Teaching the research process - for discovery and personal growth - 65th IFLA Council a... - 18 views
-
The process approach goes beyond the location of information to the use of information, beyond the answering of a specific question to the seeking of evidence to shape a topic. It considers the process of a search for information as well as the product of the search. It calls for an awareness of the complexity of learning from information: learning from information is not a routine or standardized task, and it involves the affective as well as the cognitive domains.
-
Joe Chandler on 13 Apr 10I very much agree with this passage. One of the great motivators for my students is that information must be useful, and have some practical application beyond pure acadamia. If my students cannot see how it is relevant to their situation, information, no matter how interesting, is often overlooked. -
Marci Boatwright on 15 Apr 10Yes. I observe students struggling with what information to gather and what to do with it once they have gathered it. This is a break down in instruction. I need to provide my students with a clear picture of their end in order for them to truly understand their means. -
Jordi Owens on 14 Jun 10I would agree; helping students identify the big ideas is essential for the process -
Andrea Matott on 19 Jun 10Joe, your comment resonates with me and is why I love teaching health. Our topics are relevant every day. This works well for me and my students! -
Vicki Crawford on 07 Oct 10Vicki Crawford Plus...just understanding and using the process is so important in our tech driven society. A person who can't find and shape information will have trouble in our modern world. -
Linda Babcock on 14 Oct 10Our kids don't just listen to one newscast, they are all over the internet listening to or reading discussions that cover all sides of the issues, arguing with friends, and creating their own opinions. -
KIS Jeju on 15 Jan 11I agree. Kids want to find useful information; sometimes, though, they don't want to take the time to locate useful information and/or to ensure the information is truly useful to them. There are many times I think students just want to "get the work done," so they rush and are not critical thinkers. Perhaps ensuring we create personally meaningful assignments and/or through student choice, we can better ensure students take the time needed to find useful information. -
Beth Medina on 29 Jan 11Students are rushed through many aspects of their day. You want them to take personal ownership and do the best job they can. Sometimes this meansgiving them more time or asking less of the assignment. If they take personal ownership they will work harder to complete the assignment in a timely manner and do their personal best. -
vanessa hoffman on 23 Mar 11I agreewith Shirl. I find when students do research in the library (from books) they have trouble reading for content. They are so used to entering something in google and having it spit back out to them. I love that the essential question makes them use critical thinking. -
Jay McGuffin on 11 Apr 11I really focused on "...seeking evidence to shape a topic." So often you start out thinking one thing and based on evidence you change your thinking because you have to.
-
-
Careful and thoughtful work is needed here to ensure that topics and research questions require high level thinking skills and that they will challenge students and engage their interest and curiosity.
-
-
"engage their interest and curiosity" ... the challenge is creating a sense of interest beyond their traditional little interest bubbles of sex, drugs, and video games, not that those can't be topical, but we have to get them outside of themselves sometimes. -
Research questions that require higher level thinking: My students had great struggles framing their question for their science fair project, so I know first hand how much guidance and questioning they need to get to the higher level questioning. -
I think students get to this point by having some buy-in like maybe they got to chose their topic within a topic for the research
-
-
anger, frustration, fatigue, irritability, leg jiggling or swearing-
-
-
This is exactly the frustration I feel when I can't find what I need on the web. It was sooo much easier when I could talk to a librarian and she could tell me where to look, but this is the reason we need to learn to create a more effective search through the selection of key words and etc. I am still in the learning process, and it still takes much more time than I often want to spend. -
Ecspecially important to guide them at early ages. I the frustration starts early, they could develop anxiety over reasearch projects and learn to feel overwhelmed. -
Yes, they need to experience success at each stage in order to develop a comfort level with research.
-
-
- ...53 more annotations...
-
This is often where electronic resources or the photocopy machine can actually be a detriment to the process.
-
valid point; obviously the development of electronic resources has improved from a detriment to a resource. I just coached a student yesterday on how Diigo would have saved her from plagiarizing .
-
-
I sooo look forward to using Diigo with my students and teaching my own kids at home how to use this WONDERFUL tool
-
-
Another alternative is having students prepare a written or oral summary of what they have learned about the process, or what content they have learned through the process.
