Educational Psychology 100 has library instruction built into the curriculum, with each class section attending  3 library sessions. Each session focuses on specific facets of building information literacy skills. Each class is made up of students with diverse backgrounds and widely varying levels of information literacy.

Educational Psychology 100 Course Guide 

Session One: Finding Articles 

 An in-depth introduction on finding articles. The class discusses the difference and uses of scholarly and popular articles, watching a quick and informative video on the topic. Students view several articles and are they asked to take a poll to determine if the article is scholarly or popular. The poll allows students to see how well they are grasping the concept, as well as allowing the instructor to gauge the classes level of understanding.

The class has a discussion about what a database actually is. I try to find the best analogies I can to make this idea less abstract for students. I will then navigate to the Search @ UW page, making sure to take my time and explain my steps. I will often retrace my steps again, as it is very common for some students navigating slower than others. We then discuss how we would begin to search using this tool. However, we take a trip back to Ed Psych Course Guide to the Find Article Tab. This is a good launching point for a discussion of good search strategies, specifically for UW-Search. This also allows students to remember that the course guide is available for use at home.

After the discussion of search strategies, I demonstrate UW-Search by utilizing the course topic of career research. As I am demonstrating I am talking through the thought process of the search strategy, and requesting student feedback through questions like: What other key words could we use here? Should we put any limits on this search?

The students are then given time to conduct their own UW-Search, as I walk around the room observing and assisting. This is a good time for informal assessment of the session/activities. After the exercise the class comes back together to discuss. I will ask the students if they hit any roadblocks, or saw anything unfamiliar. It is common after a search exercise for students to ask questions about particular items, “My article said ____, what does this mean?”

The class then moves on to a search engine, Google Scholar. There is a brief demonstration including showing students how to connect Google Scholar to the UWM and to RefWorks if appropriate. I use the same topic (a specific career) as I did for UW-Search to demonstrate the different results from each system. Students are then given the opportunity to find articles using Google Scholar, as I walk around and observe. The class will then come back together to discuss results.

At this point, I will remind students of the various ways to get help in the library both physically and virtually. The remainder of the class time is allotted for students to continue researching for their course project.

Session Two: Finding Books and E-Books in the Library and Library Tour 

This session begins at the Ed Psych Course Guide, on the Books tab. I talk about how the catalog works and how to use it to find books, specifically. I demonstrate how to find books in Search @ UW, pointing out the many features including location, the send-to menu, requests, UB, and ILL. I  go into detail about how to read the call number, and how to determine where in the library a call number will be located. Students are then given time to find a book that they can use for their course project, and are instructed to write down the call number. This process is then repeated with E-books.

After this portion, the remaining class time is dedicated to a physical tour of the UWM libraries. I point out all the important resources the library has to offer. While in the stacks, each student is given a call number to find, and brings the book back to me to check. If a student has a call number from the exercise earlier, they are allowed to find that book and check it out.

Session Three: Citing Sources 

During this session students create RefWorks accounts. They will then learn how to use various features of RefWorks to create bibliographies, as well as how to move citations from Google Scholar and UW-Search into RefWorks. I’ve often found that students also like to learn how to use RefWorks when searching a database, so I usually go through that as well.

The class begins on the Ed Psych Course Guide on the Cite Sources tab.  I point out the various aspects of citations . Students then participate in an exercise in which they create their own citations by dragging and dropping the segments together until they are in the right order. Students then answer a poll:





After the quiz, I will then transition by telling students that the library has a free tool that makes creating citations a lot easier. I then navigate to the UW-Libraries homepage and point out the link to RefWorks. Students sign up for RefWorks accounts. I will then demonstrate the various features of RefWorks (Such as how to create a folder).

I will briefly go over how to import items into RefWorks from UW search and Google Scholar. After I demonstrate Search @ UW Students will then find an article from Search @ UW and import it into RefWorks. I then demonstrate how to link Google Scholar to UWM libraries and RefWorks, and then students are given time to import articles from Google Scholar into RefWorks. At this time I walk around observing and offering assistance, which also allows for informal assessment. I notice that many students are able to pick up RefWorks fairly quickly, however the biggest obstacle to learning RefWorks is still finding appropriate sources.

Lastly, I demonstrate how to create a bibliography. I might have shown this feature earlier in my RefWorks demonstration, but it helps to repeat. As always, I end class reminding students of the various ways they can get help in the library.