I always love the collaborative nature of my job. Working across content areas provides a dynamic in learning that celebrates individual contributions by the team that makes the whole greater than its parts. I also enjoy bringing in partners outside of the educational circle to widen the opportunities of my students. In this case the ELL teacher and I tapped into a professional storyteller. This project spanned an entire year and we integrated the use of SKYPE, digital storytelling, iMovie, Videocasting, Google Sites, and many other technology integration. What made this project work was NOT the technology though, it was the use of the tools for the goals we were working toward. Part of those goals was the spoken word and building bravery, and courage, and expression, and having fun with the spoken word. Take a look at the article just published in NJTESOL Voices Magazine. Full story at: http://voices.njtesol-njbe.org/features-sp2018/storytelling-sp18/
Check out the Guest Blogging I contributed to on 52 Weeks on Guided Inquiry Blog Site.
https://52guidedinquiry.edublogs.org/?s=ladawna&submit=Search This is the first in three part series about Millburn Township’s school libraries and librarians. You can read the full article at:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/librarian-juggles-print-digital-offerings-1.1273992?page=all I ran across this article this morning and it got me thinking about some of the strategies I use in teaching research through a guided inquiry approach using my ANTHILL model. Using Inquiry Journals (Learn Direction by Reflection) during a Research Project I move students into the realm of decision making about the content, by guiding them to think about their own learning and to reflect on the strategies they need to get at the content they want to learn. These journals ask students to reflect on their process for getting at the content and allow teachers to see their struggles in gaining knowledge and then to be able to create zones of intervention. According to John Dunlosky, in the Fall 2013 issue of American Educator we cannot just focus on content we need to give students strategies on how to acquire it. This article provides insight about strategies to boost student learning. The article identifies a number of strategies for students to process through learning new knowledge. But one in particular really stuck out for me and that is elaborative interrogation and self-explanation. This is a process by which a student considers new information as it relates to what s/he already knows through self-questioning. In my research model I ask the students to begin there. (A=analyze…I actually use the letters SIK (stuff I know) and tell students that we become sik if we don’t learn how to learn about new things. I ask them to think about what they already know about their topic, and to look for clues in the topic statement that might trigger some good “guesstimates” about where they might start looking for information on their topic. As an example a topic might be: What happened to cause the crew to mysteriously disappear from the Mary Celeste? Students are asked to identify keywords in that question that result in crew, disappear, Mary Celeste. Next they need to ask themselves questions like, “Is Mary Celeste a person or a thing?” “What helped me decide that she must be some kind of ship or plane?” “What is it that has happened that I need to find out about?” This begins to give students the strategies to build knowledge, followed up by asking students to WONDER about their topic. What do they want to find out, not what is superimposed on them by the teacher. These questions become their guiding questions. As they go through the research process they refer back to these questions over and over again. As they discover new information they may decide that their questions need to change or that they have new questions to ask. Students are not only actively processing the content they are focusing on, but they are also engaging in their building blocks of how they acquire new knowledge. This is integrated with their “SIK” (stuff I know), which leads to SINK (Stuff I Need to Know). One highly effective method of learning identified in this article is distributed practice. An example given in the article is, “For instance, when preparing for a dance recital, most would-be dancers will practice the routine nightly until they have it down; they will not just do all the practice the night before the recital, because everyone knows that this kind of practice will likely not be successful.” (Dunlosky, p. 15) In other words extending the learning in smaller chunks over more time. This method is quite effective in a guided research unit as they get to the H (hunt) phase of the research model. Focused attention is given to the resource materials, reading, digesting, questioning each source separately, while infusing mini-lessons as new resources are introduced: search strategies, web-evaluation, citation and plagiarism. By breaking down the research into chunks students are approaching the content with distributed practice, but not only that, they are approaching how to build new strategies for gaining new knowledge (learning how to learn) through distributed practice. Presented with Dr. Ross Todd CISSL's latest research: Collaboration in Digital Information Environments. Research was conducted at my school with two 9th grade English Language Arts classes. Check out the presentation slides at the NJASL live binder under 9-12 tab. I give my students the SLIM (School Library Impact Measure--CISSL) survey before they begin their project. Almost unanimously students indicate interest and optimism in going to the library to do a research project. It's almost like comments you would get from a little kid going to grandma's house. "It's exciting" "different" "better than being in the classroom everyday" "I like that I get to go the library instead of my regular classroom. It's fun to change things up.." You can see that there is a sense of anticipation and that expectations are that everything will be ok. But what happens at the end of the first day of a unit project? How are the students feeling then? I use nightly journals that force students to reflect on their research process. Without