-
Kids are pretty honest about all of this given the opportunity. Examples; "I rushed through this stage" or "my essay would be better if I had.."
-
I agree. When given the opportunity, students can be excellent self-evaluators. I want to figure out how to do this throughout the project in meaningful ways so that the final project truly reflects learning and growth.
-
When I do a group project I give them a group evaluation that is anonymous, and it is incredible how much feedback you get from it. -
-
-
From education comes also the constructivist concepts of learners actively building or constructing their knowledge and of learners experiencing changes in feelings as well as changes of thoughts as they use information.
-
This ideas of constructivism is one that is big in science education right now - we are asked with increasing frequency to incorporate inquiry learning into science instruction -
-
Sometimes it is hard to find a constructivist approach in "read this book," but I try to look for those themes or angles that help students use what they are reading to build something personal for them, usually through a thematic approach.
-
To me this is the "essential" process that thinkers/learners need to engage in. Accessing and using new information by combining it with background knowledge.
-
When a student's beliefs, thoughts, and/or feelings are affected by a research project, then we know they are engaged and have been changed as a result of our teaching. -
Humanities lends itself to current events which provokes opinions, thoughts, feeling, and an entire gammit of prblem solving, engaging and daily relevant items to students lives - this is our 'hook'
-
-
To do research well, the students have to be knowledgeable about the topic and the topic has to be an appropriate level of abstraction. Having a good understanding of the topic will allow the students to develop research questions or categories for investigation.
-
I have trouble with this in Chemistry - I feel like my students may not yet have enough understanding of the topic to be able to select an appropriate research question. They are taking a chemistry course in order to learn those fundamentals!
-
I try to give students just enough background knowledge, or a choice of topics, to help them have some idea of what they are looking for. But yes, it can be challenging when students have little to no frame of reference to even know what topic might interest them. -
Having this prior knowledge allows the younger students to spend less time on basic research and focus on the essential questions
-
Seems to be a bit contradictory . . . students need to be knowledgeable about a topic to conduct good research, yet they oftentimes need to research in order to learn about a topic!
-
I see this like dangling the carrot - you give them some info and entice them to want to learn more about the topic
-
-
The process approach emphasizes the affective as well as cognitive aspects of the process. Students need to be helped to recognize as natural the waves of optimism and frustration that accompany complex learning (Kuhlthau, 1993). They also need to be aware of and have coping strategies to address such common phenomena as library anxiety and information overload. The point here is not to try to have only positive feelings or to eliminate negative feelings but to recognize them as normal parts of learning, to understand them, and to regulate them. Students who understand that their feelings are not unique but shared by others are less likely to be overwhelmed by them.
-
"but to recognize them as normal parts of learning, to understand them, and to regulate them." It is my belief that student can regulate their feeling about doing a project, and increase their effectiveness by managing their negative feelings.
-
For younger children, it is important to give parents some of this information so they can help their children respond appropriate outside of the classroom as well as inside the classroom.
-
Teachers need to spend more time modeling, allowing students to see where we get stuck and frustrated in the research process, and demonstrating how we cope with that. -
This helps build perseverance as well...a quality sadly lacking in many humans today
-
Working in a group situation especially seems to bring out frustration. Clashing ideas can often bring about great end results. Student have to learn to give and take in order to work together.
-
-
Reviewing the Process is a critical element for helping students to understand research as a learning process and to develop their metacognitive abilities, for both 'thinking about thinking' and for 'thinking about feeling.'
-
Reviewing is the most important step in any research model (i.e. step 6 in the Big6 Model). -
This is the reflective process, a great way to assess student learning and teacher progress. It also provides valuable feedback to the teacher for the next time the topic or process is taught.
-
I agree. The review of the process each time the class meets is quite valuable to keep everyone focused and on course.
-
-
-
When teachers pose questions about thinking and feeling and allow students to reflect upon their learning progress, students' personal growth is enhanced. Students' motivation to learn is also enhanced when such activities honour diverse learning styles and perspectives. Teachers should use a model of the research process on a consistent basis and explicitly call the students' attention to the model and to the particular stage at which they are working. Other useful strategies for reviewing the process include class discussions, journal writing, and making timelines as well as ongoing and retropective analyses of the data generated through such activities.
