LibGuide  on  STEM  by  Jessica  Schmitz  LibGuide  link:  http://uwsslec.libguides.com/STEM  

   I  began  my  search  for  a  client  after  talking  with  Dr.  Zarrinia  about  my  topic.    We  discussed  STEM  and  how  I  was  aware  of  the  terminology,  but  not  the  extent  of  it.    It  is  also  not  something  that  we  are  focusing  on  in  our  district  at  this  point  in  time.    Three  years  ago  our  district  hired  a  new  science  teacher.    We  have  a  chemistry  teacher,  and  the  science  teacher  teaches  all  other  grades  10-­‐12  science  classes.    I  was  his  mentor  his  first  year  and  the  job  was  very  stressful.    In  a  small  district,  teaching  every  10-­‐12  student  and  having  so  many  different  courses  to  teach  is  overwhelming.    Planning  for  it  all  can  be  overwhelming,  as  I  am  personally  well  aware  of.    When  Dr.  Zarrinia  and  I  discussed  STEM  I  immediately  thought  of  this  teacher  (Matt  Brinkman)  and  how  I  knew  he  would  love  some  help.      When  I  first  approached  Matt  about  this  project  I  went  in  talking  to  him  about  STEM.    He  was  a  bit  more  familiar  than  I  was  with  the  term  and  what  it  entails.    He  had  seen  workshops,  seminars,  etc  being  offered  touting  STEM,  but  he  really  wasn’t  too  sure  what  it  all  entailed.    It  seemed  like  it  was  more  of  a  buzzword  than  anything  else.    As  Matt  and  I  discussed  what  this  project  was  about  and  what  he  needed  from  me  the  options  were  wide  open.    This  was  a  bit  daunting,  as  there  was  simply  a  need  to  know  more  about  STEM  and  how  to  begin  incorporating  STEM  education  ideas  into  his  teaching.    Most  likely,  we  discussed,  he  was  already  doing  some  things  that  promote  STEM  in  his  classes,  but  there  was  a  need  to  find  out  more  about  what  exactly  it  is  about  and  what  someone  who  is  interested  in  STEM  education  would  want  to  see  in  a  classroom.    Since  he  teaches  several  classes  we  decided  the  best  way  to  organize  materials  might  be  by  class,  so  that  there  are  options  available  specific  to  these  courses,  making  them  readily  accessible  to  not  only  Matt  but  to  the  students  in  his  courses  as  well.        As  we  continued  to  discuss  his  needs  he  was  indifferent  on  the  bibliography  format,  but  I  suggested  APA  since  that  is  the  most  common  in  the  science  fields,  to  my  understanding.    I  teach  MLA  in  my  English  classes  and  am  fairly  familiar  with  APA,  but  also  thought  that  since  we  have  RefWorks  to  work  with  that  this  change  in  style  would  be  simple.  It  was  also  a  way  for  me  to  experience  this  electronic  citation,  as  I  don’t  necessarily  promote  these  options  to  my  students,  but  after  this  project  I  feel  like  I  will  be  doing  more  of  that.  Matt  was  just  happy  to  have  someone  helping  him  out.    There  were  no  problems  encountered  and  he  really  just  wanted  to  see  what  I  was  able  to  find  for  him.    One  thing  we  did  discuss  was  the  idea  of  careers  in  STEM.    Being  able  to  show  how  students  will  be  taking  the  things  they  are  learning  in  science  class  and  using  them  in  their  future  was  something  Matt  thought  was  very  important  to  have.    The  end  goal  we  discussed,  and  what  would  make  Matt  happy,  was  to  have  a  resource  that  he  could  use  and  that  his  students  could  also  access  to  engage  them  in  what  they  are  learning.    Honestly,  Matt  was  going  to  be  satisfied  with  anything  that  I  gave  him,  but  ultimately  we  need  to  see  if  this  is  something  that  he  and  his  students  will  use.    Upon  showing  Matt  the  almost  finished  product,  he  was  amazed  at  the  amount  of  information  and  resources  I  was  able  to  provide  for  him.    We  discussed  how  assigning  students  time  to  explore  areas  of  the  LibGuide  and  come  back  with  information  they  found,  instead  of  him  lecturing  the  students,  was  one  way  to  use  the  guide.    Also,  we  all  have  students  who  get  done  early,  and  the  LibGuide  can  be  used  to  give  these  students  something  to  do  and  explore,  keeping  in  line  with  what  they  are  doing  in  that  particular  class  at  the  time.    The  ultimate  usefulness  of  the  guide  won’t  truly  be  seen  until  next  year  when  Matt  has  time  to  explore  it  himself  and  incorporate  the  use  of  it  into  his  curriculum.    Beginning  the  search  was  overwhelming.    Where  do  I  begin?    I  had  so  many  things  to  explore  that  figuring  out  where  to  start  took  me  a  little  while.    In  the  end  I  came  up  first  with  the  following  strategy  for  searching:  

