Ideas for Integrating the Web Research Tutorial into
Courses
Here are some quick and easy ideas for using the Web Research Tutorial
to broaden your discussions of the issues around using information from
the publicly-accessible web in your course and to highlight the expectations
you have for students with respect to research, critical evaluation and
citation.
In-class activities:
-
Class discussion: Examine portions of the tutorial
in class (i.e., case studies).
-
Fishbowl: Structure a fishbowl discussion around
possible scenarios that might challenge a students' ability to find
suitable material on the publc web and critically evaluate information
in the context of your course.
-
Exemplars: Show samples of student work that demonstrate
acceptable critical evaluation and citation practices, and discuss
how they effectively improve the work.
-
Debate: Structure a debate around the quality of
some types of information or specific website examples.
-
One sentence summaries: Ask students to write a
one sentence summary of the key message in the tutorial.
Assignment ideas:
-
Take the quiz: Have students print out their test
results and sign them and/or ask them to hand in their test results
page along with their first paper.
-
Group work: Have students complete the tutorial
in small groups and have each group prepare a brief review of the
process and how it applies in the context of your course and its
assignments. Alternatively, form small groups, each with an assigned
question pertaining to the critical evaluation of a specified web
page relevant to the course (e.g., How current is the web page?,
How authoritative ...?, What is the purpose ...?, ...). After, say,
10 minutes of deliberation, each group can then give a brief presentation
on their findings to the whole tutorial. Together, the tutorial
class can then decide if the web page would be suitable to use in
an essay, and, if so, what accompanying comments or qualifications
would be needed.
-
Quiz question: Have students prepare an additional
quiz question for the tutorial.
-
Applied examples: Have students prepare their
own example of an advanced search and critical evaluation of a public
web page relevant to the course.
-
Peer review: Have students review a peer's assignment
to ensure that critical evaluation and citation have been properly
applied.
Additional ideas and suggestions are always welcome — please send
a quick note to library@yorku.ca
describing your strategy and we may add it to this Idea Bank.
Thanks to the CST
and the use of the Idea
Bank from the Academic for the Academic Integrity Tutorial for their
assistance in getting this Idea Bank started!
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| 
updated: 14 July 2006
