This learning session, led by a librarian, is for first-year community college students in an academic library setting. The intention of this session is to scaffold onto existing research writing skills acquired in previous education, as well as use of popular video sharing platforms to obtain information, like TikTok. Informative videos produced by everyday people are a growing form of intellectual connection between all audiences and scholarly sources based on relatability, as well as visibility of marginalized issues larger news organizations do not address. When the information messenger is familiar yet dynamic in their presentation and provides information that the public is not informed on, viewers are more inclined to listen than if it were just a research paper or a scholarly representative of a research community. There are, however, citation issues and basic research principles missing in several of these videos, based solely on most video sharing platform’s intention to obtain engagement, not to responsibly inform/educate its users. As researchers, it is crucial to discern engagement-intended, incendiary content with informative, well-researched content that our neighbors are making, even if their intentions are good.

This workshop engages participants in exploring corporate data collection, personal profiling, deceptive design, and data brokerage practices. Workshop content is contextualized with the theoretical frameworks of panoptic sort (Gandy), surveillance capitalism (Zuboff), and the four regulators (Lessig) and presented through a privacy and business ethics lens. Participants will learn how companies make money from data collection practices; explore how interface design can influence our choices and behaviors; and discuss business ethics regarding privacy and big data.
The workshop is designed for 75-minute class sessions, but can be compressed into 60-minute sessions.
Includes workshop guide, presentation slides, learning activities, and assessment instrument.

Description: The Database Scavenger Hunt engages pairs of students in locating specific information or performing specific tasks across multiple resources. Each team works through a series of 16 questions/tasks, with verification of correct answers from the librarian/professor after every 1 or 2 questions, then places a mark on the corresponding wall grid of questions once an answer is deemed correct. The process repeats until the team completes all questions.

The wall grid acts as a way to track where teams are in the game and creates a light-weight race to finish first. (Optional: provide a small prize to either the first team to finish or do a drawing of all teams that finished to give out a prize). See image below of completed wall-grid, with each color/shape of sticky note representing a different team.

Verifying answers after each/every 2 questions ensures students are finding the correct information and completing the tasks. Once a majority of teams complete all 16 questions, there is a group discussion of difficult questions and demoing of any specific problem areas. Before the activity begins, the librarian/instructor can demo where to find databases & database descriptions on the library webpage and mention how to log in. 

Questions can be customized to match the class/subject area. The example attached below is for an undergraduate research group. Examples of changes include: switching databases & examples, focusing on different types of information (patents, standards, handbooks, webpages, etc.), changing tasks based on assignment needs, etc.

Note: Because of the verification step, this activity is best with groups of 20 or less and with the assistance of either the professor or another colleague. 

Materials Needed:

• Question sheet for each student
• Answer sheet for each librarian/professor/instructor
• Wall grid, cut into half-size pages
• Sticky notes (or some method of distinguishing team marks on grid)
• Tape to adhere grid to wall
• Prize (optional)

An icebreaker activity for students at any level, “Visualizing Research” employs tactile or kinesthetic learning techniques to illustrate research as inquiry. This group activity can be used in a variety of disciplines and contexts. By having students create and share visual models of their ideas or experiences with research, the lesson plan increases classroom engagement and supports an understanding of the iterative process of research.

This algorithmic literacy workshop puts a new spin on media literacy by moving beyond fake news to examine the algorithms that shape our online experiences and how we encounter information in our everyday lives.

A lesson plan for a 45-minute lower-division Sociology class. The texts used in the plan are Elijah Anderson (1999) Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City and Thomas L. McNulty and Paul E. Bellair (2003), “Explaining Racial and Ethnic Differences in Serious Adolescent Violent Behavior,” which the students were to have read in advance.

Annotated bibliographies have become a popular assignment in college courses and a way to scaffold research papers. Gathering a bibliography before turning in a completed research project allows students to focus on searching strategically and get feedback on the sources they obtained. Annotating that bibliography requires them to think critically about the sources they choose and their relationship to the research at hand. While there are numerous guides and examples that show students the format of an annotation, there are very few that connect annotations to research questions or guide students through making those connections. This lesson plan Uses Joseph Bizup’s BEAM Method from the realm of rhetoric studies to help students think about how sources are used and adds an additional layer of support. This support bridges the gap between a student recognizing a source is generally related to their topic, and thinking critically about how that source is used to answer a research question. 

Bizup, Joseph. "BEAM: A rhetorical vocabulary for teaching research-based writing." Rhetoric Review 27, no. 1 (2008): 72-86.