview.

I am familiar with the Big6 research model because of a teacher workshop I attended a few years ago. I have also retrieved several books from this company while conducting my database searches. I would like to learn more about the Big6 information and technology literacy model and curriculum and use it when I become librarian.

Competency 7: Image

This image is the cover for the book "R" is for Research by Toni Buzzeo. Jacket art is by Sachiko Yoshikawa. I came across this image while searching Google Images using the term "library research". The link from Google was for the publishing company of the book, Upstart Books.

http://www.highsmith.com/upstartbooks/quotRquot-is-for-Research-Library-Book-c_21711372/

The following link is to the author's home page, http://www.tonibuzzeo.com/booksrisforresearch.html .

The book is an alphabet rhyming book introducing basic research and library skills. This would be an excellent book to use with the primary grades as a read aloud and introduction to those skills.

Competency 6: Search 4 Pearl Growing Strategy in Book in Print

Pearl Growing Strategy

database: Books in Print

query: I am a first year elementary school librarian and I would like to learn how to teach elementary school students how to research information. What resources can I use that would help me teach research skills in an elementary school library?

Pearl:
Harker, Christa et al. (2008) Library Research with Emergent Readers: Meeting Standards through Collaboration. United States: Linworth Publishing, Incorporated.

The following subject terms describe the query.

Bowker Subjects:
LIBRARY ORIENTATION
RESEARCH
SCHOOL LIBRARIES
LIBRARIANS
EDUCATION_UNITED STATES
ACTIVITY PROGRAMS IN EDUCATION
LITERACY

General Subjects (BISAC):
EDUCATION / Teaching Methods & Materials / Library Skills
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Literacy
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Library & Information Science / School Media
EDUCATION / General
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Library & Information Science / General
REFERENCE / Research

I am going to use RESEARCH, and SCHOOL LIBRARIES from the Boweker subjects.

search statement 1
su=(research) AND (school libraries)
results: 10 records

Citations:
Carlson, Chris (2009). Guiding Students into Information Literacy: Strategies for Teachers and Teacher-Librarians. United States: Scarecrow Press Incorporated

Howard, J. and Eckhardt S. (2005) Action Research: A Guide for Library Media Specialists. United States: Linworth Publishing Incorporated.

Reflections:
WOW!. I like this strategy. All 10 records fit the query. I realize that this will not happen this easily on all queries and on other databases, but it sure made it a whole lot easier to find subject terms from a known item. This is a great strategy to use when there is a known item to use as the "pearl" and grow the search from there.

Competecy 6: Search 3 Succesive Facets in WorldCat

Successive Facets Strategy

database: WorldCat

query: "I am a first year elementary school librarian and I would like to learn how to teach elementary school students how to research information. What resources can I use that would help me teach research skills in an elementary school library?

facets from query:
facet 1: teach
facet 2: research skills
facet 3: elementary school library

synonyms for facets
facet 1: instruction, lessons, teaching
facet 2: research skills, information literacy, library skills
facet 3: school library media center, school libraries

Subject terms
facet 1: elementary school teaching, instruction
facet 2: library research, information retrieval
facet 3: school libraries, elementary school libraries, libraries and schools

subject terms search results
facet 1: instruction-303,534
elementary school teaching - 6,937
facet 2: library research -449
information retrieval - 13,046
facet 3: school libraries - 13,777
elementary school libraries - 1,040
libraries and schools - 874

I will combine the largets retrieval set of each facet.

su=(instruction) AND (school libraries)
results: 122 records
There were no relevant records to the query.

su=(instruction) AND (information retrieval)
results 646 records

su=(instruction) AND (information retrieval) AND (elementary school libraries)
results 1 record

Miller, P. (2003). Research skills. Fort Atkinson, Wis: UpstartBooks.

I am not satified with this search. There has to be more records in this database that pertain to the query. I am going to try another search.

su=(instruction) AND (information retrieval OR library research) AND (elementary school libraries)
results: 1 records

The same record I just cited. I am starting to get frustrated with this search. I realize that the successive facet strategy is to start with the broadest term and succesively add subject terms to narrow the results but it is not retrieving satifactory results. It is probably that the database is not suitable for this search query. I thought WorldCat would be a suitable database because it is a global catalog of library collections. I am going to try the building block strategy.

su=(instruction OR elementary school teaching) AND (library research OR information retrieval) AND (school libraries OR elementary school libraries OR (schools and libraries))
results: 31 records

Harker, C., & Putonti, D. (2008). Library research with emergent readers: Meeting standards through collaboration. Columbus, Ohio: Linworth Books

There was only a handful of records that pertained to the query. At least I was able to get one record using the successive facets strategy but I do not consider this a successful search.

