M. Michelle Slaughter
Design Portfolio
Micro-Lessons
Context
I have noticed that students have increasingly come to college unfamiliar with what academic/scholarly research is, how to determine what quality sources are, and not knowing how to use the libraries for assistance. The Micro-Lesson below was designed and developed in collaboration with a former colleague for use in any course electing to add it to their support resources as well as for the HCC Library to add to their online tools.
Design and Development
After careful consideration, creating a micro-lesson as a supplemental resource to be housed in Canvas appeared to be the best solution. The lesson would be available to those who needed it without being assigned to those who did not. This would be available to add to any course's resource module and would also be hosted on the library's website. The lesson covers academic research, determining quality sources, and conducting research using the tools available through the library database.
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The lesson culminates in a screencast video showing students exactly how to get started and what to do along the way with a short knowledge check at the end.
Results
The lesson needed to be short enough to encourage voluntary completion while being detailed enough to be helpful. The lesson is split into 3 short sections, each of which can be completed in about 3 minutes, including a video in each section that is 2 minutes or less to manage interest. The content is organized in a way that allows students to go through the full lesson or return as needed to use it as a reference resource. We consulted additional faculty and librarians for feedback before adding the lesson to the online library and several courses as needed.
Screenshots from the micro-lesson are shown below.
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