Best Practice Example

Name: Karen Pope
Title: Assistant Professor
Institution: UW-Eau Claire
Street Address: PO Box 4004
City/State/Zip: Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004
Phone: 715-836-2959
Email: popekj@uwec.edu
Fax: 715-836-2906

Title of practice of implementation method: Give Students the Brush

Primary Audience: Introductory; university classes of all disciplines
Secondary Audience: high school classes; fun with faculty?

Describe the practice: This is a fun ice-breaker activity that takes about 5-10 minutes, encourages active participation, peer collaboration and requires careful attention to search "language", broad and narrow terms and choice of information source. I arrive early enough to distribute onto desktops a variety of brushes of all sizes and shapes for all uses. I have about 30 or so. Students are asked to look around and think of ONE word that fits ALL the objects. Then they are asked to walk around and/or work together to construct several groups of the objects based on similarities. This could be by shape, by function, etc. and then to explain that grouping. There is no right or wrong answer, nor is there always agreement about categories. Then students are asked to design a search statement to find information about their object. For example, if the brush was a make-up brush, they might ask: "When did this idea of a brush first come into use?" or "What segment of the population uses make-up brushes?" Then we look at the database lists and decide where the best source might be for finding that information. Are we thinking of the history of personal adornment? The marketing of make-up accessories? Depending on the question, the choice of information resource will vary widely. Then we discuss how our concepts of what we are looking for might vary with the words we choose to describe our concept and how that changes if we become more general or specific.

Comments: It's fun to let students work from something very concrete, "in hand". They don't see database decision-making and searching as being tied to controlled vocabulary or careful design of search statements.

Competencies addressed through this practice:
2. Identify and select appropriate information sources.
3. Formulate and efficiently execute search queries appropriate for the information resource.
4. Interpret and analyze search results and select relevant sources.
8. Self-assess the information-seeking processes used.

Supporting materials/resources used and their format: Household "stuff" gathered from almost every room and the garage.

Special Requirements: No

References consulted: This idea came out of a conference session discussion at the 1999 (?) LOEX conference. To the best of my recollection, creative credit goes to Evan Cornell from, I believe, the U. of Pittsburg for the inspiration. Please don't quote me on this one!

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