 

  To  begin  with  I  thought  about  where  I  would  go  to  find  information  if  I  was  looking  for  myself.    I  would  start  looking  for  information  going  to  social  networking  sites  where  professionals  recommend  resources.    I  started  with  searching  Diigo  Groups  and  Delicious  tags  for  the  term  “STEM.”    I  was  able  to  find  a  few  resources  but  nothing  that  really  blew  me  away.  I  kept  thinking  about  what  we  needed  to  include  in  these  LibGuides,  the  interactive  elements  that  we  want  to  include  in  order  to  engage  students  who  are  going  to  be  using  the  guides.    This  then  led  me  to  Twitter  and  a  search  for  posts  tagged  with  #STEM.    There  were  quite  a  few  things  listed  here…  but  a  lot  to  go  through.    I  thought  that  this  would  end  up  being  a  great  resource  to  include  for  Matt  in  order  to  keep  up  with  STEM  recommendations/news,  but  for  my  purposes  right  now  it  felt  like  an  overload  of  information.    Next  I  went  to  search  for  a  Ning  site.    I  have  personally  found  so  much  help  in  discovering  The  English  Companion  Ning,  that  I  would  have  thought  every  discipline  would  have  something  as  quality.    This  Professional  Learning  Network  of  a  Ning  is  incredibly  useful,  but  I  did  not  find  much  for  STEM  education.    The  ones  I  did  find  were  not  ones  that  were  used  often  and  did  not  seem  to  me  like  places  that  would  be  full  of  information  for  Matt  or  myself.    When  searching  my  key  words  were  STEM  and  “STEM  education.”    The  goal  of  the  LibGuide  was  to  find  information  about  STEM  and  resource  to  use  in  the  classroom  identified  as  STEM  resources.    Just  using  these  few  keywords  I  was  able  to  find  lots  of  information  in  my  search  of  social  networking  sites  listed  above.    The  Diigo,  Delicious,  and  Blog  searches  pointed  me  to  a  variety  of  news  articles,  and  internet  sites  that  were  most  helpful.    When  I  started  to  save  these  in  RefWorks  I  created  a  few  folders  and  continued  to  expand  on  these.    I  didn’t  know  yet  where  my  LibGuide  was  going  or  how  it  would  be  organized,  so  I  simply  categorized  the  items  into  folders  into  general  categories  so  I  could  utilize  them  later.    Seeing  as  I  had  some  web  resources  already  I  wanted  to  search  for  information  on  STEM  in  journals  to  get  a  better  understanding  of  it.    I  was  able  to  come  across  a  few  articles,  but  found  most  of  what  I  would  find  here  to  be  items  not  useful  to  the  LibGuide,  as  it  is  more  of  a  resource  for  student  use.    I  thought  at  the  beginning  I  would  be  using  the  database  searches  more  than  I  ended  up  using  them.    I  got  around  to  searching  on  Google  not  until  the  very  end  of  my  project,  when  I  was  simply  looking  to  fill  holes  in  the  gap  of  my  LibGuide.    At  that  point  keywords  also  included  “biology,”  “astronomy,”  “environmental  science,”  “anatomy,”  “botany,”  and  “careers”  added  with  “STEM”  as  I  was  then  searching  for  specifics  to  the  classes  Matt  teaches.    When  I  began  searching  for  specifics  and  using  these  additional  keywords  it  was  because  things  changed  a  bit  in  my  research  plan  after  I  went  to  the  WEMTA  conference  in  March.    

Diigo  Groups,  Delicious  tags  

Twitter    #STEM  

Blogs,  Ning  Database  for  articles  

Google  search  

Before  going  to  WEMTA  I  had  a  few  things  found,  but  not  much.    I  had  my  social  networking  sites  examined  and  a  few  resources  here  and  there,  but  I  was  holding  back  as  I  had  seen  WEMTA  was  offering  several  sessions  on  STEM.    Thank  goodness  for  WEMTA!    It  was  an  eye-­‐opening  experience  for  many  reasons,  but  it  truly  guided  me  in  my  LibGuide  creation  and  research.    After  WEMTA  I  simply  explored  all  of  the  resources  I  was  exposed  to  in  the  STEM  sessions  I  went  to,  and  those  led  me  to  a  few  other  places  as  well.    Once  I  explored  these  I  began  putting  together  the  LibGuide  into  the  organization  of  classes,  sometimes  that  involved  finding  several  different  items,  pages,  games,  etc  found  on  one  website  that  could  be  used  for  particular  classes.  My  new  search  strategy  really  focused  on  the  addition  of  the  WEMTA  resources  and  exploring  the  vastness  of  the  websites  I  was  exposed  to.    In  addition  I  began  looking  for  books  in  STEM  areas.    I  went  to  Follett’s  Titlewave  page  and  found  a  list  of  STEM  books.    From  this  list  of  over  200  books  I  found  several  that  I  thought  students  would  find  interesting  and  ones  that  were  subject  specific.    The  books  were  looked  at  in  terms  of  what  would  be  engaging  for  students  to  see  real  life  use  and  applications  of  STEM  content.  