-
I believe that using a consistent model is important and should be contunually reenforced.
-
Vidki Crawford I fear that the use of technology to interact so much may be leading to a separation of feeling and empathy for others which makes this even more important to call student's attention to their feelings
-
-
-
More time is needed in early stages of the process for exploration, for building content knowledge, for developing a personal interpretation or focus. This is not a waste of time but time well-invested in developing students' interest in and commitment to the topic being researched.
-
-
A shift in the way we present information and ask students to report on it.
-
More time for thinking, but that doesn't mean we can't keep doing other things and letting the brainstorm/development process continue around other activities.
-
-
Teachers found that students taught using a research process approach, where the investigative work was integrated with the curriculum, found the students became "more creative, more positive, more independent" (Kühne, 1995, p.25). This was true for poorer students as well as for the stronger students, although the poorer students needed more individual attention during the process. Todd (1995) suggests that teachers and librarians think about their work with students as a conversation, an active interchange through which meaning is constructed. This interchange is discursive, adaptive, interactive and reflective. Students are encouraged to talk about their knowledge and teachers and librarians enter into this conversation with suggestions on how the student can move forward, see things from new perspective, make connections between previous and new knowledge, and see the patterns of their learning.
-
-
Teachers should be looking for topics that students will find personally compelling and that students can connect to the out-of-school world (Tallman, 1998).
-
I believe that this is the most important aspect to any question that requires research.
-
Make it fun and interesting, get them excited to learn the research process
-
-
-
-
a realistic understanding of the information system and of the information problem.
-
realistic understanding of the information system and of the information problem.
-
This is the key element. I need to craft my instruction so these pieces are clear to students
-
-
Young students, in primary school, for example, are less likely to have developed these metacognitive and emotional abilities but they can be helped to do so,
-
This is incredibly important as we prepare our young students for secondary and beyond. They need a start in metacognition and reflections. These can be very simplified, but must be a part of the process to help them truly understand how to learn and grow.
-
I like the part.."within the limits of their intellectual and emotional maturation". This varies greatly in the young students I work with.
-
-
-
This calls us to mold our entire course around a set of research topics. For example, as students are learning specific skills, they are reading articles that demonstrate the use of these skills or questions to be solved by these skills. It is something I have been considering for quite some time. How do we mesh the 2 in the time we have?
-
I love the thought of spending the majority of instructional time on inquiry based learning.
-
The research topics would revolve around the essential questions that you are asking. At the high school level, unit resources and skill development are selected and woven into the lesson the same way skill development is currently woven into teaching a specific novel or period of time.
-
Making them care about not just "out-of-school" but out of their bubble topics is key.
-
-
organizing the materials by format or media,
-
I direct students (primary) to a small number of websites and texts. I feel that this allows them to research in a more effective manner. To give them the world wide web and entire library is overwhelming and unrealistic, especially with the time constraints we generally have.
-
-
I definately began doing this more as I understood my students' limitations to this point.
-
-
students who do not have a clear understanding of their topic (a topic focus) cannot select pertinent information.
-
-
This spring I jumped into researching current events that illustrated our essential question and paralleled the theme of our novel. It became apparent very quickly which students didn't grasp the topic or the purpose of investigation. I should have scaffolded this project by letting students have a choice of choosing a more confined research project where I gave them specific examples to choose from with limited websites rather than letting them find their own examples. Too much, too fast, too many assumptions about student understanding - a classic case of not considering how to best support students with varying degrees of ability.
-
Thanks for your honesty here. I suspect many of us could say the same thing!
-
I agree with Scottie and Julie...and will be revising my project for this class to reflect this new understanding. -
Vicki Crawford This is the tough and exhausting part. Some kids in 6th grade have no clue how to focus on a topic and the teacher has to work one on one with almost every child to find appropriate topics.
-
-
a pathfinder approach, through the 1980s;
-
A pathfinder approach, much like a webquest, provides a controlled environment, but it tends to keep students dependent on the teacher. Even if students are given enough sites that they can choose among, they tend to choose the first in the list or read just the minimum. The Big6 approach definately teaches students how to begin themselves by asking the right kind of questions.
