Inspiring Curiosity

Cassinelli, Colette. Inspiring Curiosity: The Librarian's Guide to Inquiry-Based Learning. International Society for Technology in Education, 2018. ISBN: 978-1-56-484672-3

Note: The author is a teacher librarian at Sunset High School in Beaverton, Oregon.

Publisher's Description
Inspiring Curiosity is a practical guide for secondary school librarians as they collaborate with teachers and students to develop inquiry-based research projects. With success stories from librarians all over the U.S. illustrating how they’ve guided teachers and students through the research process, this book provides strategies for using memorable events to activate students’ natural curiosity and activities for generating essential questions for exploration.

The book includes:

• Ideas and resources to help librarians be more effective in research and inquiry.
• Tips for developing search strategies, locating and curating resources, evaluating sources and celebrating students’ inquiry beyond the traditional research paper.
• Lessons and assessment ideas to keep librarians current on information literacy topics.

Written for librarians by a librarian, this book will help librarians collaborate with classroom teachers on inquiry projects and offers new ideas and insights to inspire them in the process.

Student's Survival Guide to Research

McAdoo, Monty L. The Student's Survival Guide to Research. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-8389-1276-8

Publisher's Description
Jumping head first into a research project is a surefire recipe for stress and confusion. But if you’re a newbie, how do you know where to begin, let alone where to go from there? Library instruction expert McAdoo has penned a primer specifically tailored to novice researchers, offering beginning-to-end guidance for every step of the research process, from planning and preparing to conducting and writing. Structured in a way that’s easy to digest, McAdoo shows students...

• what research is and what it entails, the stages of research, and the elements of a term paper;
• the essential steps in preparing for research, and how to understand the assignment;
• how libraries and librarians can help;
• pointers for selecting a research topic and appropriate information tools;
• strategies for conducting searches that will save time and effort, from using keywords to constructing more sophisticated searches;
• how to understand, read, and evaluate search results;
• the dos and don’ts of conducting research ethically, including how to cite sources and how and why to avoid plagiarism; and
• guidance for shaping research results into quality writing.

Students will appreciate the book’s clear and concise language regarding the research process, while teachers, faculty, YA staff, and academic librarians will find it a valuable tool for information literacy.

Table of Contents
List of Figures
Introduction

Chapter 1    What Is Research?
Chapter 2    Preparing for Research
Chapter 3    Understanding Libraries and Librarians
Chapter 4    Understanding Your Assignment
Chapter 5    Selecting a Research Topic
Chapter 6    Locating Information Resources
Chapter 7    Accessing and Acquiring Information Resources
Chapter 8    Constructing Effective Search Strategies
Chapter 9    Understanding Search Results
Chapter 10    Reading and Evaluating Information
Chapter 11    Conducting Ethically and Legally Responsible Research
Chapter 12    Writing Your Paper
Chapter 13    Sample Search

Glossary
Index

A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research

Schmidt, R. K. (2013). A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
ISBN: 978-1-61069-287-8

Publisher's Description

A Guided Inquiry Approach to High School Research is derived from a formal research protocol and provides proven techniques and supporting materials that facilitate the process for permitting students to choose their own topic, easily grasping how to search for information, and successfully completing a seemingly daunting research assignment—a process that makes understandings deep and integrative. The included detailed project lessons, student handouts, and rubrics and assessment tools are the result of many years of classroom testing and refinement.

Features

• Introduces the Information Search Process to students

• Supplies step-by-step lesson plans that educators can utilize to guide students with their chosen inquiry

• Examines the task of the teaching team in guiding students in their inquiry and to provide them with the skills to find, process, and synthesize new information on their own

Rx for the Common Core

Ratzer, Mary B., and Paige Jaeger. Rx for the Common Core: Toolkit for Implementing Inquiry Learning. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-61069-545-9

