"Is this for a grade?" Designing and Sequencing Two Step Research Assignments for Undergraduate Students

Concurrent Session 1

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

This session provides a hands-on approach to creating and implementing an active two assignment sequence that allows professors to access the student thinking process without sacrificing a semester-long research paper.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Amy Dye-Reeves, Texas Tech University

Amy Dye-Reeves is an Associate Librarian within the Texas Tech University Libraries. She is the liaison to the College of Education and Department of History. She provides information literacy instructional sessions and workshops throughout the year. She loves assisting faculty members with any of their upcoming research projects. She received her Master of Information Science from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Additionally, she has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in History from East Tennessee State University. Before joining TTU, Amy was an Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction at Murray State University. She previously spent 5 years as a certified State of Tennessee Educator with a Pre K to Grade 12 (Library Media Specialist) endorsement. In 2019, she won the Innovators Award from the University of Tennessee School of Information Science. During the spring of 2018, she was selected to participate in a four-month Wikipedia Education Fellowship Program. Research interests include information literacy instruction, learning outcomes assessment, instructional design, and gamification.

Extended Abstract

The research paper can be a valuable assignment for student learners. The project allows students to become self-directed learners and critical analysis of their thought processes. A frequent problem is student's tendencies to patch together passages with incoherent connections to the thesis statement.

In turn, the faculty members asked students to consider revisionary efforts with a research plan template for completion. The professor passes out the plan, and the student immediately responds to the paper in a negative approach to learning. Why do we have to do this assignment? I already know how to do a research paper. And finally, is this for a grade? The typical research paper must be completed by the end of the term. This session will focus on creating a two-assignment sequence to provide information on how to construct research tasks.

Part one of the session will focus on the assignment section providing meaning-constructed tasks and rhetorical context. The second and final section will focus on students becoming intentional thinkers about locating research sources.

The session will provide an opportunity for attendees to interact with their peer groups on a sample two-part research assignment. The groups are tasked with creating a recommendation memo. The facilitator will pass out the background information for the memo assignment. Each group will be assigned to develop specific tasks, approaches to finding resources, and a proposed grading scale. The goal is for students to role-play a realistic call to action and provide students with an opportunity to show information literacy skills in action. The assignment allows students to become active participants with compiling information literacy skills. The session's takeaway will enable participants to have a ready-to-go template and working examples of active information literacy assignments.