Education

Check Out Our Newest Kids Books!

If you are an education student, parent, or just like to read kids books, we are continuing to build our children’s and young adult literature collections. Currently, these, and others, are on display in the New Arrivals section, in the lounge near the library entrance. In a couple weeks, they will be moved downstairs to the juvenile (JUV) and young adult (PZ7) sections of the library where we have a nice selection to choose from. If you need help finding them, please Ask a Librarian for help.

Photo of children's books
Photo of children's and young adult books

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Zotero Research Assistant

Zotero logo

Chances are you have at least one research assignment to do this semester. Have you ever wished there was a tool to help keep all your research together? Well, there is, and it’s called Zotero. Not only will Zotero save all your sources together in one place, but it can also connect to Microsoft Word and Google Docs to create citations and bibliographies for you. Best of all, it’s free and easy to use! For more information and instructions on how to use it, you can go to our Zotero Research Guide.

https://www.zotero.org/

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Kid’s Books in the Library

Do you have kids? Are you taking a children’s literature course? Or do you just like reading children’s or young adult books?  In any case, did you know that the library has a children’s book collection?  It is a small, but growing section in the lower level of the library near the men’s bathroom.  The best way to browse titles virtually is to do a search for “juvenile” in the library catalog. Once you get results, use the menu on the left to refine by the location “juvenile”.

Screenshot of menu to refine search

Do you prefer electronic books?  We have access to children’s e-books as well.  The best way to find the children’s e-books is to start at the library catalog. Search for “juvenile”. Once you get results, then use the menu on the left to refine by “juvenile fiction” and/or “juvenile nonfiction” and then under “format” choose “Ebooks” (see screenshot below).

Screenshot of library catalog

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Play a Fake News Game

Misinformation and disinformation are readily found in your social media feeds. In this game, you will play the part of a producer of fake news trying to earn badges to become the “Master of Disinformation”. As you learn how to deceive your followers, this game will teach you the techniques used by influencers to deceived and misinform. The goal is to learn to identify these techniques so that in the future, you don’t repost misleading, incomplete, or just plain fake news. The Bad News Game.

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1919 author, Eve L. Ewing, on Charter Schools

If you’ve been following our One Book, One College programming this year, you already know Eve L. Ewing, author of 1919 and other books and articles.  A couple of weeks ago, her opinion piece, Can We Stop Fighting about Charter Schools? was published in The New York Times. As a sociologist and educator, she is often asked about her thoughts on the topic. In this piece she argues that, we need “political leaders to abandon some of the principles that have guided education policy in our generation.” She says “we need to replace the fight over charter schools with the assertion that every child deserves a great school,” and to do that, we need to take “seriously the ‘educators don’t get paid enough’ realizations of 2020” and address “the teacher shortage that is going to worsen in the aftermath of the pandemic,” (Ewing, 2021).

If the topic of charter schools interest you, the library can help. You can find books on charter schools in our library catalog.  If you are looking for articles, our education databases are a good place to start. You can also find articles on the topic in our news databases and many of our multiple subject databases. When in doubt, be sure to Ask a Librarian!

Ewing, E. L. (2021, Feb 22). Can we stop fighting about charter schools? New York Times (Online) Retrieved from https://go.openathens.net/redirector/morainevalley.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/can-we-stop-fighting-about-charter-schools/docview/2493195195/se-2?accountid=1977

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Sesame Street and Covid-19

I know that many of our faculty, staff, and students are parents. As a parent myself, I wanted to share this with all of you. This Saturday, April 25th, The ABC’s of Covid 19: A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Parents” will air at 8:00 AM Central time on CNN and CNN.com and other CNN options listed in this article. The people at Sesame Street have also put together a list of resources for children and families. In addition to the town hall, Sesame Street has aired other short videos about social distancing, hand washing, etc. Those can be access on Youtube here. I wanted to include this public service announcement from Elmo’s dad. While my children are older than the target audience for Sesame Street, this PSA still made my eyes a bit leaky.

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The New Digital Life of the Book Cart

Ah, the Book Cart. A librarian’s favored vehicle to promote timely, curated library books and movies. But, with the campus and library closed, the Book Cart remains sadly forlorn and unused where it was left. This could break a librarian’s heart, but we’re stronger than that! After all, we are more than a building! MVCC librarians have been working hard to move services online, and the Book Cart is no exception!

Meet the new Digital Book Cart! By clicking on the image below you can browse and borrow eBooks and streaming video from MVCC library’s collection. Today’s topic: Pandemics and Public Health. Check it out if you’re interested in our history with pandemics, the stories of our heath care workers, or the mental heath struggles we are facing.

Look for more of these “displays” in the future!

Pandemics and Public Health

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Today is Autism Awareness Day (and Month)!

April is Autism Awareness Month, but April 2nd also happens to be Autism Awareness Day. There are many e-books and some streaming videos available here through our library catalog. You can also try searching for articles in our library databases. Academic Search Complete and PsycArticles are a good place to start. If you are looking for information from a teaching perspective, the Eric database and Professional Development Collection are your best bet. If you need any help, the librarians are all working from home and available to help. Our Ask a Librarian page will get you in touch with us.


April is National Autism Awareness Month - ADAPT Community Network

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What’s New Wednesdays: Education Edition

Book cover images taken from publisher’s websites & Amazon.com.
Look for this sign on the display box past the Reference Desk!

Welcome back to “What’s New Wednesdays!” Since the Spring semester has just begun, this week’s theme focuses on education. Wanting to make college work for you even though it can be expensive? We have a book for that! Need to write a college admissions essay? We have a book for that too!

  • Indebted : How Families Make College Work At Any Cost / by Caitlin Zaloom – “How the financial pressures of paying for college affect the lives and well-being of middle-class families. The struggle to pay for college is one of the defining features of middle-class life in America today. At kitchen tables all across the country, parents agonize over whether to burden their children with loans or to sacrifice their own financial security by taking out a second mortgage or draining their retirement savings. ‘Indebted’ takes readers into the homes of middle-class families throughout the nation to reveal the hidden consequences of student debt and the ways that financing college has transformed family life. Caitlin Zaloom gained the confidence of numerous parents and their college-age children, who talked candidly with her about stressful and intensely personal financial matters that are usually kept private. In this remarkable book, Zaloom describes the profound moral conflicts for parents as they try to honor what they see as their highest parental duty–providing their children with opportunity–and shows how parents and students alike are forced to take on enormous debts and gamble on an investment that might not pay off. What emerges is a troubling portrait of an American middle class fettered by the ‘student finance complex’–the bewildering labyrinth of government-sponsored institutions, profit-seeking firms, and university offices that collect information on household earnings and assets, assess family needs, and decide who is eligible for aid and who is not. Superbly written and unflinchingly honest, ‘Indebted’ breaks through the culture of silence surrounding the student debt crisis, revealing the unspoken costs of sending our kids to college.”–Book jacket
  • The Years That Matter Most : How College Makes or Breaks Us / by Paul Tough – “The best-selling author of ‘How Children Succeed’ returns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States. Does college still work? Is the system designed just to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young Americans seeking to improve their station in life? ‘The Years That Matter Most’ tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates. With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, ‘The Years That Matter Most’ will change the way you think–not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.”–Book jacket
  • The Knowledge Gap : The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System–and How to Fix it / by Natalie Wexler – “It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country’s frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn’t one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum’s intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension ‘skills’ at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff’s ‘The Prize’ and Dana Goldstein’s ‘The Teacher Wars,’ Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system–one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But ‘The Knowledge Gap’ isn’t just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong–it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.”–Publisher description
  • From Couch to College : The Fast Track to Writing Standout Admissions Essays / by Lauren Gillespie – “If you’ve already built an orphanage in Africa or are on your way to curing cancer, great. You might not need help writing a terrific essay. But for everyone else, this book will help you transform ordinary human experiences into extraordinary–and memorable–admissions essays. For those of you curled in the fetal position with a rough draft crumpled in one fist, you can finally relax. Lauren Gillespie is the Chuck Norris of essay writing, and this brief guide boils the admissions essay process down to its most basic, accessible form. No more stressing, over-researching, or analyzing other people’s ideas. And you don’t need to read a 200-page ‘How To’ in order to write your way in! Whether you’re applying for college admissions, vocational schools, or study abroad programs, this entertaining, six-step guide will cut the fat and teach you how to write an amazing admissions essay…and quickly!”–Back cover

These books are located on the display box past the Reference Desk. Look for the sign posted above in this blog. If you need help finding these books, or would like to place any on hold, don’t hesitate to “Ask a Librarian” for assistance.

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