On January 11, Kimberly Williams brought her Black Culture & Society class to SBU. The students had chosen a Black historical figure to research, with the goal of creating a presentation. When they came to SBU, they were able to explore a plethora of primary sources using databases such as video interviews with prominent twentieth and twenty-first century African Americans using the database, HistoryMakers, historical newspaper articles from the database, African American Newspapers, and historical collections of newspapers such as The New York Times and Chicago Tribune.
Before searching for content, they had to think carefully about the time period in which their historical figure lived, so that they could make sure they were searching in a database that covers that same time period. They thought about what relevant search terms, besides the person’s name, might be valuable, and how to find obituaries from a variety of different newspapers and historical eras.
On Wednesday, January 4, two of Patricia Orechovsky’s tenth grade honors English classes came to SBU for an exploratory journey through both the open web and the SBU’s databases. They were searching for content related to Elie Wiesel’s Night, which they will be studying and writing about for several weeks. They found so much! Students found video interviews and podcasts with Wiesel out on the open web, and they found book reviews about Wiesel’s books, and Op-Eds by him in SBU’s historical newspaper databases. They learned about the diverse and complicated information landscape, and how searching with different methods and different tools leads to very different results.
Many students from Orechovsky’s class wrote to us afterwards, and here are some experiences they found valuable, and thoughts about what they learned, in their own words:
“It has taught me to never be afraid to ask for help, especially if you have no idea how to start off with researching or just finding stuff online that may interest you.”
“Research can be more fun than you think.”
“You taught us about how to navigate our way into making the process of research easier and taught us about how it’s a journey. I learned we could use certain websites to research our topic.”
“I learned that help is anywhere you look, and that you are not alone. Not sure if I would like to get into writing books, or architecture, or where I am going to go to college. But that trip motivated me. It moved me to focus and think that this is not as impossible as others might put it as.”
“I found it to be very educational to attend this trip because if someone was to explain this skill to me through words I would have stressed over it or not have understood it. Now I feel relieved that it wasn’t very hard to learn to conduct research because I was able to experience it in person with the aid of you guys who dedicate your time to help us students learn valuable skills.”
“Something I’m grateful for about this opportunity is not only learning about research and what goes into it, but the overall sliver of college experience in general. This has been a mindopening experience considering that I have had second thoughts on putting off college but, I loved this experience and it certainly isn’t one I will forget.”
Chris Kretz explaining a library databaseStudents sharing their ideas about the information landscapeReady for lunch with Janet Clarke!
When we were designing the proposal for the Ready for Success grant, we were driven by a number of goals. While one of the main objectives was to reinforce the importance of research skills at all levels of a student’s education, another was to emphasize the fact that research skills are not just for completing classroom assignments. These are skills that will be useful in life – from researching job and career opportunities to looking for places to live, locating reliable health information, and more.
Researching engineers.
We also tried from the start, when reaching out to Brentwood High School, to work with teachers from as wide a variety of disciplines as we could attract. There can be a perception that research is just for English class or for a specific assignment in a specific grade, not to be reintroduced or reinforced down the line in other classes or subject areas.
All of which is by way of saying we were so grateful we met Jake Mulderig. He teaches in the technology department at Brentwood and, after attending our summer retreat, decided to bring his Principles of Engineering class to SBU Libraries in December of 2022.
Brentwood HS Librarian Diane Longo.
Jake had a good existing relationship with his school librarians, and we were able to build on that. He had been working with school media specialist Diane Longo on a research project. Students were researching different engineering and technical fields with an eye towards possible career paths. They were being directed to find things like required certifications, salary ranges, training programs: a well-thought-out and robust assignment.
At Stony Brook, we reinforced what they were working on with a series of activities. We pre-selected a number of articles regarding engineering projects in which experts were quoted. Students had to take the quoted engineer – and any relevant details from the rest of the article – and complete an informational profile on them. They had to find their professional information, education, details on their field of expertise, and additional articles from library databases. In terms of sources, students had free reign to consult online sources – which we reviewed together.
As with all classes during this project, we incorporated the use of library databases. We made a point throughout to emphasize the role of licensed databases as sources – and the role that libraries play in providing them. This included talking through Stony Brook’s databases as well as Brentwood High School’s Virtual Reference Collection (VRC), their local public library, and even the fact that, as New York State residents, they’re eligible for New York Public Library cards.
Another aspect of Jake’s class that we loved – and something that we saw throughout the other visits – was that the students were just as curious about being on a college campus as about the in-class activities. (And lunch – they were all curious about lunch.) As time permitted, we took classes on a tour of the library. This group of future engineers got to check out our science and technology sections along with some of our study spaces. Curiosity satisfied, it was then off to lunch.
On Thursday, December 15, 2022, SBU Libraries hosted the first of several BHS student visits. We welcomed two AP Seminar classes to campus, along with their teacher Sydney Bryan and BHS librarians Diane Longo and Maureen Ryan. In the library’s computer classrooms, the students learned about what information is available using academic library resources, practiced some database search strategies, and spent some time finding sources for their research papers. We were endlessly impressed with the originality of their research topics, as they searched for sources on a wide variety of subject areas such as literature written during the American Civil War and the effect of microplastics on mollusks. Once they gathered enough sources, some students did some extra exploring by digging through the historical newspaper databases just for fun, including Historical New York Times and African American Newspapers.
After their hard work, they enjoyed choosing from the food options at the Student Activities Center and eating lunch together before catching their bus to head back to BHS. It was a fun and productive day for everyone!
After a year of meetings and relationship building and planning with our colleagues at Brentwood High School, in summer 2022, we hosted an intensive hybrid workshop and retreat for a cohort of very enthusiastic BHS teachers to raise awareness and proficiency among the educators about research and information literacy skills and college expectations. We spent time learning, practicing, sharing, and reflecting on the many ways information literacy skills can help students become better users of information, in the academic setting as well as others. We also started to design curriculum activities to implement in the classroom in the coming academic year. Moving forward, the grant team will be monitoring how this cohort of teachers, who represent multiple academic areas, incorporates different aspects of research and information literacy skills into their curriculum.
Ready for Success retreat participants with Provost Carl Lejuez
University Libraries is partnering with Brentwood High School (BHS) on a grant project to improve college and workforce readiness by strengthening research skills in their students. The grant from the William E. & Maude S. Pritchard Charitable Trust aims to create a scalable and replicable “train the trainer” model that can be implemented throughout Suffolk County school districts. The focus of this project is to help underserved high schools embed academic research opportunities into their curriculum. Improving the research and critical thinking skills of students before graduation will empower them to achieve excellence in college and the workforce. Leveraging the expertise of university librarians, high school librarians, teachers and administrators, this project will strengthen the collaborations of these key stakeholders for student success.
The three-year grant will culminate in a regional conference for all stakeholders to celebrate the participants and to discuss ways to further strengthen the teaching of research and information literacy skills in high schools.
The grant team consists of principal investigator Janet Clarke, Associate Dean for Research & User Engagement, co-principal investigators Chris Kretz, Head of Academic Engagement, and Christine Fena, Undergraduate Success Librarian, with administrative support from Stacey Horath and Zerina Makhdoomi.
