1) Number of participants?

10-20

2) Who was the audience for the class/workshop/activity?

F1R$T, self-selected seminar for first-gen students who did not participate in BLAST, BEST or BEAST.

3) Describe your experience planning with the instructor.

Talked with Anna Rodriguez who ran the seminar: students were not working on research projects for her class, did not seem to have many questions about library research in general.

4) What were your goals for the class/workshop/activity?

Wanted to find a way to reflect on the “big picture” of research and how/where the library fits in.

5) Describe the session(s) and the logistics of any hands-on activities.

Talking with colleagues and Kristin suggested iSquares. Liked that it incorporated a visual component and would provide a good starting point for conversation.

Made up 2 pages of cards using Word, cards were quarter-page sized. One set had “Information is…” and the other had “Research is…” Brought gel pens, colored pencils and fine point colored markers to class for students to use.

Introduced the activity as a way for students to think about what information and research are, and a chance to represent complicated topics in a visual way. Gave the students 7 minutes to draw the “Information is…” card, and then had them put their cards in the middle of the table and discuss in their small groups: What were similarities/differences in your drawings? What themes emerged? We then talked for about 10 minutes as a large group, before starting the 7 minute drawing period for “Research is…” Students shared their cards again in the middle of their tables and talked in small groups before we had a larger conversation about similarities/differences in their research cards and more broadly, similarities/differences between their information drawings and their research drawings. The conversation took interesting turns, including what drawings included technology or specific company names (Google), which drawings had people in them and what their expressions were and even a conversation about the monetary cost of information.

After the activity, I showed a brief slide with how research looks different across disciplines, which allowed me to highlight that there’s no one “right way” to do research. We then talked about the different parts of scholarly articles, as producing scholarship is one thing all researchers have in common. Students shared what each part of a scholarly article contained and we talked briefly about which parts you may want to read first if you were in a time crunch.

Lastly, I talked about how and where the library fits in: our collections, interlibrary loan, loanable technology, support from subject librarians, the Data Lab/DDS/DCA, etc. This was the part of the exercise where I did the most talking, which I felt okay about, as some students did ask questions.

6) What went well? What might you do differently next time?

If I were doing this again, I would draft more guiding questions rather than just doing it off the cuff. The discussion was good but I did have to probe students some and that could be challenging if you’re not good at on the fly discussions.

The entire class took about an hour but I can see it taking longer if depending on how you structured the iSquares activity.