this time to reflect students will plod through and probably get what the project is requiring them to get in terms of content, but how did they get to that content? That is just as much a part of the learning that is typically glossed over, not thought about, by students or teachers. When time is taken for this reflection students begin to build strategies that will provide building blocks for thinking about information needs and how to wade through their information choices.This helps me to track students' understanding or gaps in understanding as they go through their research project. To share with you some journal reflections at the end of day one...."I am honestly overwhelmed with the whole process". The story has certainly changed from the positive feelings that were expressed in the SLIM survey. What I have discovered is that students want to explore, they want to find things on their own but they also need structure to help them figure out how to even begin. Many do not know what they don't know. They flounder trying to put together what they think they know without the underpinning of how to ask the question for the ideas they think they have. I don't know about you but that sounds pretty perplexing to me. Using my research model ANTHILL, that is based on Guided Inquiry and Dr. Carol C. Kuhlthau's Information Search Process, I am able to structure the process while allowing independent inquiry and exploration. Here is the Research Model I have been using for over 13 years and was published in my book Guided Research in Middle School: Mystery in the Media Center. Linworth, Pub. I have adapted this model for upper elementary school, modified it for special education students, and am now using it for accelerated students in high school. 7 STEPS TO THE RESEARCH MODEL: 1. A Begin with Analysis. What is your problem? What is your general interest at this point? What do you already know about the topic that is sparking your interest? Write these thoughts down. You may want to do a quick background search to give you some things to think about. 2. N Before you search for in depth information it is important to put together a plan of attack. What key words do you think will help you? What are the broad and narrow categories? Are there synonyms that might help you? Make a List. (I call this Nothing is Something because you might need to think of what you want to get out from many different ways to attack, different words, different perspectives) 3. T Think of all your possibilities. What are some things you are wondering about your topic? Write a list of at least 5 thoughtful “I Wonder” statements. You will return to this list over and over in your pursuit of information and this list will help guide your focus. This list may expand over time as you discover new questions. 4. H Gathering your information. You will be HUNTing for a lot of answers as you process through. You will need to record your citations. You will be required to collect ______number of citations that must include _____Database or Book Citations, ________Internet sources, and the remainder may be your choice. 5. I Isolate/Interpret. You will be required to take notes on the material you are collecting and make interpretations of this information and identify if this material is addressing your “I Wonder” statements. STEPS 3, 4, 5 will cycle for every source that you are collecting. 6. L Learn Direction by Reflection. You will be required to respond to a research journal using google docs. during the duration of this project. You will receive a prompt that you will need to respond to by 8:00 pm on the same day that you receive the prompt. 7. L How will you present your learning? Link it all together! I have been working with a Language Arts teacher and her group of 9th grade students to discover how students use collaborative inquiry in digital environments. I used Google Docs as the digital environment for the students to work in. I created a template based on my research model: ANTHILL. My instructional framework for the project is Guided Inquiry, which has 2 main principles; the Information Search Process (ISP) that provides us with predictable patterns of feelings, thoughts and actions as identified by Dr. Carol C. Kuhlthau, and 3rd space where student interest meets core content, where the teacher/librarian has great opportunities for "zones of intervention". To create these nearly real time zones of intervention I used a google doc for nightly inquiry journals where students could respond to a prompt I posted regarding their information search process (not about topic but about process) i.e. what search strategies did you use today that worked for you? or what caused you anxiety today? etc. One student made the analogy that doing research is like looking at her messy bedroom. Research certainly is messy. Finding answers is messy, but without questions there are no answers. So this is where we begin, at a busy intersection with no road signs to help navigate to the other side, we start in a messy bedroom and wonder where to start. My dilemma is how do I create an environment for collaborative inquiry when my students are starting with individual chaos? Who will decide what to keep and what to throw away? Who will make it aesthetically pretty and who will make it functional? What I think I am discovering in this particular design of the digital collaboration can be likened to photographs in newspapers. These photographs consist of an array of dots that are either black or white. From afar, the viewer does not see the dots, only the lines and shading, which appear to be continuous. What we know is, that in general, humans experience the world analogically. Digital is basically combining many bits in complex ways to simulate analog events. I kinda like this idea when I begin to think about collaborative inquiry, because I am seeing individuals coming together to combine their knowledge (that consists of discrete units) in complex ways. I am beginning to see the units working together to present that final picture. Collaborative Inquiry rests on the principle that experiences of individual members become the content for group action and reflection. In other words individual learning both informs and is informed by group learning.
