Thursday, February 5, 2004

tech.life@school | Joyce Kasman Valenza

Pathfinders for and by students

It's nearly impossible for students to keep track of all the resources we want them to touch when they attack a big project. How do we to guide them move beyond the ease of Google and Ask Jeeves to explore call numbers for circulating and reference books, print magazines and newspapers, subscription databases, quality subject area portals, the best specific websites, experts to email? How are they to remember to do all that, while considering how best to express a search?

This is a job perfectly suiting to pathfinders. Pathfinders make all of this guidance available and accessible within a limited number of clicks, while making it locally relevant and meaningful to students.

Pathfinders, well known in the library world since the early 1970s as comprehensive guides for researchers, are not just for librarians anymore. Online pathfinders are ideal projects for any teacher concerned about students using quality sources and learning to navigating their research options.

Web-based pathfinders are the best tools I know for helping students and their teachers experience independence while getting their arms around a confusing and ever-awing volume of resources.

On the Web, Pathfinders allow adults to clear a 24/7 path through the information jungle for students (and other web-users). They allow us to ensure that students cover all bases and allow us to scaffold and model selection, evaluation, strategies, and balance without over-intruding.

A growing number of teachers and librarians are creating attractive, logically organized do-it-yourself blueprints for research, as well as blueprints for constructing pathfinders.

Here's a sampling:

Springfield Township High School Pathfinders http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/pathmenu.html

Addresses major Springfield Township student needs, for instance: college searching, primary sources, and social issues.Our educational research pathfinder is designed to guide our faculty through both graduate research and reflective practice.

Internet Public Library Pathfinders http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/

An extensive collection guides users through projects from Author Biography to Western Philosophy.For high school students, Literary Criticism is too good to miss.

Morton Grove Public Library's Bibliographies and Pathfinders http://www.webrary.org/rs/bibmenu.html

Includes both bibliographies and pathfinders aimed at school research and such real-life research issues as buying a car, gardening, and investing.

Pathfinders for Kids -- Indianapolis Marion Public Library http://infozone.imcpl.org/kids_pathfinders.htm

Designed for younger students, the elegant structure of these tools offers a solid model for elementary teachers; the content addresses frequently-assigned projects.

Hamilton Public Library http://www.hpl.ca/Guides/PATHFIND/path.shtml

An extensive list of pathfinders in both pdf and html formats covers topics from abortion through young offenders.

Lakewood High School Pathfinders http://www.lkwdpl.org/lhs/lhspath.htm

Customized for specific class projects, these examples offer great models for teacher/librarian collaboration.

Camden County Subject Guides/ Pathfinders http://www.camden.lib.nj.us/reference/subject.htm

An excellent public library approach to Œgetting you started,Œ as well as more detailed Reference Guides.

Wenatchee School District's Pathfinder for Constructing Pathfinders: Resource Guides for Class Assignments http://home.wsd.wednet.edu/pathfinders/path.htm

Offers a helpful template and a PowerPoint with tips.

Methuen High School's Pathfinders http://www.methuen.k12.ma.us/snhamer/

Attractively designed tools on heavily researched topics, accessible from an elegant index page

Vandergrift's Pathfinder http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/YoungAdult/path.html

Kay Vandergrift of Rutgers offers a template and advice for those who work with teens.

Designing Pathfinders for Children and Young Adults http://www.eduscapes.com/earth/path3.html

Advice and examples of best practice in the area of pathfinders, and factors to consider when designing pathfinders for children and young adults

Students can create pathfinders too.

As an alternative to the traditional term paper, and sometimes in addition to a formal written project, we've discovered that asking students to prepare pathfinders, reinforces skills of searching, evaluation, and analysis. This activity promotes use of a wide and balanced range of relevant resources from multiple formats and moves students from reliance on free Web and their favorite search engine. It is also meta-cognitive.The activity encourages students to reflect on the research process and the quality of their searching strategies.

In addition, these authentic student products help researchers who follow in the students' research paths. Our archived student pathfinders have drawn email queries from college level students and from teachers.

"They work because they compel students to look at a wide variety of sources," noted my colleague Michael Wagman, who regularly uses pathfinders as student projects. "Students compare sources and filter out those not the best. When they do a paper, those papers become more powerful. Student pathfinders do not allow laziness from research point of view. If the annotations are done well, and the sources are diverse, the student can demonstrate through the pathfinder alone that they've done significant reading and legwork on a topic."

Springfield Township High School's template for student created pathfinders is located: http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/pathfinder.html

Examples of Michael Wagman's students' work is located off his Quest class page at http://www.springfield.k12.pa.us/shs/quest/pathfinders.htm

And a final searching tip!

Using the word pathfinder as a search term in your favorite search engine will likely pull up teacher- and librarian-created guides that function as outstanding starting points for research.

Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High School in Erdenheim, Pa. Her column appears regularly in tech.life.

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