Friday, September 28, 2007

Information Literacy and Library Orientation

Today was Library Orientation and we did something different today. In the past the group was divided in half as well as the time. Each group was led by a staff member. One gave a tour and the other (usually the librarian) gave lessons on using the online catalog and the online databases. Then they switched groups (halves).

We are now doing ‘embedded teaching’ in the English class to teach how to use the catalog and databases. So today we had the obligatory tour, a short explanation of the call number configuration; 15 minutes to read the handbook and review special points. We ended with a game they really enjoyed.

The group was divided into four teams. Each team was given a list of various areas in the library with a color to look for. Each team had to go down their list and find a colored sheet of paper that was their color. (Blue team looked for blue paper.) After all their sheets were found they came to the front desk, picked up their quiz and left.

It was a full, packed class hour but they seemed to enjoy the game. Oh yes, one other thing – they had to hold on to each other’s wrist (or sleeve if they objected!) and had 2 ½ minutes to complete it. They seemed to really have fun with this. One student questioned “holding wrists.” I told them that holding hands was against the rules, not wrists, ;-). They wanted to know what to do. I told them “enjoy it!” They got a kick out of that. Interestingly enough a few of these college students felt squeamish about holding someone else’s wrist! I didn’t think anyone at this age would object to that!!! But allowances were made! The goal was accomplished. That was the point. And it was fun.

No comments: