All Teaching Materials

Toolkit

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

This video discusses the difference between primary and secondary sources with examples from the Minnesota Historical Society's collections.

Toolkit

Prior Knowledge of Databases Check

A brief survey (roughly three or four multiple choice questions) assesses level of knowledge and skills relevant to a subject or course. Based on survey results, the instructor can determine an appropriate starting point for a lesson and build upon students' prior knowledge.

Toolkit

Process Cards

PDF includes cards for teacher to cut out and organize into a deck. Each deck should include one formative process, along with six different types of information. Decks are then distributed to small groups of students with instructions to discuss and arrange the six types of information by whatever the process card says. So, for example, “rank these cards by which format involves the least amount of research up to the one which involves the most.” Afterwards, each group should state their ranking to the full class and explain why they decided to order things the way they did. Hopefully doing so will spark a discussion of how different processes contribute to the “value” of information in different contexts, and how there is no one “correct” order.

Toolkit

PsycINFO

How to use the PsycINFO database, which has peer-reviewed articles from scholarly journals, book chapters, and dissertations in psychology, behavioral science, and mental health.

Toolkit

Rank the sources: In class activity

Students are provided with four abstracts from the Academic Search Premier database, and prompted to read the abstracts, consider the audience, the date, and then rank these in order of usefulness for an essay. Three sets of results lists given.