Publisher's Description
...Providing clear explanations of inquiry-based learning in the light of the Common Core, this book is a practical and graphical guide that will serve as a much-needed primer for librarians and educators.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are putting educators under pressure to examine what works and what doesn't. Even with the best efforts, integrating new strategies into daily practice in the classroom or library can be frustrating. This book will help. Providing a professional development toolkit that trains school librarians and teachers and enables them to train others, it presents a sequence of scaffolded essential questions that results in a customized blueprint for effective teaching. The book assembles background building blocks for inquiry and the Common Core, illustrates and connects key concepts on how to introduce inquiry-based learning, and provides effective tools for igniting the Common Core through inquiry-based learning methods. Developed from the crucible of six years of professional development to real-world audiences with deep experience in teaching and school librarianship, this book makes implementing inquiry learning and embracing the Common Core easier for classroom teachers and school librarians who understand the value of these teaching methods but are unsure of the best way to implement them.

Features
• Presents essential questions and key concepts as the framework for efficient, effective change
• Provides readers with an understanding of the basics of inquiry learning and preparation to use methods and tools to implement inquiry learning
• Explains the rationale for the need to redesign instruction in the context of 21st century education
• Examines the Common Core and its relationship to inquiry learning
• Prepares readers to use a toolkit for implementation of the skills called for in the CCSS, such as synthesis and evaluation, and in order to train others in the implementation of inquiry-based learning and the CCSS

Sample Topics
Assessment
Backwards Design
Common Core State Standards
Defining Inquiry
Engaging Learners
Generation Y
Rigor and Relevance
Self Assessment
Synthesis

The New Digital Scholar

McClure, Randall, and James P. Purdy, eds. The New Digital Scholar: Exploring and Enriching the Research and Writing Practices of NextGen Students. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-57387-475-5

Publisher's Description

[This book] presents innovative thinking and groundbreaking research on the challenges NextGen students face with research-writing projects. Reminding readers of the history of the academic research paper and the scope of the recent information explosion, editors McClure and Purdy open a discussion long silent in academic circles—that the teaching of research-writing is mired in practices poorly suited for digital natives. Through the experiences and analyses of more than 20 writing teachers, library science professionals, and higher education administrators, the book examines research-writing in practice, revealing what has been learned, what works, and what doesn't. Practitioners describe teaching methods and research projects suited for the new digital scholar—concepts not only rooted in traditional academic research values, but designed for the information universe NextGen students inhabit.

Basic Research Methods for Librarians

 

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni and Ronald R. Power. Basic Research Methods for Librarians, 5th ed. Libraries Unlimited, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-59158-865-8

Basic Description

Addressed to practicing librarians and other information professionals, as well as master's and doctoral students in LIS programs, Basic Research Methods for Librarians, Fifth Edition specifically covers the research methodologies likely to be used by librarians, providing guidance on designing and conducting research and publishing research results.

Chapters include:

• Research and Librarianship
• Developing the Research Study
• Selecting the Research Method
• Survey Research and Sampling
• Data Collection Techniques
• Experimental Research
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Historical Research
• Analysis of Data
• Writing the Research Proposal
• Writing the Research Report

Navigating the Information Tsunami

 

Fontichiaro, Kristin, ed. Navigating the Information Tsunami: Engaging Research Projects That Meet the Common Core State Standards, K-5. Ann Arbor, MI: Cherry Lake Publishing, 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-61080-868-2 

Publisher's Description

The implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) calls on educators to refresh and sharpen their skills in reading, writing, math...and research! Research in the Internet Age creates new challenges for search, comprehension, synthesis, and creation skills. In Navigating the Information Tsunami: Engaging Research Projects that Meet the Common Core State Standards, K-5, we've created our first book geared directly at teachers, administrators, and librarians. Expert practitioners in research pedagogy share their best tips and lessons in nearly 20 projects that invite students to think deeply, weigh choices, make decisions, and articulate them in digital or print projects. With an eye toward the how and not merely the what of quality research for emerging readers and young scholars, our contributors provide detailed guidance on how teachers can harness students' natural curiosity to go beyond fact-gathering and exceed CCSS expectations.