I was honored to present my research on how students develop collaborative inquiry skills in digital environments. Held in New Brunswick, NJ we had participants from around the globe; Croatia, Germany, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, as well as many teams from around the United States, including Wisconsin, Delaware, Virginia, Texas, Washington state, Colorado, Hawaii, etc. Distinguished professors including Dr. Ross Todd, Dr. Carol C. Kulthau, Dr. Leslie K. Maniotes pulled the day together to discuss educational change using a guided inquiry approach. Guided Inquiry has 2 main principals; the information search process (ISP) that provides us with predicatble patterns of feelings, thoughts and actions as identified by Dr. Carol Kuhlthau, and 3rd space where student interest meets core content. It is in this 3rd space that we have opportunities for zones of intervention. I will talk more about my thoughts on inquiry skills in digital environments in a separate Presented to the MHS PTO.
What compass can we provide our students as they navigate through a digital world that makes it all too easy to copy, paste, and pass off information as their own? You know when I was a kid and wanted to go on a trip I had to pull out the road atlas, now students have one device that provides everything and yet I see my students finding it very difficult to find their way through the intersection of content and question! in fact most students just go dumpster diving and hope they will find the question while trying to discover the answer. Sounds crazy right? Not so. Finding a topic is problematic...staying focused long enough to narrow the topic in a digital environment creates an intersection with no stoplights, no direction, and a feeling of panic just to complete something satisfactory to turn in...so? why not Gps it? (gather, plagiarize, "so what") Just as we need structure to get through a busy intersection, so too do we need structure for developing our questions, seeking our answers and arriving safely with a product we can be proud of to call our own! and our world needs those who will take a risk, be creative, be original, and have a thogut all thier own! Article: Braving the Unknown...Digital PLCs for Exploring Background Knowledge in Difficult Texts1/20/2012 Has been submitted to SLW (School Librarians' Workshop)....look for it in the spring issue.
As I think back to the process of pulling our ideas together to write the article I found I kept returning to the idea of how we model a good collaborative inquiry environment for our students...here are some of my thoughts: It is important to create an environment where your students feel safe to ask questions. The library is a place where people come to ask questions and to seek answers so we are already bringing students into an inquiry environment when we decide to collaborate with the librarian. As instructors it is important to model our own questioning and as we work in collaborative spaces (whether it be digital or physical) we can build confidence in our students to be comfortable to ask questions. On a note of personal honesty, can we show our students where we struggle with our own lack of understanding and can we be open enough to share that we might not know the answer? Are we using these opportunities as teachable moments? I think we need to take a look at our teaching practices and examine how we use our time. Do we provide environments that provide opportunities for all our students to have a voice for asking and responding to questions? The teaching of difficult texts may provide just the opportunity to build a personal learning community (PLC) for yourself and your students. Michelle Blakely, an English teacher that I work with in my high school, who is quite honest in her self evaluation, knew she was finding Persepolis a little daunting to teach, for a variety of reasons, some being historic, cultural etc. She knew that if she had questions as she was reading and trying to teach the novel, her students would probably be at an even higher level of frustration, and wonderment. Using her questions about the text as a model for developing strategies for asking and responding to questions she decided to set up a google doc to create a collaborative inquiry environment. She felt that if she began a PLC with me we could provide questioning/answer structures that would model, and that might lead to collaborative inquiry dispositions for her students. Simple. Set up a google doc ...we explain the categories and strategies in the article. It has been a wonderful learning experience for me as I model the use of good sources to answer Michelle's questions. |
Author"I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." ~Winston Churchill Archives
May 2018
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