-
-
-
High school students can develop and support a thesis statement if they have had good research experience in earlier years.
-
Learning to develop the research question is the critical piece to research. Time needs to be taken to help students form possible questions and practice forming questions could be worked into many topics covered in class whether or not research is the ultimate goal. These questions would also improve engagement and understanding. Questions that remain after a unit of study may be the research questions that can be pursued.
-
Earlier years ... thanks to all those elementary and middle school teachers who are working with these ideas and building a solid foundation for later years!
-
-
The problem solving emphasis of the process approach means a shift in the way we think about and use time.
-
This also shifts the breadth of topics covered in a class. It requires depth not breadth. This is exactly the opposite of what is currently expected in schools.
-
"The only way to cover the entire curriculum is with a blanket." I appreciate leadership that encourages teachers go to deeper, not broader.
-
-
-
-
-
best and probably hardest part of most projects... but necessary to improve -
I think that all teachers struggle with that. It is hard sometimes and some students don't fall into it.
-
I usually have students grade themselves on the project using the same rubric I will use to grade them and add 1-2 reflection questions for them to answer that encourages them to discuss what went well and what they need to improve upon for the next project.
-
I usually have my students grade themselves also. I like the adding the reflection questions at the end, too.
-
-
clearly defined needs or questions,
-
Older students as well need to be helped to understand their feelings as well as their thinking as they work through the research process. McGregor (1994) found that even bright high school seniors need assistance in learning to think about their thinking,
-
This ties in with what we know from brain research regarding the frontal lobes' development (not mature until around 25 years), thus making emotions all the more complex for even seniors or young collegians/graduate students.
-
I agree that students need huge amounts of awareness tasks to learn how to think about their thinking. Even the brightest ones!
-
-
Teachers who have worked collaboratively with librarians were impressed by the creative and imaginative learning experiences that resulted from cooperative planning with teacher-librarians and thought teacher-librarians needed to be more assertive in inviting teachers to engage in cooperative planning (Sweeney, 1994).
-
I am so thankful for our librarian, Susan Waldrop. She regularly invites us to collaborate with her on research projects and is great at giving students pep talks about methods, expectations, legalities, etc. She's awesome!
-
Interesting, as next year our ETIL program will be gone and we will have more project time in order to collaborate with teachers on their special projects, so I will keep article in mind. -
-
as an IB school - our librarian (media specialist) has written a brochure to be used school wide to help with the reserch process -hooray!!
-
I find this interesting as a librarian. Next year we will not have second specials rotation so I'm not sure how I will be utilized. I may refer to this article as asuggestion!
-
-
understanding that students vary in the level of abstraction that they can handle
-
Absolutely! My ESL students vary from beginners to advanced and from little education to strong education before coming to the United States.
-
It's not just ESL students either. AP students and "regular" English students also vary in their abilities, so we need to be thoughtful.
-
I have discovery students intrmingled with special ed students - this most definitley the need differentiation even within projects
-
-
-
graduate students may be unaware that feelings of confusion and frustration are a natural part of the research process .
-
Younger students should be told this, too! It may help them to develop intellectual perseverence.
-
How about the teacher? Aren't we supposed to know all the answers? Being frustrated, and sharing that frustration with our kids, can help them appreciate the process better.
-
I think that it is important to teach students that even teachers can experience trouble finding the information they want. Then explaining to them that sometimes that frustration is simply part of the process of learning and researching.
-
Very helpful point, it seems, for all age students AND teachers. Figuring out how to use that frustration to get a positive outcome is key.
-
-
-
format should be provided for inexperienced researchers
-
I agree! We get into trouble when we assume competencies without evidence for them.
-
Ya know - it does not matter how many times you teach this - the next time it is like their brains have been completely washed out - hmmmm maybe its the hormones in middle school . . . just a thought
-
-
Having students talk before writing also can help them express their ideas in their own words.
-
-
Great for my seventh graders and they had to create timelines for how their disease of choice progressed over time. Those that really talked it over had much success. Those that just wrote the timeline without discussing what they believed to be the progression of the disease had sketchy ones or ones that didn't make sense.
