Online Course Peer Review

Teaching health courses, over the years I have found myself frequently frustrated with students who believe just about anything they read or see on TV related to health. Given the amazing amount of health misinformation that’s widely available, I desperately wanted to teach students the difference between science-based information and inaccuracies. The textbook I use touches on the subject, but getting students to use what they’ve learned through an activity (or two), might help the information to stick and, ultimately, cause them to become more educated health consumers.

For a few years now, our college librarians have been offering to create D2L librarytutorials for instructors to use to complement their courses. I decided to ask the librarians to create a tutorial which would teach students how to differentiate refereed journal articles from other periodicals. In addition, students would learn how to search the library databases and how to correctly cite journal articles retrieved online. Students are instructed to email or page the librarians with specific library questions.

Overall, this partnership has been a positive one. In on-campus classes, instructors frequently have a librarian take students through a tour of the library and discuss the resources available to them. It’s not difficult for thosestudents to stop by the library before or after class to ask a librarian a question. Teaming up with librarians through an online library “tutorial” isone way to ensure that online students are getting these same benefits.