Duncan

Introduction:
The focus for my needs assessment were the 4th graders at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. There are 64 students in the 4th grade, with 36 of them being boys and 28 of them girls. I decided to survey them to determine their knowledge of basic reference sources available in the library. I wanted to see if they were familiar with sources such as an atlas, an encyclopdia, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. I also wanted to see how many of the students were familiar with online encyclopedias such as World Book for Kids.

For my assessment, I survey one of the three 4th grade classes. There were 22 students in the class (12 boys and 10 girls). I felt that this class would provide me with a fair representation on the entire grade. Based on the survey, I fould that the majority of the students were familiar with an atlas, an encyclopedia, and a dictionary. However, the majority of them did not know how to use a thesaurus and 77% of the students had never used an online encyclopedia. Therefore, my Plan of Action focuses on helping students better understand how to use print reference materials, especially a thesaurus, and teaching them how to navigate an online encyclopedia as well.



The first step in my Plan of Action would be to schedule the 4th graders for two different hour-long sessions in the library. I would have each class come separately so that I was working with a smaller number of students at a time. The objective of my first lesson would be to help make sure the students have an overview and basic knowledge of the common, print reference services available to them in the library. The materials needed would include print versions of the dictionary, both the World Book Dictionary and the World Book Student Dictionary, an atlas, a set of the World Book Encyclopedia, and both a student thesaurus and regular thesaurus. The students would also need a copy of the “scavenger hunt” that I would provide. I would start with a 20 minute overview of the dictionary, atlas, encyclopedia, and thesaurus. Since the students seem to have a good grasp of the dictionary and atlas, I would spend more time on the encyclopedia and the thesaurus, with the most time being spent on the thesaurus. I would show them the different thesauruses available, such as the student edition and the regular edition, and give them examples of words that we would look up and find other words that could be used instead. After the 20 minute overview of the materials, I would divide the students into groups of 3 and send them on a “reference scavenger hunt”. I would already have the reference materials set out for them to see, but I would make a list of different things they needed to find in the different reference materials. Examples would be things like: finding what page a certain map was on in the atlas, finding a certain word in the dictionary and writing down what words came before and after it, or finding a word in the dictionary and writing down the guide words on the page where it is found. For encyclopedias, I would have questions such as, what years did a certain president serve in office, what year was something invented, etc. Then, for the thesaurus, I would have questions that involved them finding a certain word and then giving 2 or 3 examples of other words that could be used. They would not be told what source to look in, but hopefully by working together in groups of three, they would be able to figure it out. I would be there to guide them through the process as needed. The students would “hunt” for about 30 minutes, and then at the end, we would come back together and see if they were able to find what they were looking for.

The objective of the second session of my POA would involve making sure the students had a basic understanding of online encyclopedias and resources available through sources such as the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL). The only materials needed for this lesson would be the computers and the worksheet that I provide. I would spend the first part of the lesson teaching the students how to get on TEL’s website and proceed to the World Book Encyclopedia for Kids and Students. With 4th graders, I would probably focus on the World Book for Kids because it is more user-friendly and easier to navigate for beginners. By using a projector to project my computer on the screen, I would show them how to navigate through the online encyclopedia. I would show them things such as how to conduct a search for a specific topic, and then how to read about that topic once they find it. I would show them things such as the lexile level listed for the article, how to have it read aloud to them, how to find the citation for the article, or how to print the information, if needed. After spending 20-25 minutes going over this information with them, I would then give them each a list of topics to look up in the encyclopedia. Along with the topics, I would have a list of information for them to find. For one entry, I might have them write down the lexile level, for another entry, I might have them write down the citation information, while on others, have them write down information that they found in the actual articles. I would have the students work independently on this assignment. I would have them work for about 30 minutes, while I helped students as needed. We would then spend the last few minutes discussing how the students felt about using the online encyclopedia. Did they think it was easy to navigate or hard? Were they able to find what they were looking for? Would the students feel comfortable using the computers on their own in the future? Hopefully after these two sessions, the 4th graders at Lipscomb Academy would feel more comfortable with the basic reference materials that they are exposed to and especially have a better understanding of how to use a thesaurus and an online encyclopedia.