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Garden City School Library: Using RICAT

Essential Question

How can I find out what books are in the library and locate them on the shelf?

Lesson 1 - Baseline Assessment (T1)

  • Introduction: Let the kids know that their top goal this year is to learn how to use the online catalog to search for books. To measure their learning, we are going to have three assessments. Today is the "baseline," which means it's just to see how much they already know or can figure out on their own. IT IS NOT A TEST. It will not count towards their grade. It's just to see how much time I need to spend teaching specific parts of the catalog. If they don't know an answer, they should skip to the next question. 
     
  • Activity: Students respond to the assessment below to the best of their ability.
     
  • Assessment: Because this is an official Student Learning Objective (SLO) that ties into my evaluation, I must record the number of correct answers and then choose end-of-year goals for each "tier" of students. Since I haven't taught them anything yet, however, scores do not count towards anything but goal-setting. 

Lesson 2: RICAT Searching 1 (T1)

  • Introduction: Remind the students that we are going to learn how to use the online catalog this year. Explain that the catalog used to be on cards and hand out samples for them to look at.
     
  • Discussion: Ask if anyone knows the web site for the catalog. Explain that it's RICAT.net (.com also works, but .org doesn't). Ask if anyone can figure out what it stands for (Rhode Island Catalog). Hold up one of the RICAT kittens as a mnemonic. Ask for a volunteer to navigate to the site and then choose Garden City. Explain briefly that the links on the home page include online resources that we'll explore in later lessons. For today, we want to access the catalog.



    Go through the first five questions from last week's baseline, making sure to demonstrate the kinds of results that come up when you search by title v. keyword v. subject. Show the kids how to find the call number of a book in the item entry and review the following sections of the library: E, BD, NF, FIC, S, and regular nonfiction.
     

Lesson 3 - RICAT Seaching 2 (T1)

  • DAY BEFORE: Let classroom teacher know that the students can bring their devices to library the next day to access the catalog.
     
  • Review: Go over the concepts we discussed last week: RICAT.net, search buttons, and call numbers. Remind them where the E section is located.

  • Activity: Give each student a slip of paper with the title of an E book on it. (See attached.) They must write down the author and call number, then find the book on the shelf and bring it to me to get their library card.
     
  • Assessment:

    1 = Student does not complete slip and never gets around to looking for a book.

    2= Student writes down correct author and call number but does not find the book.

    3= Student completes slip correctly and finds the book.

    4 = Student completes all tasks correctly AND successfully completes extra credit.

 

Standards Addressed

AASL: 1.1.1 - Follow and inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects; 1.1.4 - Find, evaluate, and select appropriate resources; 1.1.8 - Demonstrate mastery of technology tools for accessing information and pursuing inquiry.

Common Core: RI.3.4 - Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area; RI.3.5 - Use text features and search tools to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently; SL.3.3 - Ask and answer questions about infomation from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and details; Math Pratice 5: Use appropriate tools stragetically.

 
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