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“The main thing I want teachers to under…
“The main thing I want teachers to understand is that they would never send their students to a catalogue of advertisements as a scholarly, legitimate resource. And yet they regularly send their students to the largest ad platform in the country, Google.”
Beth Holland
Food for thought…
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Beth Holland
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May 20, 2018 at 1:12 AM
Hi Beth! I found it difficult as a teacher and mum to ensure that my students did safe and meaningful research. I am now at the point where I collect a range of links – varying from poor to great – and upload them onto our class website. They then have a bank of resources to work from while still having to discern which ones are better to use than others. They are only in Grade 7, but what do I do for my 8s and 9s next term?
May 20, 2018 at 8:45 AM
Hi.
When I taught that same age group, I also began with a set of curated links. Most internet sources are not at their reading level, so they needed help. However, beginning with my 4th graders, I then scaffolded the process of broader searches using what I called “keyword cards.” Before students could just blindly go to a search engine, they had to make a request.
The keyword card asked them to identify their research question, the type of information that they needed (e.g. supporting detail, corroborating fact, etc), what type of source would be helpful (e.g. museum, library, encyclopedia, biography, journal, etc), the kind of search engine that they should use, and the keywords that they thought would be most helpful. I spent a lot of time helping them to understand the difference between Google, Google Scholar, Wolfram Alpha, etc.
I would say that more often than not, students thought that a search engine would make their lives easier because they could just “look for the answer” instead of making an inference. Working through the cards helped them to thoughtfully think through the process. The students are pretty resistant to this process because it is time consuming and HARD. However, I think that without guiding them, then they will not develop the skills that they need to critically analyze and synthesize information.
I hope that helps!
Beth
May 20, 2018 at 9:28 AM
What a brilliant concept! I agree that they really do not enjoy the process, but this looks like a system that can actually be fun!
It will fit in splendidly with our inquiry learning steps cards!!
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond!
You are as inspirational as always!
Best wishes,
Celri
May 20, 2018 at 10:18 AM
Hi Celri.
Happy to help.
I modeled our process off of this one from the Kentucky Virtual Library – http://legacy.kyvl.org/kids/homebase.html
With our younger students, we actually made it into a board game with stickers.
Good luck!
Beth