What Every Instructor Always Wanted to Know About the Curriculum Laboratory... But Was Afraid To Ask

For further assistance in using any of the resources in the Lab, please ask at the Curriculum Laboratory Information Services Desk or phone 403-329-2288

Our Services...

Involve 3 spheres: Curriculum, Laboratory, and Staff

To see our vision and services in action, see http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/virtualtour.cfm.

Information Literacy in the Curriculum Laboratory:

The following types of formal information literacy sessions are taught by Curriculum Laboratory librarians. Our formal sessions are taught "at point of need," and related to specific class assignments: PSI Semester orientation in the 1st full week of classes, Curriculum and Instruction curriculum publications orientation in the 2nd full week of classes, Language in Education module orientation in the 3rd full week of classes, a Literature Fair in the 4th full week of classes, and Education 2500 orientations. If you would like to give your class an edge in locating relevant information for a specific assignment, you can request a Post-PSI information literacy session from the librarians in the Curriculum Laboratory. For more information, see http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/handouts/informationliteracy.html. To book this type of instructional session, contact Bill Glaister or Margaret Rodermond.

Education Materials in the Laboratory and the Library:

The Curriculum Laboratory is a learning resource centre designed to support the Faculty of Education's teacher education program. It may help to think of the Curriculum Laboratory as a support for the practice of teaching, and the Main Library education collection as a support for the theory of education. The Library's Education Indexes/Databases (http://www.uleth.ca/lib/indexes/subjects/display.asp?Subject=Education&SubjectID=18) are being updated constantly. It is advisable to check these resources before creating or modifying assignments.

Contacts and Suggesting (or Donating) Resources:

If you want to make suggestions for Education titles, please forward these to Bill Glaister. He will then negotiate with Rumi Graham, Education Librarian in the University Library, in order to determine whether the suggestion best fits the practical Curriculum Laboratory collection, or the more theoretical Education collection in the Library. If you would like to make potential donations to the Curriculum Laboratory collection, please be aware that we follow the general guidelines in the Library Donations policies. Contact Bill Glaister for more information.

Using the Facilities For Your Classes:

• Any of the breakout spaces in the Curriculum Laboratory can be booked by you, including L1170G and the Open Area Teaching Space. The spaces are conducive to group work, workshops, presentations, and when your students need easy access to the Curriculum Laboratory materials. These areas are booked by contacting any of the Curriculum Laboratory staff. Available resources include two presentation computers, three portable white boards, three Proxima projectors, overhead projectors, and two Smart Boards. When booking, please specify the equipment needed, and the number of students in the class. Book ahead to make sure we can accommodate your needs.
• We have several locations to store your materials in the Curriculum Laboratory, including your own whiteboard markers, teaching supplies, etc.
• We have portable carts you can sign out for transporting your materials to and from the Curriculum Laboratory. They are listed in the catalogue under the title "Collapsible Fridge Dolly." However, you do not have to carry your fridge with them. They are located in the Oversize Collection at 648.9 Col

Instructor Photocopier in the Library:

• There is a photocopy room in the Library for your use. It is located on the 10th floor of the Library, next to the Library Information and Research Assistance Desk (Room L1010).

Traditional Resources and Search Guides:

See our web page at http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/handouts.cfm for details.

Web Resources and Passwords:

"Great Sites For Educators," found at http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/sites.cfm, includes links to a number of web sites plus access to a wide variety of databases for our students, many of which are also used in the schools. Our students receive annual information on how to access these sources through our Information Literacy sessions and through e-mail, including usernames and passwords for our "Digital Resource Subscriptions", found at http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/Digitalsubscriptions.cfm.

Collection Development and Main Curriculum Changes This Year

• We spend approximately $10,000 to purchase the best reviewed young adult and children's literature each year. See http://www.uleth.ca/edu/currlab/wigham.html for more information. The Wigham Binders located behind the Curriculum Laboratory Information Desk give you and your students access to the titles we select each year.
• We spend approximately $25,000 on basic, authorized and non-reviewed resources found in the LRC catalogue each year. The main areas developed this year are outlined in the following table.
• The remaining funds are used to purchase suggested materials, as well as to target specific areas of the collection for development, related to the Alberta Curriculum.

LRC Ordering Done This Year:

The amounts spent in any of these areas is subject to the annual changes in the curriculum. These represent some of the main areas of collection development this year, in terms of LRC materials. It does not include April to July purchases of brand new LRC materials needed for the fall.

Subject:                                                                                  Estimated Cost:

Math (Grade2,5,8 basic resources and support materials)	$12508.00
Social Studies (Many DVDs for new curriculum topics, Aboriginal content, completing the grade 6, 9,12 textbook series)	$4300.00
CTS	$1600.00
International Languages (Including French)	$1850.00
SNAP (Castle Rock) Assessment materials for all subjects	$1500.00
Total:	$21758.00

Instructor Requests: Approximately $3700.00 of materials.

Online subscriptions (and magazines): $7500.00, 0r 21% of our budget.

Career Grant: We purchased a 4 year subscription to the online database called "Career Cruising," for $1885.00, and $600.00 worth of books. Another $2500.00 of career resources will be purchased with the grant in the coming year.

Wigham "Best Books" Orders:

Curriculum Laboratory Circulation Statistics:

July 2008 to June 2009:

Total number of items used:	49,321
Traditional items borrowed:	29,393
Web resources used*:	19,928

*The web resources used are a count of the number of times our web resources were accessed on the University of Lethbridge campus, plus the use of our major database subscriptions. This figure is an approximate indication of use by our students. Total web resources used for the year, both internal and external users, was 128,296.

Instructional Services:

	Number of sessions:	Number of participants:
Orientations taught:	62	1229
Class visits:	312	5048

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Prepared June 2008 by Bill Glaister and Margaret Rodermond. Updated November 2009.