Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Teaching Motivation That Works: Structuring Graduate-Level Research Support Workshops To Foster Centered, Focused Self-Sufficient Learners, Wendy C. Doucette

ETSU Faculty Works

All too frequently, instruction librarians’ only opportunity to teach students distills down to the fifty-minute, one-shot, make-or-break experience. We disseminate the essential information as requested—how to use the library, how to search the databases, and so on—with little time to explain why all the pieces fit together and why they are important. Worse, well-intentioned librarians often strive to cover as much as possible in these sessions, oversaturating and frustrating their student audience.

Even in settings of brief duration with no follow-up, another approach is possible. Rather than attempting to demonstrate everything at once, we can interject effective, real-life motivational tactics …