Publications and Research
Document Type
Book Chapter or Section
Publication Date
9-2021
Abstract
Information literacy, inquiry, and empirical observation skills are essential to undergraduate students’ success, supporting the development of their independent critical thinking skills. In this chapter, we discuss an interdisciplinary course that we, an architecture professor and a librarian, co-taught at New York City College of Technology. The course, Learning Places: Understanding the City, combines place-based learning with primary source research, developing students’ abilities to observe an urban site chosen for study and to document their observations, and in the process build a line of inquiry for further research. The documented observations, newly created primary sources in their own right, initiated a research process focused on primary sources, building the students’ information literacy competencies along the way. Students found, evaluated, and integrated historical primary sources into a collaborative project that responded to a real-world issue or conditions of the site chosen for study.
Comments
Leonard, Anne, and Jason Montgomery. “The City as a Learning Lab: Using Historical Maps and Walking Seminars to Anchor Place-Based Research.” Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research, edited by Lijuan Xu, Rowman & Littlefield, 2021, pp. 59–68.