Teaching Effective Search

Course

Introduction [1:15]

About
Transcript

Students have a wide array of resources available when they do research, everything from books in print to databases to open web searches and it is our job as librarians to help them learn effective skills to help them find the answers they are looking for. In this course, Tasha Bergson-Michelson will talk about how to help students think ahead in their research by predicting what the answers will look like and apply search strategies to get to that answer. Topics include imagining ideal sources, stepping stone sources, context terms and source literacy, using operators, associated search terms, and webbing.

Hi! Today we're going to be talking about predictive search. Because our students now use such a wide array of resources when they do research, everything from Books in Print to databases to the open web, we need to help them embrace the skills that professional researchers use when they do research, and that includes this idea of predictive search. Researchers ask themselves questions like: When I run this search, what do I expect to see? When I click on this link, what do I think will be there? and When I find my perfect answer, what do I expect it to look like?

So we're going to talk about how to help students think ahead–draw on the literacies and the experience they already have–to predict what the answers they want will look like and then apply strategies to find those answers. And we're going to talk about how we can help students nudge up their experience, so that they can start on a topic about which they know nothing, and build the skills and the knowledge they need to find what the experts have to say about it.

Additional Resources

Bibliography.

About the Author

Tasha Bergson-Michelson is the Instructional and Programming Librarian for Castilleja School in Palo Alto, CA. Since 1995, she has been exploring what makes for successful information literacy instruction in corporate, non-profit, subscription, and school libraries, and through after school programs and summer camps. Previously, Bergson-Michelson was the Search Educator at Google, where she wrote an extensive series of Search Education lesson plans, the Power Searching MOOCs, and—most importantly—collaborated with other librarians around the world to explore the most effective ways of teaching research skills. Bergson-Michelson was designated a 2014 Mover & Shaker—Tech Leader by Library Journal.

MLA Citation

Bergson-Michelson, Tasha. "Teaching Effective Search. Introduction [1:15]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, April 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/?learningModuleId=2131948&topicCenterId=2131948.

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https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/?learningModuleId=2131948&topicCenterId=2131948

Entry ID: 2131949