Improving the "One-Shot" BI Class

• Make sure the teacher attends the class if possible; this stresses the importance of the class to students.
• Try some type of pre-test (paper or online) to get a sense of student's research skills and what to stress in your presentation.
• Tie any book/database searches to current events. This is really effective when you are researching a breaking news story somewhere in the world.
• If your class is in a computer classroom, include one or two searching exercises as part of the presentation. Students can email article citiations or catalog bib records to their instructor complete the exercise for credit
  
• Introduce a seemingly reputable web page at the beginning of class (you probably already have some of your favorites bookmarked like this and this) ... then use some evaluative criteria or compare to web pages on the same topic to show that the page is a fake, or at least dubious ... good segueway into evaluation of web pages and the use of subject directories like LII.
• Evaluation and feedback from students and the instructor can be useful in refining your presentation and deciding what should be stressed in a 50 minute class. We use an online form at RCC.