Librarians provide discipline-specific research instruction for classes. Research instruction is developed with instructors to create a session or series of sessions for a particular class or assignment. These sessions can include demonstrations of electronic resources, evaluation of resources, internet searching, and more. Most of our instruction provides hands-on, active, and collaborative learning. Librarians will be glad to teach in the library instruction room or in your classroom.
Instructional outcomes are often best achieved through a short series of instruction sessions over the quarter. For example, the first session might cover library databases and search terms, a second session might include evaluation of resources, and a third session might include information on plagiarism and citation styles. Each of these sessions could be coordinated with your class syllabus. Here are some of the areas we can cover in our sessions either as individual topics or as a combination:
- Library tour, overview of the library website, and library services
- The research process, formulating a thesis, and keyword searching
- Topic exploration and background sources
- Online catalog and searching basics (including Boolean logic)
- Effective periodical database searching
- Identifying differences between scholarly, popular, and trade articles, and between primary and secondary sources
- Effective Internet searching and website evaluation
- Plagiarism issues and citation styles
In order to support faculty and student scholarship in developing information literacy skills at our college, the WCC Library is growing our hybrid tutorials and instruction that are mapped to specific indicators and follow best practices in online pedagogy as well as accessibility. Information Literacy is one of 5 Core Learning Abilities at WCC and is defined as:
The ability to identify an information need and to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively and ethically.
Creating effective library assignments
A librarian is also available to meet with you to create an effective assignment or to provide feedback on research assignments. Call the reference desk at 360.383.3285 to make an appointment with a librarian.