Document Type

Campus Connection

Publication Date

7-2009

Abstract

Librarians, a member of the Hotel College faculty, and a member of the Career Services staff at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas collaborated in the design, implementation and evaluation of a non-traditional research assignment asking students to demonstrate real world information literacy skills.

Session attendees will explore the process by which the traditional librarian-teaching faculty member collaboration grew into a richer project involving a non-traditional partnering. Attendees will be guided through a discussion on levels of collaboration and an audit of potential non-traditional partner opportunities at their own institutions.

Attendees will examine the product of this partnership: an assignment that asks students to generate informed questions to ask in a job interview. The assignment was designed to be useable in larger classes where a classic “term paper” style research assignment might be unrealistic to effectively administer and grade. After a session with the librarians on conducting research, students enrolled in a course on professional development within the hospitality industry are required to develop questions that they might ask of an interviewer that demonstrate the company- and industry-specific knowledge they gleaned via their research. Students are motivated by the idea of positioning themselves favorably in an interview in a way that a traditional term paper on a company or an industry fails to motivate. Attendees will brainstorm ways a similar approach (assigning the development of informed questions) might be used in different settings.

The presentation will close by describing the personal and professional benefits of collaboration for those involved.

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