View the table of contents and read an excerpt from the book.

Teaching for Inquiry: Engaging the Learner Within

Small, Ruth V., et al. Teaching for Inquiry: Engaging the Learner Within. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2011. ISBN: 9781555707552

From the publisher:
Make AASL’s 21st Century Learning Standards a reality in your school with this practical guide!

The American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL’s) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner define “inquiry” as a “stance toward learning in which the learner is engaged in asking questions and finding answers, not simply accumulating facts presented by someone else that have no relation to previous learning or new understanding. Inquiry follows a continuum of learning experiences, from simply discovering a new idea or an answer to a question to following a complete inquiry process.”

Inquiry is a crucial vantage point for teaching information literacy, but where can school librarians turn for help meeting those standards?

Written by a “dream team” of school library leaders, Teaching for Inquiry will focus on this process, helping school library media specialists actively engage and motivate their students in learning. The authors go over the most important instructional models and help readers integrate these and new standards into their own teaching.

The book even comes with a companion Web site including videos of librarians teaching and student learning that bring the various teaching techniques and motivational strategies described in the book to life! www.teachingforinquiry.net

The planning tools, models, and methods featured in Teaching for Inquiry will provide essential guidance to librarians looking to engage their students in the world of information.

Teaching Information Literacy: 50 Standards-based Exercises for College Students. 2nd Ed.

Burkhardt, Joanna and Mary C. MacDonald. Teaching Information Literacy: 50 Standards-based Exercises for College Students. 2nd Ed. Chicago: ALA, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8389-1053-5 028.70711 Birkh 2nd ed.

From high schools and colleges to technical and graduate schools, research involves making sense of information: learning the basics of planning, winnowing, and evaluating the quality of sources. As information proliferates, it's tempting to use the handiest tool rather than working to identify the best one. But there's a better way! Updated for today's ever-expanding world of electronic information, Teaching Information Literacy: 50 Standards-Based Exercises for College Students, Second Edition is the best single resource for fundamental information literacy instruction. Covering the basics of planning, collecting, and evaluating, the exercises in this book . Address one of more of the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.Promote conceptual and applied skills via active learning, problem-based learning, and resource-based learning.Are ready for use by reference and instruction librarians at colleges and community colleges, as well as others responsible for teaching students how to conduct research.These 50 lessons can be used as a full semester course or as a single focused seminar or workshop, and show how to engage with electronic and print information resources alike.

A Good Match: Library Career Opportunities for Graduates of Liberal Arts Colleges

Watson-Boone, Rebecca A. A Good Match: Library Career Opportunities for Graduates of Liberal Arts Colleges. Chicago: ALA, 2007. 020.2373 Watso ISBN:0-8389-0941-8

In this seminal reserach, Watson-Boone investigates the realtionship between a liberal arts education and a career in librarianship, drawing on her survey of 431 librarians who graduated from eight liberal arts colleges - Carleton, Denison, Earlham, Grinnell, Kalamazoo, Lawrence, Macalester, and Swarthmore - from 1962 - 2000. Following up related studies and connecting to broader library career issues, this study complements prior quantitative studies with a qualitative approach covering 39 years. Topics include how schools and families influence career choice, how librarians assess their careers, and how librarians' functions have changed over the past four decades.

Build Your Own Information Literate School (Book)

Koechlin, Carol, and Sandi Zwaan. Build Your Own Information Literate School. Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2003.
ISBN: 0-931510-89-9

This is a must have for all library teachers who are working with staff on research projects and ties in so well with the OSLIS resources available for such projects. I’m very impressed with the number and quality of the templates and rubrics. I especially like the Research Reflections and Assessing My Effort Student Templates. Jeri Petzel from Wilsonville recommended this book at her session at the OEMA Fall Conference. Check it out now!

The book has in-depth sections on Define and Clarify the Research Process; Locate and Retrieve; Select, Process, and Record Data; Analyze; Synthesize; Share and Use; Reflect, Transfer and Apply, and Adding It all Up.