-
-
-
They were immersed in their topic, in ways that engaged both the affective and cognitive domains. Their interest and commitment to finding out about insects was deep enough to sustain them when they faced the challenges of finding answers to the questions that they had generated. Garland (1995) found that older students were more interested on their research topics if they had solid background knowledge in the topic area and could see the purpose of the research and its connection to their other school work
-
-
downsized,
-
now in the 1990s
-
-
here is also opportunity for the students to consider the role of the audience members in enhancing the sharing experience
-
Consideration of an audience beyond the teacher is important to helping them see the relevance of their work.
-
-
engagement in critical and creative thinking
-
-
absolutely! this is so important to me as a teacher and to our district as well--glad we're on the same page!
-
-
-
So the challenge remains...how do I get my students to "buy in" to Spanish so that it is meaningful and relevant to them?
-
-
problem-solving perspective.
-
-
Metacognition encompasses all the thinking that we do to evaluate our own mental processes and to plan for appropriate use of these processes to meet the demands of the situation. Metacognitive knowledge includes knowledge of person, task, and strategy, that is, knowledge of one's capacity to learn, about the nature of what is to be learned, and about actions that one can take to aid one's thinking (Flavell, 1979). Work on helping students to develop their abilities to think about, evaluate and monitor their feelings began much later, in the the 1970s.
-
Vicki Crawford Asking our students to understand their thinking is very difficult but essential in helping them to become critical thinkers.
-
-
Some of the worst abuses of research as a learning experience grow out of an emphasis on creating the product; with the focus on the final product, students may simply become more skillful in plagiarizing (McGregor, 1995).
-
-
Focus on Research: A Process Approach
-
This 5 step process is remarkably similar to the Big 6 Approach we are learning.
-
-
-
-
-
Young or inexperienced researchers are more able to handle general knowledge topics where the emphasis is on fact-finding and organization of ideas.
-
That's my kiddos in 5th grade. However, I think they can form judgements and create a new product with their newfound knowledge.
-
-
The process model is theory-based and grounded in research from the fields of education and of library and information studies (LIS). From education, comes learning theory and from LIS, information seeking behavior theory. For example, from ed
-
Based on that policy, a program delivery model was developed called Focus on Learning
-
There
-
Junior high or middle school students are just beginning to be able to handle the abstract reasoning involved in focussing or narrowing a topic or for developing a position paper (Loerke, 1994)
-
-
Even teachers and librarians who are aware of the process models sometimes believe they are implementing their model but actually are leaving out the aspects that in fact are critical to the success of the model. For example, Holland (1994) found that teachers' implementation of the Focus on Research model was hampered by their limited understanding of the model, particularly in relation to the critical importance of Reviewing the Process. A statement in the Focus on Research document suggesting that a research activity need not include all stages and skills seemed to have been taken to mean that important aspects of the model such as involving students in Planning and in Reviewing the Process could be omitted entirely. Tastad and Collins (1997) also found that implementing process approaches is difficult in schools where the teaching practices and curriculum do not support a process or constructivist approach
-
teachers should help students to identify useful strategies such as omission or filtering (ignoring or selecting certain categories of information), generalizing or twigging (broadening or narrowing the topic), or asking for help.
-
In the Evaluation stage, the emphasis is on involving the students in the assessment of the process as well as the product of the research.
-
Having middle grade students write a letter to their parents can be very effective way of having students identify and assess their own learning.
-
And - use this at parent-teacher conferences - we have student led conferences so this is perfect idea!!
-
-
prior knowledge and experience
-
The ministry of education has been
-
The ability to perceive, access, and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth. (Slavoney & Sluyter, 1997)
-
very best of our knowledge and skills as teachers
-
one that demands the
-
some of which push learners to "get to work" too early and prevent them from developing a personal perspective and motivation for learning through investigation
-
- ...10 more comments...
-
-
-
Great ideas on spending more time on the planning process and building knowledge about the topic. This can only help improve students' engagement with the project and their ability to conduct research. -
-
-
When students are engaged in researching a topic I have experienced many of them getting frustrated at the large amount of content they need to sort through and read to find the information that they need. Often times I redirect them to a web-site that is more kid friendly, or I help them paraphrase and sort through the information they have.
-
-
-
-
developing background knowledge and taking time for kids to get engaged
-
-
