HIT: Sec, Freshman Orientation (Long)

[Carol Petrie <cpetrie@NCCOAST.NET>]

Hello all,

I was asked to post a hit for the responses I received about Freshman
Orientation.  The suggestions I received were great thanks.

How about trying a Scavenger Hunt?  Make them look for answers to
questions in your reference books.  On the first day, I would
introduce them to some reference books.  If you don't want to talk the
entire time, you could make them do the talking.  Make each group look
at the set or book and describe what it does, what you find in there.
You can add to or clarify what the students say.

The next day (actually, you could stretch this to 4 days) you can have
them to a fact finding scavenger  hunt for prizes.  Rather than every
day, add up the team's points over the 4 days.  Make sure you make
lots of questions so they don't finish early.  Make them write down
the title and page in case of disputed answer.  If you have enough
internet connections, you could have a day of internet scavenger hunt.
I would give them a list of interesting sites to look at, and have the
answers in those sites.

******************
As part of our 9th grade orientation, we devised a Media Monopoly
game, a kind of scavenger hunt.  When the student completes it, she
receives a coupon (one of the blocks on the game board) good for 10
free computer printouts.  It gets the students up and looking around
for the copy machine, time/date stamp, book return, pencil sharpener,
sections of media center, computer resources, etc.  It is an MSExcel
document.  If you are at all interested, I could email you the file as
an attachment.  Several schools in our district use this, in fact, I
borrowed the idea from one of them.

***********************

I've had kids sketch the library as I described the functions of each
part.  The best sketch got a big Snicker, and the runners-up got
little Snickers.  Kids really got into it.

***********************

I found an outline map worked good with high school.  Give them a list
of items to locate on the map and send them out in all directions
starting at different points in the list.  They retain a lot more then
when part of the herd.

You might try looking at your library the way primary teachers do
centers and have activities in different areas.

*************************

The two libraries I've worked at we've done a "scavenger hunt"
kind of thing where the kids have worksheets and they all start at
different places in the worksheet.  We set up stations where they have
to visit to find the answers.

Example: we'll set up a station at the on-line card catalog and ask
them to do a search on "chimps" or something like that and then write
down how many hits they got and the call number of the first one.
Another question we'd have is for them to go on to an Internet machine
and log on to one of our on-line services and look up a topic
("greenhouse effect") and write down the name of the first article.
They also have to walk around the library and find the answers to
questions about the rules, hours, how to check out books, fines,
printing, etc.  We try to minimize the lecturing and get them
to work right away.

*****************************

This class sounds like an attempt to help make freshmen successful,
but without a clear idea of how to do it.  At least be grateful that
the
library is included.  Someone must recognize its importance!

What we do for freshmen "orientation" is a BRIEF library orientation
(incl. "cook's tour" and "guidelines and expectations") within their
language arts classes.  Along with this, we have the students do a
library mosaic research project.  This is a project designed to teach
them their way around the library and its resources, including
electronic, while being more fun than a "real" research project by
allowing students to pick a topic of their choice, with just a little
guidance.  They then go to several specified resources from which to
draw a quote.  Once they have acquired a quote from each specified
source, they write them in various spaces on a mosaic template, a
piece of paper on which spaces have been lined out in a puzzle design.
The students are to include pictures, drawings, color, etc., to fit
their topic and make their final presentation attractive while
presenting information about their topic. Along with this, they must
have a source card for each quote (to teach them about citing
sources).  Some of the possible specified sources include: nonfiction
books and Reference books (they must use the electronic catalog to
find these), Infotrac, SIRS, Facts on File, magazines (both those
found through Infotrac and those found using the Reader's Guide--yes,
we still teach it and still think it is important to know).  In the
past, we also included quotation books and newspapers (Newsbank, when
we subscribed).  The nice thing about this project is its flexibility.
It can be adapted for a variety of subjects.

