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Friday, November 23, 2007

Update & AAQ

It has been an extremely hectic few weeks, hence the rarity of my posts. For now, you will have to be content with knowing that I am simply posting my latest AAQ and will be writing my report for the Campus Card Frontier conference that I recently attended. More about everything later.

Hello and thank you for using the Ask A Question service.

You are inquiring about how to make sure that students, in their learning groups and in the classroom environment, can reach an academic goal.

We cannot give you an absolute solution for this inquiry, since there are many different paths to success, but we can direct you to resources that might assist you in discovering a method that suits your needs.

The first step would be to build a list of keywords that could be used to perform searches. Since we are looking to maximize performance in the student, then we could employ terms such as: student (pupil, learner), education (academics, teaching, instructing, etc.), classroom, goal (performance, achievement, success, maximization, achievement, motivation, etc.), manage (direct, lead, supervise, organize, etc.) and group (team, “group dynamics”, etc.). Please note that our primary terms are listed and followed by alternate terms in parenthesis. We will mix and match these different terms to maximize the possibility of locating the best possible set of resources.

A good place to start would be the library catalogue. You can select Books and Audiovisuals from our homepage, or go to: http://eureka.uleth.ca/search~S2. The best search option to begin with is the Basic Keyword search. If we were to enter the: “classroom and success”, “classroom and achievement”, or “classroom and management” [each in a different search], you are sure to find a number of titles that might assist you in answering your inquiry. To discover more about maximizing success in groups, you might also want to search for titles that are related to managing group dynamics. Though they might be related to business or management fields, the theories/methods could also be applied to the academic setting.

If you need additional resources, you can also employ our large collection of online databases/periodical indexes. These tools will search journal, magazine, and newspaper articles for the latest articles related to your search parameters.

From our homepage, select Journal, Magazine, and Newspaper articles. The best place to start would be the databases under the Education heading – ERIC is the most comprehensive of that list to start. You will need to select the On Campus or At Home link to access the resource – if you are at home, be sure that your library privileges are up-to-date, otherwise access will be denied. Please be aware that ERIC is not the only database you can use, try some of the other education related databases or any of the General/Multidisciplinary databases to maximize your results.

ERIC and other related databases are quite sophisticated and offer many search options. You will want to employ search terms from your previous book search, and apply those same terms to your journal search. We cannot give you a full list of all options that you could employ here, so we recommend that you visit us at the Vera Bracken Library’s Information Desk (or your closest library) for assistance with these resources. Each database will also provide “Help”
pages and some, such as ERIC, will have video tutorials in the help section.

If the article is not available on line, consider using the Interlibrary Loan Service or the Find It services to acquire the article.

Thank you again for using the Ask A Question service. If you need more help, please use the service again or see the Information Desk in the Medicine Hat College Library (Phone #: (403) 529-3867; Toll Free Phone #: 1 (866) 282-8394 (Ext. 3867)).

AAQ #: 39418

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