In  talking  with  Matt  after  WEMTA,  we  simply  clarified  what  we  had  discussed  previously.    I  don’t  think  he  was  truly  aware  of  the  extent  of  the  research  I  was  doing  as  he  was  a  bit  taken  aback  at  how  much  I  had  to  show  him  in  terms  of  what  I  was  finding…  my  LibGuide  itself  at  this  time  was  bare.    With  all  the  information  coming  in  we  decided  to  keep  with  the  idea  of  organizing  information  by  class  –  again  ease  of  use  for  Matt  and  the  students  was  the  motive  for  this  choice. Recording  information  throughout  the  process  was  made  extremely  easy  in  the  use  of  Diigo,  Delicious,  and  RefWorks.    I  don’t  know  how  I  would  have  been  able  to  accomplish  the  recording  and  processing  of  all  of  this  information  without  these  resources.    I  relied  mostly  on  Diigo,  as  when  I  found  a  resource  I  would  save  it  with  tags  and  into  a  folder  in  Diigo  made  specifically  for  this  project.  Delicious  was  added  into  the  mix  when  saving,  but  I  honestly  do  not  use  it  like  I  use  Diigo,  and  so  until  I  figured  out  how  to  save  to  Delicious  when  I  save  to  Diigo,  it  wasn’t  used  as  often.    Once  I  had  several  resources  found  I  started  to  go  through  them  and  evaluate  whether  or  not  I  wanted  to  use  it.  If  I  did,  I  put  it  into  the  LibGuide  and  saved  it  to  RefWorks.    This  was  the  longest  process  of  the  entire  project.            

Diigo  Groups,  Delicious  tags  

Twitter    #STEM  

Blogs,  Ning  

Database  for  articles  

WEMTA  resources  

Sarch  within  websites  

Search  for  books  

Google  search  

In  examining  the  resource  I  had  to  ask  myself  where  and  if  it  would  fit  into  the  guide.    I  knew  the  categories  we  wanted:  the  individual  classes,  a  tab  for  resources  directed  to  Matt  as  a  teacher,  a  tab  on  careers,  a  search  tab,  and  then  I  decided  to  include  a  tab  entitled  “Explore.”    I  felt  this  last  one  was  important  in  giving  the  students  a  place  to  truly  do  just  that,  explore.    One  thing  Matt  and  I  talked  about  was  how  students  are  bored  with  what  we  give  them  to  do,  no  matter  how  hands  on,  interactive,  etc.  many  will  complain  or  not  truly  engage.    I  thought  having  a  place  to  explore  might  peak  their  interest  and  get  more  use  then  if  it  was  something  designated  to  a  class.        Many  of  the  sites  were  so  completely  full  of  information  and  activities  that  I  didn’t  feel  breaking  each  page  up  into  ten  different  links  was  needed,  so  I  simply  linked  to  the  page  so  that  Matt  could  decide  what  he  liked  from  the  site  or  his  students  could  explore  and  share  what  they  liked  or  found  useful.    That  was  one  of  the  hard  parts  in  the  evaluation  and  processing  of  information  found  –  how  much  should  I  include?    Too  many  links  would  be  overwhelming.    I  included  most  of  what  I  found  in  one  way  or  another,  because  in  the  end  this  is  a  resource  to  begin  exploring  STEM  education,  which  contains  a  wide  range  of  information.    The  organization  into  classes  may  seem  almost  anti-­‐STEM  in  some  way…  but  in  the  end  it  is  a  starting  point,  plain  and  simple.    This  was  a  guide  to  introduce,  to  see  what  is  out  there,  and  to  engage  teacher  and  student.    In  the  end  I  feel  it  is  a  valuable  resource  that  he  and  students  can  go  to.    Matt  can  go  here  to  find  information  and  ideas  for  making  his  curriculum  more  engaging  and  incorporating  STEM  identified  lessons  and  resources.    And  students  can  go  here  to  conduct  research  and  find  information  for  projects,  etc.  instead  of  using  Google  to  get  all  of  their  information.        In  the  end  I  feel  like  it  was  a  successful  first  attempt  at  a  LibGuide.    Looking  at  guides  from  my  classmates  I  can’t  say  I  feel  mine  looks  the  best  and  I  can’t  say  there  aren’t  things  on  here  that  I  may  want  to  change.    But  I  think  that  is  also  the  beauty  of  a  LibGuide,  that  it  can  be  changed  and  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  student  and  teacher  at  a  given  time.    When  I  first  showed  it  to  Matt  he  was  in  awe  of  the  look  and  feel  of  it,  the  same  way  I  was  when  we  first  explored  LibGuides  and  I  saw  what  they  were  able  to  do.    Now  that  I  have  experienced  making  a  LibGuide  and  know  what  it  can  do,  I  think  the  next  time  I  will  be  able  to  create  one  that  looks  and  feels  even  better.      I  would  have  liked  to  include  more  visuals,  and  not  as  many  links  on  the  pages.    That  was  simply  more  time  consuming  to  accomplish.    I  also  feel  like  my  pages  are  too  cluttered,  but  I  don’t  know  how  to  go  about  fixing  this.      I  believe  Matt  is  happy  because  I  exposed  him  to  some  new  resources  and  gave  him  a  place  he  knows  he  can  go  to  to  explore  references,  materials,  and  get  ideas  based  on  his  content  areas.    This  means  a  bit  less  work  for  him,  and  any  teacher  is  happy  when  his/her  workload  is  lessened  in  any  way.        I  addressed  and  demonstrated  the  competencies  for  this  class  as  follows:

