by Stony Evans, November 2019

One of the challenges I've experienced over the years is finding effective ways to share research tools. In Arkansas, public schools have access to several research databases, an online encyclopedia, and other digital research resources through our state library. As school librarians, we want students and teachers utilizing such tools on a regular basis.

Curate Your Databases into One Easy Access Point

There are many ways to share your list of library research resources. If you don't have your links in an easy-to-find location, your patrons will most likely never be able to use them. Probably one of the earliest curation lists I attempted was creating a research page on our library website. For many years, I used this as a jumping off point when I would teach research skills to high school and junior high-level classes. When students and teachers don't know where to find your links, the webpage can serve as an easy way to find them.

Just a few years ago, our school began purchasing class sets of Chromebooks. As this happened in the core classes, I noticed that fewer teachers were coming to the library. I began offering to visit classrooms and offering for classes to bring their Chromebooks to the library so I could assist teachers with research. It didn't take long for teachers to jump at this opportunity for help especially as they were learning to incorporate the new Chromebooks into their classroom culture.

One of the most engaging activities I have done using Chromebooks is to create a custom HyperDoc with our research database links that can then be shared in my Google Classroom library page and/or the teacher's Google Classroom pages. Students could work right along with me as I taught each online resource. When I started using this method of teaching research, more students were engaged during the entire class period. It was very encouraging! You can read more about how I started using HyperDocs to teach research on my blog at http://librarymediatechtalk.blogspot.com/2017/02/8th-grade-intro-to-research-using.html.

Share Your Experiences on Social Media

Shortly after incorporating HyperDocs into my research presentations, I started sharing the outcomes on social media. I also made sure to do "shout-outs" to teachers who had given me the chance to work with their classes. In these posts, photos were shared that showed students engaged. One ELA teacher even posted a photo of me teaching her class research methods. This caused several other ELA teachers in the building to contact me to schedule similar sessions for their classes! Imagine how my administrators liked seeing this evidence of learning activities. It was wonderful promotion for the school and our library program.

Look for Opportunities to Team Teach Research with Teachers

I bet you have noticed that many educators want to take shortcuts when teaching research. A few years ago, some ELA colleagues even moved away from using print resources to save time. Most of these colleagues changed their minds and started using more print materials as we increased our research collaborations. I think teachers are more likely to collaborate and try utilizing more resources when they know they have the assistance of a professional school librarian who "has their back." It is true that we can all do more together. When teachers see librarians' sharing photos of research collaborations with images of engagement and positive comments from their colleagues, they will probably want the same for their own classes. In addition to social media campaigns, be sure to listen to the teachers you serve. Sometimes they will mention they are working on a research project. In the past, I've had some talk about the frustrations that may go along with teaching these skills. This is the perfect opportunity to give them a solution: you! We never know what they will say unless we ask them if we can help and offer the options available to them via school library resources.

How do you share research resources with your learning community? Have you had some great experiences team teaching research with classes in your building? Be sure to tell us about them at @SLC_Online.