This column is a collaborative effort by library media specialists and K-16 educators who write about the motivational strategies that have worked for them in teaching IL skills. Motivational strategies include ways to gain and sustain attention, increase relevance for learning information literacy skills, build confidence in students' developing research abilities, promote a continuing motivation to engage in research on a topic, or provide satisfaction with research accomplishments. Please find out how you can contribute your tried n' true motivational strategies to this column.

Elementary School | Middle School | High School | College Level

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Students as Ambassadors for the Library, by Sue Kowalski, LMS

When a customer believes in the products and services a company has to offer, that customer becomes a powerful force in the marketing and promotion of the business. That same happy customer is likely to share his positive experiences with others and initiate a chain reaction of “word on the street.” Libraries, like all businesses, have happy customers and need to tap into their energy to serve as ambassadors of all that is amazing in the library. In my school library, for example, I have several “teams” of ambassadors that help me spread news about upcoming events (book fairs, guest speakers, community events, contests and more!). I have a staff of classroom ambassadors in grades 1-5 who work on a rotating basis in the morning to collect books, make deliveries, hang promotional materials, and make morning announcements on the PA system. My after school book club students are a powerful team as well and they, too, are empowered to deliver news, information, and “hot news” to parents, teachers, and peers. Additionally, we’ve held several Library Expos, structured events in which students at one grade level teach all aspects of the library program to younger students. I consistently rely on the power of happy customers to promote what our library has to offer. It is essential that a library staff empower its patrons to play a significant role in the promotion and marketing of its programs, services, and materials. Don’t let your library remain a “well-kept secret.” Get out the good word!

Motivation in a 5th Grade Revolutionary Hero Unit, by Loretta Johnson, LMS

This year, for our fifth grade Revolutionary Hero Unit, 5th grade teacher Shelly Simpson and I decided we wanted to design a project that helped kids really understand a significant moment in the lives of the persons they were studying. We needed the project to be fun, different from what we usually do, and helpful for building the background knowledge our kids need. We decided to have the kids create a clay scene to depict an event in the life of their Revolutionary War hero. Students took digital pictures of the results, made a PowerPoint slide show and set the computer up to run in our display window. Use of clay and technology helped students to visualize and understand what they were reading. The project got their attention and kept their interest. We built confidence by breaking down instruction to steps that were understandable. Students and teachers were very proud of the result!

Some of us were a little troubled that one 5th grade boy depicted Nathan Hale hanging by his neck from a tree! However, we think it helped all of us to realize the violent nature of war and the sacrifices our founding fathers made for the freedoms we enjoy today.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Motivational Strategies That Work With Middle Schools, by Sharon O'Connell, LMS

Motivational strategies that I have used with my middle school students to gain and sustain attention, promote relevance, build and reinforce confidence, and increase satisfaction in their research skills include the following:

• Interesting showcases; dynamic programs

• Real life experiences tied to units - veterans, Hiroshima survivor, Poetry Slam, writing for first graders
• Bookmarks listing books of interest (e.g., "8th" grade only")

• Create samples of projects students are assigned, analyzing information and supply needs, trouble spots
• Create pathfinders for major units
• Defer critical thoughts and rephrase them positively just before the other person needs them to do better -- often with teachers, as well as students

• Treat each library aide as I would a volunteer, trying to find what they really like to do (as much as possible)
• Showcase student products
   

HIGH SCHOOL

Working with Special Needs Students, by Sharon L. Bush, LMS

Our high school has a number of students with special needs. Since they are not inclusion students, they often don't have the opportunity to use the library and our resources. We designed a project to reach out to them and help them use library materials, online resources and computer techology. Students created their own "cookbooks" by finding some of their favorite recipes online and in books we had in our library. They copied their recipes into a word document and inserted photographs of their dishes. Students enjoyed the process of researching, designing and creating books like "Cooking with Bobby" and "Ashley's Favorites." Upon completion, we bound and laminated each cookbook. The students were so proud of their work and enjoyed sharing them with their classmates and families!

Don't "Just Say No" to WebQuests, by Michael Nailor, LMS

A health teacher from my high school wanted to put some life into his lessons on drug and alcohol abuse. He came looking for instructional ideas. He noted that students are tired of the same old messages on substance abuse and that he wanted them to do Internet research that was not a chore. In the past he was frustrated by the vast amount of Web information out there on drugs and alcohol and frustrated by the fact that students used the first site that showed up on Google without analyzing its quality.

He had heard a little about constructivist learning and had attended a conference where they discussed WebQuests. That was my cue. I suggested that we teach the students about WebQuests by using ones that already existed on the Internet and then challenge them to create their own. I did a mini-lesson on constructivist learning and WebQuests. We examined together four alcohol-related WebQuests (two created by teachers and two created by students) and tried to imagine that we had been assigned to go on these WebQuests. We created a list of good and bad aspects of WebQuests; this list turned into the health teacher’s rubric for this assignment. With a little guidance from their librarian, the first criterion that the students suggested was that the WebQuest must contain high quality Internet sites with reliable health information.

Students picked an illegal drug and were turned loose with the free WebQuest maker that is available at http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/ called Filamentality. They created their own learning situation and found quality Internet resources that each person in that situation might need. The students then created their own WebQuest using the template provided. Filamentality makes posting the WebQuest on the Internet a one-click operation! Student oral presentations and the feedback they received focused on the quality of the Internet sites included in their WebQuests and the overall quality of the WebQuests. So in about five periods of work in the library, students had interesting, interactive products to display. Drug abuse education and information literacy skills worked hand-in-hand to keep the students aware and interested.

COLLEGE LEVEL

Fun with Wikipedia, by Dr. Scott Nicholson, Assistant Professor

One of the challenges I face is having students who believe that Wikipedia is the single best source. While Wikipedia is sometimes good, the lack of quality control and the fact that the entries can be easily changed produces an unpredictable resource. Here’s a short in-class exercise that I use to explore Wikipedia. I ask each student to think about a topic about which they are an expert; if I feel it’s needed, I record these topics before asking them to search to avoid students changing topics. I then ask them to go to the Wikipedia entry for that topic and evaluate the site. I give them criteria based upon some of the same criteria librarians use in quality determination for collection development of reference materials: Currency, Scope, Accuracy, Impartiality, Authority, Audience Level. I then have them report their findings to the class. Typically, some entries are great and other entries are not very good. This exercise can lead into several discussions:

1. When is Wikipedia a good choice as a resource?
2. What other types of resources could they use for more credible information? (In this task, they knew something about the topic.)
3. If a topic were new to them, how could they tell if the Wikipedia entry was credible?
4. What is the role of the library in finding information? (This is a great time to bring in the criteria that they had to think about earlier as a way of demonstrating value of library services.)

Periodical Comparisons, by Abby Kasowitz-Scheer, Academic Librarian