This exercise scaffolds Google and Library resources in order to help students prepare for "career conversations" with industry professionals. The presentation is designed for a business communication class in which students conduct industry research as prepartion for a strategic professional networking assignment. The assumption exercise is designed explicitly to encourage students to question their assumptions about librarians and other career professionals. Padlet is used to encourage group work and for assessment purposes.

The goal of this activity is to help students develop a broader understanding of the purpose of academic research assignments, by helping to identify some of the common misconceptions that they might have about research assignments. This could also be used as a low-stakes activity or assignment at the beginning of a research project to help clarify expectations.

The goal of this activity is to help students start to develop an understanding of research as an ongoing process of inquiry, rather than a straightforward process of compiling information on a topic. Students develop initial definitions of “research as inquiry,” review and discuss resources related to the concept, revise their definitions, and reflect on how the concept relates to their research practices.  

This is a fun, hands-on activity that can help with brainstorming a topic and/or reserach question. Can also function as an ice-breaker! The results can be informative...and also sometimes entertaining!On the slip of paper (attachment), students write their name and a Population that they'd like to focus on. then they hand it off to another student, who fills in a Place. They then hand it off to a third student, who fills in a Problem. Finally, the slip is returned to its original owner who must formulate a research question based on those three pieces of information. 

This Worksheet is based on Mike Caulfield’s S.I.F.T. Method. Students will first need to have a familiarity with that. I highly recommend the “S.I.F.T. For Teachers” video playlist on his YouTube channel and/or his website.This activity would probably take most of a class period. Could also be done online via a Discussion.

Tabs: Books, Ebooks, Vidoes, Articles, Podcasts, Resources for Your Students

This LibGuide is used when teaching a 30 minute workshop for Honors students who are required to research an immigration story from their own family tree.  They have to research their geneology to the point where they find an ancestor who immigrated to the United States. They will try to find why that immigrant came to America and whether they are part of a particular wave of migration, i.e. slavery, Irish potato famine, industrialization, etc...Since everyone's family story is unique, and some students know their history and others are still building their family tree, we start the workshop with a Choose-Your-Adventure type quiz. Students are encouraged to pick where they are in the research process and are ultimately led to 3-4 resource suggestions that are likely to work, whether searching for obituaries in local newspapers, searching Ellis Island records, or regional migration research from a variety of resources. 

This LibGuide is used when teaching a 30 minute workshop for Honors students who are required to research an immigration story from their own family tree.  They have to research their geneology to the point where they find an ancestor who immigrated to the United States. They will try to find why that immigrant came to America and whether they are part of a particular wave of migration, i.e. slavery, Irish potato famine, industrialization, etc...Since everyone's family story is unique, and some students know their history and others are still building their family tree, we start the workshop with a Choose-Your-Adventure type quiz. Students are encouraged to pick where they are in the research process and are ultimately led to 3-4 resource suggestions that are likely to work, whether searching for obituaries in local newspapers, searching Ellis Island records, or regional migration research from a variety of resources. 

These materials accompany the book chapter “Using Critically Appraised Topics to Teach Evidence-based Management to Graduate Business Students” from Teaching Business Information Literacy published by ACRL Press.

This is a brainstorming activity in which students work in groups that each spend time (approx. 2-3 min.) at 3 different stations.