Real Life Reference Questions

This is a real-life reference question. Our last unit of LAB21 is a Project-Based Learning unit. The essential question is: What will you need to do to achieve your career goals? The scenario is that you are at your ten-year high school reunion and all of your old high school friends want to know what you have been doing over the past ten years and how you got that dream job of yours. Problem: Our students have a very difficult time finding reliable and understandable sources. We use a database called Naviance which is probably our best resource, but students do not like using it for some reason. We allow them to use Google. However, the “facts” they come up with are often invalid. I am working with a couple of teachers this summer to tighten …show more content…
Claire was very helpful. Her body language and facial expressions made me feel like she was genuinely interested in helping me help my students. She did not seem rushed or frustrated. In fact, I wished for a moment that she was working in our school. As we discussed the project I needed sources for, Claire seemed to be getting excited about what sources we could use. I could sense her energy grow as she was helping me find sources we thought might be helpful. After sitting down to flip through the books, I found myself wondering if my own students ever get excited when they are finding potential sources for their research. This experience made me think about assigning my students a trip to the public library for homework points. One thing I noticed about the way Claire searched for books is that she did not use the computer. She already knew what nonfiction area to look. It took her less than five minutes to locate the print resources I wanted. All in all, this was a pleasant and productive experience. I hope I can get excited with my students when helping them to locate …show more content…
I asked for both digital and print resources. It was easier for me to pretend not to know much about searching. Bruce didn’t recommend anything except www.bls.org which I already use and have a few issues with. There was enough dead time that I sometimes feared I had lost connection. Over 45 minutes we probably only had five minutes of active conversation. I felt a little put off by this experience. I would have expected Bruce to check in with me every 60-90 seconds just let me know he has not found anything and is still looking. Actually, that would probably have slowed him down even further though. The final result was being passed off to another library program. I was hoping to hear from the Youth Services librarian simply because I am genuinely interested in gathering some new sources for my lessons next semester. I hope I never make my students feel like I felt after working with Bruce that night. Unfortunately, it almost seems that if I really want to help my students to understand this unit better I should consider planning a website of my own for this purpose. After working through some of the .gov websites I actually have some better information to compile