Anatomy of a Pathfinder: Aiding Your Students With Their Research

When I ask students what they think a pathfinder is, they don't know exactly what it is. "Take apart the word", I say, emphasizing path-finder.  "Finding a path?", one student replies. "You're on the right track," I respond. A good library pathfinder is created by the teacher-librarian and provides the list of print and non-print resources necessary for a particular topic. Most of the time, resources that are available in that library are shared in the pathfinder. Not all pathfinders will look alike and have the same print and non-print sources. (See "Pathfinder Samples" on the page.)  Teachers can request that a specific pathfinder be created to go along with the class curriculum, i.e. "Romeo and Juliet". That is a very specific pathfinder, as opposed to "Shakespeare".   The Dewey Decimal number for the topic area should be listed so students know what area of the school or public library to find the book. (Make sure you have good signage.) Below you will find Buffy Hamilton's excellent video tutorial on how she creates a pathfinder.



ABOUT PATHFINDERS
How to Make a Good Library Pathfinder-  from Amy C. Mann, MLS

Pathfinders: Helping Students Find Paths to Information- article from Information Today, Inc.

Template for Creating Pathfinders


SAMPLE LIBRARY PATHFINDERS
ipl2 Pathfinder Listing- 10 categories

Methuen High School Pathfinders

Monarch Library Pathfinders- K-5

Pathfinder Index- for teens

Pathfinders for K-5 Graders

Ridgefield Park Junior-Senior High School- over 120 pathfinders!

Sand Creek Middle School Pathfinders

Springfield Township Library Pathfinders

Thematic Pathfinders for All Ages

Thomas Jefferson High School Research Guides

Amazing! 74 Infographics for Teacher-Librarians (L.A. Teachers Too!)

When your budget is low on dollars, you need to become creative when it comes to everything in your school library. Since we have a computer lab in our library-media center, (and lots of wall space...) I have decorated the lab with posters and infographics. You might have seen some of my original work, including 7 Things to Know About EBSCO, and the READ poster. There are also many posters which help students format their research paper, search for Google images, and understanding search results. When I began this search I never expected to find so many infographics for school librarians! If you are a language arts teacher, you will also find many related to grammar and reading below.

SCHOOL LIBRARIANS
27 Things Your Teacher-Librarian Does

29 Ways to Stay Creative

ABCs of Information Literacy

All Digital Citizens

America's 100 Largest Libraries 

Anatomy of a Librarian 

The Aroma of Books

At-A-Glance Comic Tutorials- from the wonderful Daring Librarian

The Benefits of Reading Books

Books VS eBooks 

Books Make a Difference in Kids' Lives: The Haves and the Have Nots

Bookworms

Bye-Bye Textbooks: How Digital Devices Are Reshaping Education

Classification Chart: Readers

Components of a 21st Century Classroom

Creative Commons Infographic

eBooks: The Greener Choice 

The Evolution of the Book 

The Evolution of Classroom Technology 

Evolution of the Noble Librarian  

The Evolution of Story Telling 

The Evolution of Typography

Finding Online Images

Formatting Your Research Paper

A General Guide to Understanding Plagiarism- EASYBIB

Google Search Genius

Guide for Your Research Paper

The History of e-Mail

The History of Science Fiction 

A History of Typography 

How Google Works  

How to Easily Archive and Embed Tweets Using Search Hash & Google Drive- Daring Librarian

The Influential Power of Print

Is Print Dead? 

A Librarian's Worth Around the World

Library of Congress By Numbers

The Literary Crisis and Kids in America

Most Targeted Books

Myth #4: Librarians Have a Lot of Time to Read

On the Road to Reading

Plagiarism: A Visual Guide

The Power of Reading to Your Children

The Power of Stories and Reading to Spark Children's Potential

Press Facts 

Progression of the eBook Reader

Publishing in the Digital Era

Questions a Critical Thinker Asks

Reading Like a Sleuth

The Rise of eReading

Students Like Social Media

Three Types of Copyright

U.S. Public Libraries at Risk 

A Visual Summary of Harry Potter 

What Does EasyBib Do?

What Makes Good Information Design? 