We used to take about 5 days with each freshman language arts class,
but the other departments complained that they could not get into the
LMC for the first 5 or 6 weeks because of it.  This year we are going
to try cutting it down to 3 days, 1 day in the computer lab to learn
how to use the electronic resources, and 2 days in the LMC.  In the
past, the teachers wanted them to have all of the research finished in
those 5 days, but this year they have decided that it is ok if the
students have to finish it on their own time.  We will see.  We have
been campaigning for a shorter period of time for the last couple of
years, since we've seen that the students who get to work and take it
seriously finish in 2 or 3 days, while the others could have 2 or 3
weeks and still not be done.  The main thing for this to be useful is
to have it counted as a major grade, weighted fairly heavily.  If is
isn't, the students do not take it seriously and won't do it.  We have
been doing this for about 6 years and have definitely seen a
difference in the ability of students to independently use the LMC.
We do less re-teaching when the students come in for research in all
classes.

By the way, we have not yet included the internet in the specified
sources.  Our rationale for this is that they need to learn the
resources
of the library and learn good research practices BEFORE they jump into
the mire of the net.  We can teach internet use at other times for
other projects.

********************************
I always did a scavenger hunt.  I would put red numbers on
everything--the copier, reference, book return, biographies, etc.
Then they had a sheet they had to fill out.  In order to do it, they
had to walk around the entire library and see where everything was
located.  I also did an orientation videotape and showed it to all
freshmen.  We just shot it ourselves and it saved me from saying the
same thing over and over to 500 freshmen!

**************************

Idea - pick certain things you want them to know about - arrangement
of books, encyclopedias, CD-Roms, etc.  Make up a scavenger hunt -
that utilizes those items you want them to be able to find.  It'll be
fun - they'll find the books, they'll learn something, and they'll
remember, because they had to find something on their own

********************************

I do a week of orientation with the freshman social studies/geography
classes.  Besides a general orientation of the library (find the call
numbers for these books, mark the location on a map of the library,
etc.), the students have to complete a worksheet and a project about
an assigned country.  Countries are assigned randomly and no two
students have the same country.  The questions on the worksheet are
designed to force the students to use both print and electronic
resources (eg. What is the population given in the 1999 World Almanac?
Is it the same as listed on the US State Dept. Web site? etc.)  The
final project is to pretend you are from that country and write a
letter to the teacher (who is planning a vacation), telling him things
to see and do and things to be careful of.
     Alot of this depends on the cooperation of the teacher.  Ours are
pretty good about it and integrate the project into the class.  I
think that
is key.  Just teaching library skills out of context is not very
effective
or fun.

****************************

Here at my high school we do a library scavenger hunt where students
have to go all over the library getting answers to various questions
such as finding information about baseball in three different places
and list the titles/sites and authors; what are the library hours;
list 10 magazines available to you through the library, etc.  There is
a list of about 25 questions we give them. Let me know if you want
more examples of questions.  We offer candy as a prize for the most
number of questions completed and it takes them at least an hour to
complete the hunt. In my elementary library I even buried clues in
books that would lead them to the next book and so on.

*****************
I'm at the elementary level, but I saw a demonstration at a middle
school where they had stations for their orientation.  Students were
put into groups and had to rotate through about 6 places to become
acquainted with the computer catalog, different kinds of data bases,
find out library procedures, etc.  They said their students enjoyed it
better than a "lecture" format.  They handed in their worksheets when
finished so there was a way of assessing how they did.  It would be a
lot of work to set up, but you could use it from year to year.

***********************

You might try a (library) scavenger hunt - library directed - but with
other - off the wall scavenges - like number of steps to a location,
etc.

***********************

I started a Freshman Library Orientation to involve English
teachers a couple of years ago that works well, although their
involvement s not necessary if you don't mind grading and their grades
go to something.  I give the teachers 2 choices of topics:
Shakespeare and Elizabethan England, or Dickens and Victorian England.
Students are required to do the following:  Map of the library (fun,
timed and with candy at the end); overview/learning the automated
circulation (this will be new for us this year); biographical info on
the 2 main authors; divide into groups to use the library's resources
to gather info on history/government, society, arts, and
science/technology of that time period and report on that to the rest
of the class.

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