Michigan High School Media Specialists Drive MeL Usage and Student Success. Case Study

Transcription

1 Case Study From left: Karen Villegas, Media Specialist at Grosse Pointe North High School; Courtney McGuire, Media Specialist at Grosse Pointe South High School; Carrie Conner, Media Specialist at Oxford High School Michigan High School Media Specialists Drive MeL Usage and Student Success

2 Background Grosse Pointe North High School, Grosse Pointe South High School, and Oxford High School are the top three users of Michigan elibrary (MeL) resources for K12 schools in the state of Michigan. Gale wanted to understand what was driving this usage and find out why these Media Specialists were having such incredible success in integrating library resources into their schools curricula. Interestingly, these Media Specialists, although in 3 different schools, have similar approaches to bibliographic instruction, managing resources, and teaching students how to conduct research. Integrating MeL resources into the high school website, implementing a library curriculum, and collaborating with teachers have all lead to improved bibliographic and research skills among students. Integrating MeL resources into the high school website, implementing a library curriculum, and collaborating with teachers have all lead to improved bibliographic and research skills among students. Librarians Karen Villegas has been the Media Specialist at Grosse Pointe North High School since With a background in teaching K12 science, Karen brought a wealth of teaching insight and experience when she started her role as Media Specialist. Courtney McGuire has been the Media Specialist at Grosse Pointe South High School since Courtney started out as a Social Studies teacher and transitioned into the Media Center after going back to graduate school for her Library Science degree. Carrie Conner has been Oxford High School s Media Specialist since Carrie began her career as a cancer researcher and transitioned into library science. Prior to working at Oxford High School, she served as a Media Specialist and library director at a high school in Virginia. Bringing MeL Home All three Media Specialists attribute their schools high MeL usage to the fact that they have successfully integrated MeL resources into their schools respective home pages. Students can easily find MeL resources seamlessly integrated into all three schools Media Center home page. Carrie says Before we had two sites where GVRL was located, one was for MeL and one was for our school. I merged them into one page because I wanted one-stop shopping for my students. This blending of the MeL resources directly into the library website is certainly the foundation for high MeL resource usage among these three schools. But we also found that these Media Specialists have unique approaches to integrating library resources into their schools respective curriculums. 2 Learn more online at

3 Library Curriculum at Grosse Pointe High Schools A mandatory library curriculum at both Grosse Pointe North and Grosse Pointe South is one reason why usage is so high among students. Students at Grosse Pointe North and South are given a research skills project their freshman year and required to properly research and cite resources through the library. This curriculum ensures students graduate with a working knowledge of how to conduct proper bibliographic research and are well equipped to handle research at the college level. Karen and Courtney work closely with teachers in designing the project and ensuring students receive proper bibliographic instruction. It is not uncommon to see an entire class in Grosse Pointe North or South s library researching topics or articles for a research project. Karen takes a methodical approach to introducing students to proper research skills. We take it step by step. Finding the information, citing the information, using in-text citations to build the students five paragraph essay which is a requirement of the library curriculum, says Karen. As a result of students building research skills early on in their high school career, Grosse Pointe teachers see a marked improvement in bibliographic skills as their students progress through high school. Karen says, The AP US History teacher approached me and said, I am so amazed that my kids know how to make a bibliography! Carrie has noticed that once students are introduced to GVRL they return to it often. Innovative Slices of Content Oxford High School has seen a great deal of change in the two years that Carrie has been their Media Specialist. She has introduced innovative methods of providing information access to students, including introducing students to GVRL through small slices of related content. Carrie has found GVRL to be a popular resource among students and will pull together related articles for a specific class so students can easily access relevant content. For a Chemistry class at Oxford, Carrie pulled out five GVRL articles on Acid Rain and linked to them from the library s home page. Instead of just providing a list of links, she used images and icons that linked to the original article in GVRL. Carrie says I try to make the links as visual and engaging as possible for the students. When I use images and pictures I have found students are more likely to use the resources I provide. Carrie has noticed that once students are introduced to GVRL they return to it often. 3