Comepetency 6: Search 2 Specific Facet First in Libray Literature and Information Science

Specific Facet First Strategy

database: Library Literature and Information Science database

Query: I am a first year elementary school librarian and I would like to learn how to teach elementary school students how to research information. What resources can I use that would help me teach research skills in an elementary school library?

Facets from query
facet 1: teach
facet 2: research skills
facet 3: elementary school library

Synonyms for facets
facet 1: teaching, instruction, lessons
facet 2: information literacy, library skills
facet 3: school library media center

subject terms
facet 1: bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students, school libraries/activity projects,
facet 2: research techniques/teaching
facet 3: school libraries/elementary schools

subject search records results
bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students -
1294 records
school libraries/activity projects - 2358 records
research techniques/teaching - 239 records
school libraries/elementary schools - 35 records

research techniques/teaching and school libraries/elementary schools have the smallest retrieval sets, so I combined them first.

search statement 1
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/elementary school)
results: zero records

search statement 2
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students)
results: 49 records

WOW! This is a good retrieval set. There were many records that fit the query.

Citations:
Eisenberg, M. (2003). Implementing Information Skills: Lessons Learned From the Big6 Approach to Information Problem-Solving. School Libraries in Canada, 22(4), 20-3.

Hughes, S. (2003). The Big6 as a Strategy for Student Research. School Libraries in Canada, 22(4), 28-9.

Duncan D. and Lockhart L. (2000) I-Search, you search, we all learn to research: a how-to-do-it manual for teaching elementary school students to solve information problems. New York, NY: Neal Shuman Publishers, Inc.

Reflection:
I liked using this strategy. It let me know how many records for each facet alone and I can combine the most specific facets first to see what kind of retrieval sets it come up with. Once I had the best subject terms possible for all the initial facets and synonyms, the retrieval set was so much better.

I tried the following search statement and the retrieval set consisted of only 6 records of which only 1 was relevant to the query.

search statement 3
su=(research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/activity projects)

I also tried a building block strategy using all the subject terms just to see what kind of retrieval set I would get.

search statement 4
su=(bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students OR school library/activity projects) AND (research techniques/teaching) AND (school libraries/elementary schools)
results: zero results

I can see how this strategy is useful if an initial Boolean statement using the building block strategy has zero results.

Competency 6: Search 1 Building Block Strategy in ERIC

Building Block Strategy
Database: ERIC /FirstSearch

Query: I am a first year elementary school librarian and I would like to learn how to teach elementary school students how to research information. What resources can I use that would help me teach research skills in an elementary school library?

facets from query
Facet 1: Teach
Facet 2: research skills
Facet 3: elementary school library

Synonyms for facets
Facet 1: teaching, instruction, lessons
Facet 2: research skills, library skills, information literacy
facet 3: school library media center

Subject terms
facet 1: teaching methods, teaching models, intructional materials,
facet 2: research skills, information skills, student research
facet 3: elementary school library-no subject terms available
school library media center-no subject terms available

I decided to separate elementary school library and search for subject terms for library and elementary school separately.

facet 4: library-library instruction, information literacy, library skills
facet 5: elementary school, elementary education

Boolean Search Statement
search statement 1
su=(teaching methods OR teaching models OR instructional materials) AND (research skills OR information skills OR student research) AND (library instruction OR information literacy OR library skills) AND (elementary school OR elementary education)

results: 52 records

Citations:
Milam, P. (2002). InfoQuest: A New Twist on Information Literacy. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Eisenberg M. and Berkowitz R. (1999) Teaching Information and Technology Skills: The Big 6(TM) in Elementary Schools. Professional Growth Series. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Reflection:
ERIC/FirstSearch was an excellent database to use for this query. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center. Since the query has to do with teaching elementary school students I felt this database would be definitely have information that would answer the query. This database had many records that provide information and resources about teaching elementary school students research skill in a school library.

The building block strategy is getting easier to use each time I use it. I just need to make sure to include all possible synonyms for each facet. There were a lot of subject terms to use after I added synonyms and searched for subject headings for those synonyms. After I identified synonyms and subject terms for "teach" it made a HUGE difference in the retrieval set. There were so many more pertinent records to the query.