Teaching Research Skills
One of the primary objectives of West Texas A & M University's second semester
composition course is the teaching of the "dreaded student research paper." I have always had
problems teaching research skills in a traditional classroom setting, primarily because of the lack
of enough dedicated time for hands-on practice. No matter how many library orientations are
scheduled, students need the immediacy of feedback and help that just aren't possible in a
classroom. Moreover, the vast majority of research handbooks still insist on devoting large
portions of their discussion to library card catalogs and note-taking designed for index cards.
One of the most useful teaching tools that you can design for
your MOO classroom is a Web Slate, a window directly accessible from the MOO to the World
Wide Web. You can discuss web-based search strategies and have students try them out
directly from the MOO. To further help students, you can provide several starting points on a
given subject and have students progress from there. The same access technology can be
applied to gopher-based sites via a "Gopher Slate." I created one that provided direct access to
homework assignments, lecture notes, and OWL information and handouts. If a question arises
during a MOO class discussion, students can access answers to many of those questions while
in class, thus saving valuable time.
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