would. Many librarians in the K-12 world, at least in my experience with
them, are much too busy running their library to take the time to become
facile with with database searching and are not prepared to teach this
skill. Furthermore, how can one or two librarians effectively impart
these skills to hundreds or thousands of students in addition to their
other responsibilities? Many schools, due to financial circumstances have
either cut way back on library support and staffing or cut it out
entirely, so in some schools there may be no librarian to teach these
skills. Then there is the issue of curriculum against one classroom visit
a year or semester of about say one hour and lots of other topics that can
be discussed by a librarian, such as showing great books from the school
library. Database searching is a skill that needs to be taught if this is
a skill to be effectively learned over a series of classes with hands on
practice for students. If not taught as a skill with some time spent on
teaching this skill, not much will be learned. Can one imagine a
mathematics specialist teaching a couple of classes a year to teach
students in two hours the basics of algebra? If this is a bad way to
teach mathematics skills, what makes this an appropriate method for
teaching research skills? If teaching of research skills is not made part
of the curriculum and integrated into the courses taught, these skills so
important to much other learning and to self directed learning will be
brushed over or ignored in many schools just as they are today. Indeed,
those who visit classes to teach for a session or two and do not give
grades or have the ability to test or provide graded assignments have less
power to command interest and attention of the class listeners. Indeed
those assigning research projects should know much more about the tools
used to conduct this research than they do. One could ask why so many
teachers in so many schools are unaware of state provided databases for
student research. Are not the librarians at these schools who should be
teaching about database skills according to the comments I read, telling
teachers about these tools and encouraging them to use them and
encouraging them to tell their students to use them? It seems to me that
if K-12 schools want student success in post-secondary education for their
graduates, much more needs to be done to enrich student research skills
including training in the use of databases in order to facilitate these
graduates to do college level research. The teaching of these skills
needs to be a graded part of the curriculum so that there is confidence
that it is being taught and so that assessment can be employed to
determine that these skills are learned.
Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@temple.edu
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On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, SUZANNE J FELDBERG wrote:
> In response to David's comments on navigating databases...I beg to
> differ. Learning to navigate and make proper use of online databases and
> digital information is where school librarians should be stepping in. If
> librarians in your school aren't teaching these skills I would find out
> why. A school librarian is trained to teach how to disseminate
> information be it online or on paper. They also should be teaching (in
> this context) about plagiarism, the difference between a website and a
> database, and how to conduct a successful search for information.
> I realize that it is tough for teachers to give up time to librarians to
> work with students on these goals, but as we all know, collaboration is
> key to our student's success.
> Suzanne Feldberg
> Upper School Librarian
> Albuquerque Academy
<snip>
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