1. Responds to and sustains spontaneous and curricular information needs, using listening, open questioning and other techniques to respond to information requests in a manner that encourages further inquiry The  client  LibGuide  project  gave  me  the  ability  to  work  with  someone  and  find  out  what  they  needed.    The  completion  of  the  LibGuide  is  a  place  where  further  inquiry  can  begin.    

2. Understands the research and innovation process and models the question development and problem solving principles and procedures that enhance the information seeking process Interviewing  Matt  understand  his  needs.    It  was  a  different  experience  than  the  one  I  observed  in  my  library  shadow,  as  Matt  was  more  open  for  anything  rather  than  having  something  completely  specific  in  mind.  

3. Identifies the structure of expertise and information in a discipline or area of study and outlines the shape, resources, tools and strategies of its information community

I  began  my  LibGuide  by  looking  to  the  PLN  of  the  science  and  STEM  communities  and  from  here  looked  to  articles,  books,  and  online  resources  for  use  in  the  classroom  setting.  

4. Knows types of information; understands the difference among information sources and formats,

their quality, and their utility for particular purposes and audiences

The  information  and  resources  chosen  for  my  LibGuide  show  this  competency.    I  have  included  a  variety  of  information  sources  and  formats  after  evaluating  them  for  usefulness  and  reliability.  

5. Develops and models the proficient use of a repertoire of information problem solving skills, tools

and strategies, including a wide range of search strategies and information tools and formats

In  my  research  to  complete  the  LibGuide  I  used  a  variety  of  tools  and  strategies.    Searching  for  “STEM”  brought  back  many  results  and  I  needed  to  limit  the  type  of  resource  I  was  looking  for  to  find  quality  and  useful  tools  in  sources  on  the  web  and  in  print/database.  

6. Understands and applies the informal and formal indexing strategies and structures used to

organize and maintain bibliographic records, reference tools, databases, and a personal knowledge base

Using  Diigo,  Delicious,  and  RefWorks    

7. Monitors, assesses and employs existing and emerging technologies for information access,

organization, processing, use, and dissemination, and makes appropriate use of interrelationships among all types of libraries and information agencies

The  variety  of  search  engines  used,  databases  suggested,  WorldCat  search.    I  did  not  have  a  way  at  the  moment  to  link  our  library  database  to  the  LibGuide,  nor  do  we  have  databases  purchased  for  our  school  to  link  to.    All  things,  however,  that  I  am  planning  on  rectifying  in  my  role  as  school  librarian  (for  one  44  minute  period  a  day)  next  year.    Those  will  be  added  to  the  LibGuide  when  available.    

8. Develops custom information environments to support specific user needs and purposes,

recognizing and addressing contributions from multiple cultures, as well as potential sources of bias, and obstacles to access

The  LibGuide  is  a  custom  information  environment  directed  at  specific  users  in  this  teacher’s  classes.  

9. Understands and sustains the role of libraries in a democratic society by ensuring free and

equitable access to information for all community members, regardless of ability level or background, respecting intellectual property and maintaining confidentiality and information security as legal rights

 The  LibGuide  is  designed  to  give  students  of  all  abilities  a  place  to  explore  and  learn.    I  have  in  here  podcasts,  videos,  and  games  so  that  students  who  are  not  as  adept  in  reading  and  processing  information  have  other  arenas  to  learn  information.