4 Starting Small Leads to Big Results Karen believes in introducing students to library resources in small chunks. Karen says, When you give kids more than just a couple resources, they later think I don t even remember where [the Media Specialist] said to go when seeking out resources. Karen believes that steering students towards specific, subject-oriented library resources shows them how useful they can be. Karen gives an example of this approach in guiding students taking Grosse Pointe North s Power of Language course. 65% From 2011 to 2013, full text retrievals in Biography in Context have increased by 65% One of the books they read in Power of Language is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. They have an assignment where they choose a person and then have to determine whether or not that person is an Outlier. That s where we re using Gale s Biography in Context. I tell kids If someone s not in Gale Biography in Context, will they really be an Outlier? says Karen. Karen shows the students how quickly they can retrieve reliable, subject-specific information when compared to open-web searches. This successful integration of Biography in Context into Grosse Pointe North s Power of Language course is reflected in Grosse Pointe schools usage statistics. From 2011 to 2013, full text retrievals in Biography in Context have increased by 65% (Table 1). Table 1: Grosse Pointe Schools: Full Text Retrievals for Biography in Context by Year Learn more online at

5 Integration with Teachers is Key to Success Carrie found success in the starting small approach through her collaboration with teachers at Oxford. In her first year at Oxford she reached out to the Science department because they were facing challenges with a new assessment that required research and citation skills in students. Carrie solved this problem by collaborating with the Chemistry Department on a chemistry paper and demonstrated the effectiveness of GVRL and PowerSearch, a search tool that allows user to perform searches across databases. Carrie says We built from the step of students needing to find resources to the next step of students needing to cite resources. After the chemistry students finished their first research paper, the classes returned to the Media Center to learn citation skills. Carrie showed them how to properly cite resources, generate citations from research databases and how to format citations in a paper. Word of Carrie s success spread to other departments at Oxford which led more teachers to seek her out to help build research and citation skills with their students. Carrie s snowballing success has led her to work more with the Language Arts Department. She has shown students and teachers the value of Opposing Viewpoints in Context, and this is reflected in Oxford s usage statistics (Table 2). Full text retrievals in Opposing Viewpoints in Context have seen an increase of 325% from 2012 to Table 2: Oxford High School: Full Text Retrievals for Opposing Viewpoints in Context by Year Word of Carrie s success spread to other departments at Oxford which led more teachers to seek her out to help build research and citation skills with their students

6 Tools that Drive Usage Soon after becoming the Media Specialist at Oxford High School, Carrie began adding Gale Widgets to the library s home page. She attributes some of Oxford s increased usage to the integration of the widgets, and the statistics support her claim. In 2012 the year Carrie integrated the Gale Widgets GVRL full text retrievals went from 2,036 in 2011 to 5,464. In 2013 they rose to 10,211 full text retrievals a 402% increase from 2011 (Table 3). In addition to Gale Widgets, Carrie includes the direct link to the resource giving students a choice in how they want to navigate to the resource. Clearly more Oxford students are finding their way to GVRL through Gale Widgets. In 2012 the year Carrie integrated the Gale Widgets GVRL full text retrievals increased by 402% over the previous year Table 3: Oxford High School: GVRL Full Text Retrievals by Year Learn more online at

7 Courtney uses the citation generator to compel students to use library databases at Grosse Pointe South. She has found that showing students how much time and effort can be saved by conducting research in Gale databases is a strong incentive. I ask them Does anyone want to search for the publisher of the article? Or the date? Well if you just scroll down to the bottom of the article, it s all there for you. And they say That s amazing!, says Courtney. She compares that to the effort required to track down all of the necessary information when retrieving articles through a Google search. Courtney also demonstrates to her students the value of curated subject areas in Opposing Viewpoints in Context. She finds the subject areas extremely valuable when students who are having trouble finding a paper topic approach her for help. I always tell students, the smart thing to do is to go to Opposing Viewpoints and play around. Find something that interests you, says Courtney. Conclusion It is clear that Oxford High School, Grosse Pointe North High School and Grosse Pointe South High School have had a great deal of success in integrating MeL resources into their Media Centers. The success is largely driven by the relationships Carrie, Karen, and Courtney have built with teachers and students at their respective schools. These examples show that the key to driving usage is to solve problems and provide access to resources wherever and whenever they are needed. I always tell students, the smart thing to do is to go to Opposing Viewpoints and play around. Find something that interests you. Courtney McGuire Media Specialist, Gross Pointe South High School 7

8 Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, software and services company, empowering educators and driving learner engagement through personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that bridge from the library to the classroom. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world s information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet. It is best known for the accuracy, breadth and convenience of its data, addressing all types of information needs from homework help to health questions to business profiles in a variety of formats. Source Code: 14M-AG0100 Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.