High School to College Transition Interest Group

Program started with the question: “What percentage of your faculty use library instruction?”

• High School Librarians
  • Primarily English teachers with a handful of subjects like math, health
  • A small percentage, but library staff is still overloaded 
  • Mainly for English research projects. Other disciplines don’t use library instruction. 
  • Participation in Government is the only Social Studies class because it doesn’t have a Regents or AP exam
  • Classes with exams like Regents or AP exams tend not to use the library because they have so much content to cover for the exams
• College Librarians
  • Misunderstanding by faculty that library instruction is only for the humanities
  • Even graduate students need a lot of help with research
  • Many undergraduates are not doing any research. There is more in-class writing because of concerns about using AI to write papers. 

Discussion of the skills college students lack coming into college

• Even in honors classes for top college students, half of the students have not written a research paper in high school 
• Many have never had a class where they have to cite sources, especially since COVID, and don’t understand citation and plagiarism
• Students enter with fewer skills in recent years. Faculty don’t realize this and pitch assignments too high. 
  • How can we reach out to faculty about that? 
  • How can high schools and colleges work together to better bridge that gap? 

Difficult for high school librarians to know what colleges expect. What skills do colleges want students to come in with? 

• Some high schools assign annotated bibliographies, and students come back saying they never had to create one in college. The college librarians said that students should be creating these in college, but not sure how many courses are actually assigning them. Faculty are increasingly handing students topics and even sources for their assignments. 
• College librarians - Would like to see students entering college with the ability to: 
  1. Find an article that is relevant to the topic, not just one of the first articles that comes up in a keyword search. It does not have to be a dense or academic article, but students should be able to identify it as related to their proposed topic. 
  2. Understand that article well enough to be able to paraphrase it. 
  3. Be able to use the article to illustrate your topic or support your thesis. 

Discussion of very different goals and environments in high school and college and how to address that.

• High school standardized testing not addressing the skills needed in college.
• Recently announced New York State proposal to change graduation requirements may have a portfolio option. If so, portfolios could be a place for students to show things like their knowledge of plagiarism and evidence of research. 
• College admissions departments need to be convinced to look at evidence of writing and research, not just test scores and grades. 
• Can start discussions by developing relationships with faculty on an individual basis at both high school and college level
  • Providing small benefits and services can lead to more faculty talking to library staff about these topics.
  • One college librarian was able to introduce a faculty member to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, and then work with the professor to examine the syllabus to identify which aspects of the framework were being addressed in the course. 
  • Faculty sometimes think that working with the librarians will add to their work. Can address this by providing a tangible product you have created, such as a slide deck from instruction. Another idea is to customize databases on the website to a class project. 
  • College librarians make subject guides and send them to departments so they have a better idea of what the library does. 
  • Sending personalized emails to research-focused classes with ideas or products can start discussions
  • Let them know your services are free! Some professors have asked college librarians if they have to pay to have the librarians provide class instruction. 
  • Ask teachers you work with to recommend you to other teachers of the same grade or class. Worry that the library is not reaching the whole cohort of students when only one teacher brings class in for instruction 
  • Need to reach out more than prepandemic. During pandemic, faculty got used to relying only on themselves and got out of the habit of using librarians. 

How should high school librarians explain the importance of these skills to students?

• Students need to understand that there is a conversation going on and that there are different points of view on topics to succeed in college and work. 
• Knowing how to read a citation will help you find further material on your topic and delve deeper
• Will increase your skills to be able to participate in class and job. 

Topics for both high school and college librarians to address. Faculty often assume students know these things, but they don’t: 

• How to find reliable articles (hint: not Reddit threads).
• Understanding that the credibility of sources differs and can tell a lot about credibility from the format and type of document
• In college you don’t just relay facts but need to be able to use facts and sources to support your thesis. 

Helpful publications for librarians and students. 

• How to be a Peer Research Consultant: A Guide for Librarians and Students by Maglen Epstein and Bridget Draxler

• They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein

• Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project that Matters to You (and the World) by Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea

The next meeting of the group will be in the Fall.