Bridges

The following plan of action is based on a survey that was administered to eighth grade students at Meigs Magnet Middle. The survey questions sought to uncover eighth graders' impression of, knowledge about, and comfort with the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL). As suspected, most students indicated that they felt a lack of comfort when navigating TEL. Students also indicated that they only used TEL when required to for school. Many remarked that other resources seemed faster, or there were different databases they typically used. Overall, students seemed to have developed the opinion that TEL could only be useful in school settings and was not always the most effective resource. However, this narrow perspective has limited students' understanding and use of reliable resources. This has become an issue for eighth graders who are required to complete numerous research projects throughout the year. **Plan of Action** Based on the results of the survey, eighth graders at Meigs Magnet Middle lack knowledge about and comfort with the Tennessee Electronic Library. As a reliable and comprehensive online database, TEL provides students with a resource that can enhance their search for information and help fill information literacy needs. In order to increase TEL usage among eighth graders at Meigs, I would implement the components of the following plan of action.

To begin, I would schedule a TEL representative to visit the school and give a brief presentation about the aspects of the database that would be useful and appealing to eighth grade students. My purpose in starting with a guest speaker would be to capture students’ attention and allow an expert to highlight the many uses of TEL. Since upper middle school students often enjoy feeling like they are being treated as adults, I would advertise the event as a professional development workshop for eighth graders. It would be my hope that the students would be more willing to keep an open-mind when the person giving them helpful information is not the teachers or librarian they see every day. This would serve as the first step toward changing students’ perspectives about the database and what it has to offer.

Continuing with my plan, I would design eighth grade TEL lessons. During these lessons, students would use laptops to navigate the site and put into practice some of things shown during the speaker’s presentation. Most importantly, I would give students the opportunity to explore some of the aspects of TEL that appeal to personal interests. To give these lessons a more structured purpose, the students would be required to complete a short, inquiry-based project about a topic of their choice. There would be requirements for the number and variety of resources they accessed through TEL, in order to give them as much practice as possible. Overall, my purpose for these lessons would be to increase student knowledge of and comfort with the database. Likewise, I would hope that opinions of TEL would increase through their experiences completing the projects.

Finally, I would develop TEL presentations to give to teachers and parents. These presentations would provide teachers and parents with knowledge about TEL as a valuable and reliable resource. At the same time, they would encourage important stakeholders to advocate for the use of TEL in and out of school. Hopefully, this would ensure that students continued to believe in the Tennessee Electronic Library as a valuable and accessible resource in their lives.