You Want to Know About Copyright

LANGUAGE ARTS
10 Do's and Don'ts for Effective Vocabulary Instruction

10 Hyphenation Tips

10 Step Book Report

11 Rules: How and When to Use a Period

12 Most Misunderstood Words in English

15 Most Useful Phrasal Verbs

The 15 Punctuation Marks

21 Rules: How and When to Use a Comma

40 Years of E-books 

Apostrophes: The Importance of Good Grammar

The Most Annoying Writing Mistakes

Passive and Non-Aggressive Voices

Past Tense 101

Prepositions

The Top 10 List of Mark Twain's Popular Quotes

Troublesome Words

The Writing Process

You Should Read This Before You Write That

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22 Great Places If You Teach Research Skills

If you are a teacher-librarian or media specialist, you are the one responsible for making sure students have learned the proper research skills. Since all students need to how to do research, why are school districts still cutting jobs for our position? Once kids get to middle and high school, they need to know how to do certain things tied to research, including a bibliography, website evaluation, searching techniques and so much more. Below you will find sites to assist you in teaching research skills for all ages.Use the Teacher-Librarians tab at the top to find a megalist of stuff for you.

The 6 Online Research Skills Your Students Need- from Scholastic

Copyright, Fair Use and Research Skills for Elementary Students- LiveBinder

Doing Research at the Elementary Level- written by technology teacher Mary Beth Hertz

Evaluating Information Sources Worksheet- for older students

The Future of Research- written by middle school librarian Jennifer LaGarde

Google Scholar- advanced scholarly searches

Infomine- scholarly Internet searches

iResearch: Information Skills for Life- 10 modules (covers plagiarism and searching databases) each include a PDF download

The Free Library- over 20 million articles and books

K-4 Research Materials- LiveBinder

Kentucky Virtual Library's How to Do Research- excellent interactive poster designed like a game board

Research it Right- from Acadia University's Library; animated interactive

Research Skills Lesson Plans- from Lesson Planet

Research Skills Worksheets- from TeAchnology; covers various topic areas 

Research Skills Worksheets- teacher-reviewed; grades listed

Research Skills Unit- for 8th grade students

Rutgers University's R.I.O.T.- wonderful interactive modules include: Selecting a Topic, Finding Sources, Selecting Keywords, Identifying Citations, Evaluating Sources.

State Library of Victoria- research skills for grades 5-9

Teaching Research Skills to Young Students- the role of the media specialist is explained

Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research from SweetSearch


Using Critical Thinking to find Trustworthy Websites-video lesson by N.Y. middle school teacher Emily Koch (Grades 6-8)

Wading Through the Web: Teaching Internet Research Strategies- Three complete 45-minute lessons for grades 6-8

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Rutgers R.I.O.T. Rocks

Rutgers University has posted RIOT (Research Information Online Tutorial) to aid students and teachers with their research. The 5-part animated tutorial is interactive. Teacher-Librarians can use this to get students started on their research papers. Thank you Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) for posting this awesome resource for students and teachers.

For Research: 13 Types of Citation Generators

A few days ago, my niece asked me for information about how to format a bibliography. I couldn't help but tell her the story of how "when I was in high school" we had to follow a formula which the teacher provided on a handout. Each book, newspaper article, magazine article done by hand and then typed on the typewriter for my research paper. "You are so fortunate, today.." I told my niece. There are free programs on the Internet which will practically do all the work for you, including putting your bibliography in a Microsoft Word document. So I sent her a small list of my favorite programs, and then expanded the list here. I've starred my personal favorites.

BIBMe*

Bibomatic- for books only; enter the ISBN number of a book for the citation

Citation Fox for APA

Citation Fox for MLA

Cite This For Me

CiteBite- link directly to specific quotes on web pages

CiteFast- covers MLA, APA, Chicago and newspaper, magazine, web site, journal, book

EasyBib*- also now has an iPhone app where you can scan the ISBN number on a book

GoBiblio- free bibliography and citation generator

KnightCite- enter the information in the blank fields and your citation is generated; covers MLA, APA, Chicago

NoodleBib Express- free version of Noodle Tools

OttoBib- for books only; enter the ISBN number of a book for the citation

Son of Citation Machine- for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian formats

Zotero*- keep all your research in one spot