This session will introduce participants to the potential of an enhanced library search experience to support inquiry and project-based learning by engaging them in real time searching for their own purposes. Individually and in groups, participants will experience contextual discovery on a library site designed to augment and scaffold their learning.
The session will demonstrate the potential for scaffolding and supporting self-directed learning, inquiry, and project-based learning as realized at the library at Teaches College Columbia University. For the past several years our multidisciplinary team of librarians, software developers, curriculum specialists, digital publishers, and media producers has been working on a project to bring together licensed data bases, full-text journals, e-books, archival resources, crowd-sourced video collections, e-reserve reading lists, and curated learning modules all connected in a comprehensive learning search tool that can respond to patron-driven inquiries by providing a substantial learning experience.
This session will introduce participants to the potential of an enhanced library search experience to support self-directed learning (Knowles, 1983; Brookfield, 1985), guided inquiry (Kuhlthau, Maniotres, & Caspari, 2015), and project-based learning (Walker, et al., 2015) by engaging them in real time searching for their own learning goals. Individually and in groups, participants will experience contextual discovery search on an enhanced library site designed to augment and scaffold their learning.
The session will begin with a short introduction to the project and each of its facets. These include resources, an integrated search, and curated displays of results:
A. Licensed Resources
Licensed e-journals and e-books form an important foundation of learning resources. These collections are extensive across a broad range of curriculum areas. These full-text resources are made available through a content index and search appliance.
B. Faculty Curated Resources
While licensed resources provide a broad base of resources, there is a special interest in resources identified by local faculty as particularly worthy of attention. These resources are identified by analyzing course reading lists created by hundreds of instructors each semester. Close examination of these reading lists over multiple years allows us to highlight resources deemed core to study in key areas.
C. Local Digital Archives (PocketKnowledge)
A digital archive holds knowledge artifacts produced at the local institution from its founding in 1887 to present day. These resources include key institutional documents, unpublished and published papers of the faculty, and student theses and dissertations. The archival collection offers both historical materials and locally created contemporary documents.
D. Crowd-Sourced Video (Vialogues)
To collect and make media assets more accessible, the library team developed Vialogues, an online tool that hosts crowd-sourced and licensed video material along with discussions of the media content. Vialogues is used by tens of thousands of educators at Teachers College and around the world. The video collection includes over 35,000 media assets that cover a broad range of topics.
E. Crowd-Sourced Learning Modules (Rhizr)
The library has developed the Rhizr content curation platform to facilitate the creation of integrated sets of learning resources by members of the College community and beyond. The resulting crowd-sourced resource collections show individual learning objects contextualized into a teaching-learning framework developed by the creator. Since the Rhizr platform also functions as a presentation site, the assembled resources are intended to be shared with learners. By connecting these assembled curated resource assemblies to the comprehensive library search, Rhizr content is more discoverable and accessible.
F. An Enhanced Search
Searching through diverse sets of resources requires both relatively complete metadata across multiple resource pools as well as a set of robust search algorithms tuned to the unique configuration of local resources for individual learners. The enhanced search takes into account learners’ interests, backgrounds, prior activity in the ecosystem, as well as the interactions with resources by other learners in the ecosystem. The system is designed to support research activities that guide the continuous improvement of learning experiences.
G. Results Displays
What is the optimal configuration of search results to best achieve an appropriate guided learning pathway? We must explore this fundamental question to create a guided learning experience from the results generated by the search of the locally assembled resource sets. Such a pathway must be sensitive both to the level of the material and to the level of the learner, as well as to the most efficient sequence to move through the identified resources.
Interactive Experience
Participants in the session will be given guest privileges to use all aspects of the enhanced search connected to all available resources. Depending on their computer equipment (laptop or cell phone), participants will have access to the library web and/or mobile search to conduct searches and generate unique results based on their learning trajectories.
We will begin by demonstrating the power of the local enhanced search with a specified learning inquiry. This will allow us to showcase the various aspects of the search experience. Following this, participants will be assigned unique inquiries to demonstrate the range of the search capacity. Finally, participants will conduct searches of their own design.
Feedback on the search experiences of the participants will be both individual and collective. Each individual participant will have immediate access to their search results and these results may lead down a unique learning path. In addition, the session organizers will display the search activities of all participants on the library system dashboard that provides both individual and aggregated data displays.
Finally, the session will conclude with a discussion of the current value of the enhanced search for learning as well as next steps in the development of the system.
References
Brookfield, S. (1985). Self-directed learning: From theory to practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Knowles, M. (1983). Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kuhlthau, C., Maniotres, L, & Caspari, A. (2015). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21stcentury. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
Walker, A., Leary, H., Hmelo-Silver, C. & Ertmer, C. (2015). Essential readings in problem-based learning. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.