This activity was part of a larger class session focused on preparing students for their interdisciplinary research projects. At this point in the semester students did not yet have their own research topics. It also took place outside of a computer classroom where not all students had laptops. Students break up into groups of 3-4 students. You can make as many topics as you want. For a class of 25 I created 4 topic options. Each group receives 5-10 minutes to complete each segment. When the timer is up they switch with a group. No one should receive the paper they start with until the very end. At the end of the activity we come back as a class and discuss how it went and what strategies they might implement in their own research processes. (I first heard about the idea of passing a problem in an interactive way from Sarah Lucchesi and Jenn Sams from Michigan Tech at Lake Superior Libraries Symposium, this is inspired by their idea.)

This activity has been shared and modeled for non-librarian and librarian instructors. The materials can be used in support of a real assigned research project/ paper or with example sources. We encourage the use of actual student research materials to be used in the classroom portion of this activity so students can continue use beyond the interactive exercise. It is not recommended that this activity be implemented during a one-shot library instruction session due to the length of time required. It can, however, be introduced in a one-shot library instruction session. Materials used for this can also be distributed to academic support partners including but not limited to composition faculty, writing centers/ labs, tutors, reference areas, or other front line staff who students engage with questions about research or writing.

This workshop was created as an offering of the Savvy Researcher workshop series at the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/services/savvy_researcher.html]